The Felix manuscript (Fitzwilliam 3776A:42) is written in three languages; pre-Exilic Robur, Echmen and Old Shasu. Most of the dialogue in the first half of the book is in Echmen. The characters used are pre-reform, with a few very ancient archaic types. The first two-thirds of the narrative are mostly in Robur, though one or two of the monologues and digressions are in Echmen. The last third, both narrative and dialogue, is in Shasu.
Over the years, many theories have been proposed to account for this, ranging from Momigliano’s unitary interpretation (the book is the work of one author using different languages) to Becker and Chan’s multiple authorship theory, which sees Fitzw 3776A:42 as a compilation of three sources redacted some five hundred years after the events described, probably as a literary hoax.
Regarding its value as a historical text, opinions differ. Very few scholars nowadays are prepared to take it at face value, either alone or as part of the so-called alternative history of the period between the fall of the First Robur Empire and the foundation of Carlomanople and the rise of the Second Empire. As historians, we have long since ceased to view history as a catalogue of the deeds of great men. We look for the underlying social and economic factors that truly shape the sequence of events. Narratives such as those attributed to Orhan, Notker and Felix must, therefore, be inherently suspect, and current opinion prefers to see these strange and discordant works as either the apologist self-justifications of the current elite projected backwards in time or mere fictions, designed only to amuse. The facts, after all, are readily available from reliable sources. A coalition of western nations came together to overthrow the Robur empire; Lysimachus, presumably a military officer of some sort, evacuated the City; and Carloman, a distant relation of the old ruling family, founded Carlomanople shortly afterwards. After a shaky start the new colony prospered, the Second Empire was formed and embarked on three hundred years of disastrous war with the Sashan−Echmen alliance, mainly on religious grounds, but with strong underlying economic factors playing their part.
If, as de Weese so ingeniously proposes, the Felix manuscript is a Second Empire forgery intended to discredit the Sashan−Echmen religious establishment, it has to be said that it is a pretty poor one. We would assume that someone setting out to create such a forgery could easily have made a better job of it. In the absence of any more convincing hypothesis, we really have no other option but to let the Felix author speak for himself, in the hope that what he says may be of some small interest.