A post on Bluesky by Nathan Porter:
Now online, and coming soon to an airport near you, is the first English translation of the Pseudo-Athanasian work, De Incarnatione et contra Arianos. academia.edu/114648612/Ps… So begins my long-term project of translating key pieces of patristic pseudepigrapha into English.
Coming soon: Ps-Basil, Against Eunomius IV and V Ps-Athanasius, Dialogues on the Trinity Ps-Epiphanius, Homily on the Resurrection Anonymous, Life of Amphilochius.
On the Academia page he adds:
This is the first English translation of the Pseudo-Athanasian work De Incarnatione et contra Arianos (PG 26: 984-1028). Though it has received little scholarly attention, it is a work of considerable interest for its novel exegesis of biblical texts and unusual theological formulations. Some have attributed it to Marcellus of Ancyra, though probably erroneously.
The work is CPG 2806. The edition is that of Montfaucon. Interestingly there is a Latin version in Florence BML 584, of the 9-10th century; an Armenian version , and a Syriac version in the CSCO series!
I wish we knew more about the actual writers.
School exercise? Imitation is a pretty common way to learn how to write.
Just a different guy with the same name, possibly even from the same place?
Bad guesswork on pieces that have lost their attribution in most manuscripts, like all the Ps. Augustine that turned out to be St. Caesarius?
It really is puzzling sometimes. I mean, some of the pseudo stuff is crud, but a lot of it got copied because it was good.
So do I. All these things basically just appear in later manuscripts full of miscellaneous pieces, with no other info. Often the name of the first piece gets transferred to all those unnamed pieces following. If we can find that people quote them, then that gives us more info about their date etc, but ultimately these things are inscrutable.
But that is a very good point you make at the end. These don’t get copied because of their “famous author”. They get copied on merit. Which means, in principle, the pseudonymous material is actually often more worth copying?