there is internal evidence of this being the case with the two first. It is remarkable that they appear at the end of the 'Epistola de Baptismo,' of Jesse, Bishop of Amiens, and as part of it, in the printed editions of that work, though it is impossible to suppose that they belonged to it originally, as they have no connection with its subject matter, viz., the ceremonies used at Baptism. No account is given of the circumstance by the first editor, Cordesius, whose edition appeared in 1615; but Galland, in his edition in the 'Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum,' which was issued towards the end of the last century, added a note respecting them: "Fortasse hæc ad alium. auctorem pertineant, qui ante synodum V. vixit.” And this is reproduced in Migne's edition, which apparently is a mere reprint of Galland's. The latter, no doubt, observed the entire want of connection between these two pieces and the treatise, or epistle, to which they are attached; and his conjecture concerning the date of their composition must have been based on the notice of the first four Councils contained in the first of the two. A similar document, drawn up after the Sixth Council, for instance, would probably have given an account of all six-such as we have in the Paris MSS. 3848 B and 2123. Whether the two belonged to one and the same work originally must be a matter of uncertainty. It is clear that the second was drawn from a larger work

-apparently a course of sermons, or addresses, by a bishop, enjoining the use of the Athanasian and Apostles' Creeds. "Fidem etiam," it says, "Sancti

Athanasii episcopi in hoc opere censuimus observandam et symbolum apostolorum cum traditionibus et expositionibus sanctorum patrum in his sermonibus adnotatis." And this work could not have been Jesse's Epistle on Baptism, which contains no reference to the Athanasian Creed; though possibly it may have been written by him, for he was bishop as early as A.D. 799, and did not die till A.D. 836; but nothing can be affirmed with certainty on the point. It may have been earlier than his time. All we know is that the work has perished; and the fact is very suggestive, as showing the inconclusive nature of the arguments which have been largely and confidently employed of late years to disprove the antiquity of the Athanasian Creed, grounded upon the paucity of early MSS. containing it, and of early notices of it, now in existence. The phenomenon is most easily accounted for. The great bulk of the literature of the centuries immediately preceding the ninth has perished, and with it, doubtless, numberless copies of the Creed, and numberless works referring to it. Here is an instance. It may be added that in the editions of Jesse's Epistle, after the two pieces, or capitula, alluded to, there follows immediately a series of nine other capitula relating to the clergy, which are also clearly devoid of any connection with that epistle. Possibly, the first editor printed them as part of it, merely because he found them in the same. MS.-for no better reason.

The Doctrina ecclesiastica,' or Gennadius's 'Liber de Dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis,' as it appears in this

MS., contains a passage which serves to show the relevancy and cogency of Dr. Heurtley's argument in support of the antiquity of Fortunatus's Commentary. It will be remembered that, in a very able pamphlet written a few years since, that scholar argued, from the language employed by the commentator in expounding the words, "in sæculo," of the Athanasian Creed, viz., "Id est, in isto sexto milliario, in quo nunc sumus," that he must have written before, and some time before, the conclusion of the eighth century, which was nearly coincident with the conclusion of the sixth milliary of years from the Creation according to the chronology of Eusebius-the chronology generally followed in the West. The exposition of doctrine commonly attributed to Gennadius is given in this manuscript, written, as already stated, early in the tenth century, in an extended form, containing fifty-eight chapters, or sections-three more than it contains as printed in the appendix to St. Augustine. For it varies in length in different MSS. in the Paris MSS. of the ninth century, 3848 B and 2123, it has but fifty-one chapters; in another of the same century, Paris, 10,612, it has fifty-three; whereas in another of the tenth, Paris, 2341, it has the same number as in this British Museum MS. In the British Museum MS. and the last-named Paris MS., the fifty-eighth chapter, which relates to the periods of the year at which the great events in the history of our Blessed Lord took place, contains these words: "Post resurrectionem fuit cum discipulis suis diebus XL. et sic ascendit in cœlis, quem expletis VI. milibus annorum, qui jam

complentur, venturum judicem expectamus;" and with these words the document concludes in the former, but not the latter, MS. The conclusion of the sixth milliary, or sixth period of a thousand years from the creation of Adam, was a marked epoch, owing to the opinion entertained by some among the early Christians, and alluded to by St. Augustine,1 that the world would only last six thousand years, and at their expiration the millennial reign of Christ upon earth, with the risen saints, would commence. And it is noticeable that a person writing not long after the termination of the eighth century of the Christian era, like the author of these last chapters in the 'Liber de Dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis,' spoke of these six thousand years as already completed, grounding his expectation of Christ's coming upon the fact; whereas St. Augustine, at the commencement of the fifth century, speaks of that period as not yet completed, and he says that they had then reached the latter part of the sixth milliary. Hence the significance of the expression, "In isto sexto milliario, in quo nunc sumus," as indicative of date. It is just what would drop from a person writing at the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century. In the eighth century he would scarcely have omitted. all allusion to the near approach of so remarkable an epoch as the expiration of the sixth milliary. 1 De Civ. Dei,' xx. 7, 1.

2

2 "Cum ab ipso primo homine, qui est appellatus Adam, nondum sex millia annorum compleantur."-Ibid. xviii. 40.

3 "Sexto annorum milliario, tanquam sexto die, cujus nunc spatia posteriora volvuntur."-Ibid. xx. 7, 2.

Dr. Swainson, in his excursus on the sixth millennium, intended as 1 an answer to Dr. Heurtley, appears to allege that, in the ninth century, the sixth milliary, or millenary, was not yet concluded, adducing, in proof of his position, the words of Rhabanus, who wrote in that century: "Sexta quæ nunc agitur ætas nullis generationibus vel temporum serie certa, sed ut ætas decrepita ipsa totius sæculi morte consummanda "-words which, by the way, are really borrowed, as well as much besides that Rhabanus says of the six ages, from Bede.2 I have already mentioned that in his remarks upon a notice of "the six ages" in the British Museum MS. Reg. 2 B. V., Dr. Swainson confuses the sixth age with the sixth milliary, or millenary. The same confusion is apparent here. I have also pointed out that Bede clearly distinguishes between the two; and the same may be said of St. Augustine. With the latter, as with the former, the sixth milliary is a definite period, otherwise he would not have said of it, "Cujus nunc spatia posteriora volvuntur," the sixth period of a thousand years from the Creation; whereas the sixth age (and the subject of the six ages is several times dwelt upon by him) is the period from our Lord's first coming in the flesh to the end of the world, and, therefore, an indefinite period; so that he says of it, "Sexta nunc agitur, nullo generationum numero metienda, propter id quod dictum

Nicene and Apostles' Creeds,' pp. 432-435. 2 RHABANI

'Liber de Computo,' lxv.; BALUZII Miscellanea,'

tom. ii. pp. 83, 84.