Our extant text of the Manual (Enchiridion) which epitomized the teachings of the slave and Stoic philosopher Epictetus is embedded in the commentary of Simplicius, the last pagan expositor of Aristotle. It was known to many Christians in the form of a midrashic amplification, which is commonly styled the Paraphrase because this inaccurate sobriquet was given to the earliest printed version. The Paraphrase in turn became the subject of a commentary, and the seed would have swollen to a mighty gourd but for the abortion or mutilation of this project. Fragments survive in manuscripts of unequal length, the fullest of which does not encompass more than the first ten chapters of the Paraphrase. Enough survives, however, to illustrate the author's mastery of the elegant diction and desultory learning that commanded the applause of cultured Byzantines between late antiquity and the Middle Ages. It is also clear that his aim was not so much to baptize a Stoic handbook as to show, by the knitting of philosophical aphorisms with biblical exempla, that revealed morality coincides with the natural ends of life. Paul, his chief authority next to Jesus, is no longer the apostle who ‘conferred not with flesh and blood’, but a dexterous artisan of teachings which conduce to happiness in the present world. The prophetic call to repent and believe the gospel is superseded by a Platonic undertaking to turn the eye of the soul; rather than bid us love God and our neighbour, the commentator admonishes us that ‘love of man is conjoined to love of God’ (p. 236). He assumes with approbation that a number of his readers will profess the monastic life, and reckons Moses, Noah, and Lot among their precursors; at the same time, he is enough of a scholar in classical philosophy to consult the original prose of Epictetus where it differs from the Paraphrase. The commentary is, in short, the lucubration of a humanist, to be read with pleasure rather than suspense, and for delectation rather than profit. It is supplemented in the present volume by a deft translation, copious notes, and a preface that is almost as long as the Commentary. The textual apparatus is full, and parallels from classical philosophy are diligently recorded in the footnotes; if any supplement were to be asked for, it might be an index of editorial citations from both pagan and biblical texts.