Of this Musanus, we know only what Eusebius tells us here, for Jerome (de vir. ill. 31) and Theodoret (Haer. Fab. I. 21) simply repeat the account of Eusebius. It is clear from Eusebius' language, that he had not himself seen this work of Musanus; he had simply heard of it. Here, and in chap. 21, Eusebius assigns the activity of Musanus to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, making him a contemporary of Melito, Apolinarius, Irenaeus, &c. But in the Chron. he is put much later. The Armenian version, under the year of Abr. 2220 (the eleventh year of Septimius), has the entry Musanus noster scriptor cognoscebatur. Jerome, under the same year (2220 of Abr., but twelfth year of Severus) has Musanus nostrae filosofiae scriptor agnoscitur; while Syncellus, under the year of Abr. 2231 (fourth year of Caracalla) has Mousianos ekklesiastikos sungrapheus egnorizeto. All of them, therefore, speak of Musanus (or Musianus) as a writer, but do not specify any of his works. The dates in the Chron. (whichever be taken as original) and in the History are not mutually exclusive; at the same time it is clear that Eusebius was not working upon the same information in the two cases. We have no means of testing the correctness of either statement. ↩

On Tatian and the Encratites, see the next chapter. ↩