The poem presents the legendary Greek figure Orpheus as giving a poetic speech to his son, Musaeus, identified as the biblical Moses, passing on to him hidden wisdom he learned in Egypt.
[7][8] Clement provides "numerous short quotations" from Pseudo-Orpheus, with one (abbreviated C2) matching the edition of Eusebius, and the rest (collectively known as C1) mostly–but not exclusively–in agreement with the version of the poem known as J (see below).
[9][10] Eusebius claims to have taken the poem from the writings of Aristobulus of Alexandria, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in the 2nd century BC.
A shorter recension appears in the works of an author referred to as Pseudo-Justin[1] (approximately[1] or at some unknown point before[11] 300 AD) who is so called because his original name is not known, although he was for a time confused with the 2nd-century writer Justin Martyr.
The translation is by G. Reith, as found in volume I of The Anti-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson in 1885.