Error being generated by saef form Functions.php line 27

Hello, I am using this code to pull up a category list in safecracker form. It works in one of my ee sites, but won’t in another.

<select name="category[]" id="categories" size="10" multiple="multiple">
    {categories group_id="2"}
        <option value="{category_id}"{selected}>{category_name}</option>
    {/categories}
</select>

I get the following error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘=’ in /www/eh16605/public_html/system/expressionengine/libraries/Functions.php(656) : eval()’d code on line 27

Here’s that line in the Functions.php file.

var $seed = FALSE; // Whether we've seeded our rand() function.  We only seed once per script execution

The only structural difference between the working site and the one that doesn’t work is the one that doesn’t work uses subcategories.

Any idea why it is generating the error? Thanks!

EE 2.2.2 in the non working site, version 2.1.3 in the working site.