There is a statement in the Pseudo-Athanasian Synopsis,[168] which seems, however, to refer only to the Old Testament portion, to the effect that it was discovered in a concealed cupboard (πυργίσκος) in the house of a Jew at Nicomedia in the time of Constantine. Long ago Hug and Eichhorn attributed the “Asiatic” or “Byzantine” recension to Lucian, and no decided objection can be established to the view of Hort, which Gregory also is inclined to accept (_TiGr._, p. 814).[169] [Sidenote: Hesychius.] (_b_) It is, on the other hand, somewhat difficult to make out how matters stand with regard to the recension of =Hesychius=. Jerome commends it with that of Lucian for the Old Testament, but contemptuously rejects it for the New; and accordingly, in the decree of Pope Gelasius, we hear of Gospels “quae falsavit Lucianus, apocrypha, evangelia quae falsavit Hesychius, apocrypha” (c. vi. 14, 15). Considering the important position of Alexandria and Egypt, and the vast number of manuscripts referred with more or less certainty to that locality, it is the more remarkable that so few unmistakable traces have as yet been discovered of the recension of which “Alexandria et Aegyptus ... Hesychium laudat auctorem,” and that till the present moment the most divergent views have been held with regard to it. And this is true of the Old Testament no less than of the New. One view, for which a good deal can be said, has already been referred to (p. 61 f.)—viz. that we have the recension of Hesychius in Codex B. [Sidenote: Codex B.] Rahlfs, who was the first to connect B with the Canon of Athanasius, says (_lib. cit._, p. 78, note 7); “If we care to trust ourselves to pure hypothesis, we might hazard the conjecture that our superb Codex, manifestly written for one of the principal churches of Egypt, was prepared at the instigation of St. Athanasius himself. The locality in which the manuscript was produced supports this conjecture, while the time is not inconsistent with it.” I am not aware if Rahlfs knew that Athanasius had executed πυκτία τῶν θείων γραφῶν for Constans, and I am not sufficiently acquainted with the minutiæ of the ecclesiastical history of that time, and with the life of Athanasius in particular, to hazard the assertion that Codex B was prepared by Athanasius for the Emperor Constans. It is certainly the case, as every Church History records, that Constans was Prefect of Illyricum and Italy, and that Athanasius fled to Rome to Julius II., which would help to explain how Codex B comes to be in that city.[170] I cannot ascertain however from the books at my command, whether any particular resemblance has been observed between the text of this manuscript and the Biblical quotations found in those writings of Athanasius that belong to this period of his life, that is, prior to the year 350. And, besides, one has always to take into consideration how very little reliance can be placed as yet on