Its first appearance is in Barnes, who quotes it from Athenagoras "sine auctoris nomine." Carmeli includes it with others, to which he prefixes the observation,—
"A me piacque come al Barnesio di porle per disteso, ed a canto mettervi la traduzione in nostra favella, senza entrare tratto tratto in quistioni inutili, se alcuni versi appartengano a Tragedia di Euripide, o no."
There is, then, no positive evidence of this passage having ever been attributed, by any competent scholar, to Euripides. Indirect proof that it could not have been written by him is thus shown:—In the Antigone of Sophocles (v. 620.) the chorus sings, according to Brunck,—
"Σοφίᾳ γὰρ ἔκ του
κλεινὸν ἔπος πέφανται·
Τὸ κακὸν δοκεῖν ποτ' ἐσθλὸν
τῷδ' ἔμμεν, ὅτῳ φρένας
θεὸς ἄγει πρὸς ἄταν·
πράσσειν δ' ὀλιγοστὸν χρόνον ἐκτὸς ἄτας."
"For a splendid saying has been revealed by the wisdom of some one: That evil appears to be good to him whose mind God leads to destruction; but that he (God) practises this a short time without destroying such a one."