and the contractions. But this would have rendered the text unintelligible to persons who have no knowledge of ancient manuscripts; it would have been, in fact, impossible. It is almost needless to add that, upon this principle, I have carefully retained the peculiarities of phraseology and barbarisms, so clearly characteristic of the age in which the MSS. were written, if not of that in which the Commentaries were composed.

It is now necessary to consider what are the respective epochs when these Commentaries were composed. And this is a point of deep interest in reference to the antiquity of the Creed of St. Athanasius.

We have seen that, in regard to two of the Commentaries, the only manuscript copies extant belong to the tenth century; and in regard to the other two, the earliest copies are of the same age. As these MSS. in no case supply autograph, or original, copies of the Commentaries, it is obvious that the Commentaries must have been composed at a somewhat earlier, and may have been at a much earlier, period. To assume that these works are not older than the tenth century, because the earliest MSS. which we have of them are not older, would be absurd. No one in his senses would think of arguing that the poems of Virgil, or the books of the New Testament, could not have been written before the fourth century of the Christian era, because there are no copies of those works at present known to us which can be assigned to an earlier date. Owing to

the immense loss and destruction of ancient manuscripts which have occurred, the date of a particular manuscript is no evidence of the date of any work of which it gives a copy; it merely indicates the latest period at which that work might have been composed. The rare case of autographs or original copies is clearly exceptional.

The approximate determination of the dates of these works must rest upon internal evidence. Of their authorship nothing is known; nor do there appear to be any data for ascertaining it. Of course, it is without real grounds that Troyes, No. 1979, assigns the Bouhier Commentary to St. Augustine.

The date of the Paris Commentary may be most conveniently considered first, that exposition being entirely distinct from the other three. The only manuscript copy which is known of this work belonging to the beginning of the tenth century, and this copy being evidently a transcript from an earlier manuscript, we may conclude that the work was not composed later than the end of the preceding century. On the other hand, it could not have been composed before the seventh century, for it includes in its text a passage from the writings of Gregory the Great, who died A.D. 604. The quotation from the Liber de Dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis,' commonly ascribed to Gennadius, who flourished at the close of the fifth century, is no proof of a later date. For, whether or not that document is rightly so ascribed, there can be little doubt of its being older than the time of Gregory. In two Paris MSS. of the ninth century that I have

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seen, and in one of the tenth, it is attributed to the Nicene Council, and in another of the ninth century, to St. Augustine-a proof that at that period it was regarded not only as an authoritative document, but one of considerable antiquity. Thus the commencement of the seventh century and the conclusion of the ninth are the limits between which the date of the Paris Commentary may be placed. Nor are we able, I conceive, to arrive with any degree of probability at a closer approximate date; for, though the absence of any allusion to the Prædestinarian, or Adoptionist, or Monothelete controversies would seem to carry it up to the earliest period admissible, this kind of evidence can scarcely be applied with safety in regard to a document which is far from being a full or exact exposition of dogma and doctrine. The remarkable corruptions of the Latinity cannot be adduced in evidence upon the point, for this reason, if no other, that it is impossible to say how far they are attributable to the author of the work, and how far to the copyist of the manuscript.

We have fuller light to guide us to the dates of the Oratorian and Bouhier Commentaries, which may be considered simultaneously, in consequence of the close connection between the two documents. Of both it has been noticed that more than one MS. copy are known, and in each case the earliest MS. belongs to the tenth century; and as in neither case does the earliest extant MS. appear to have been the autograph, or original, copy, so it might be safely asserted, upon the bare evidence of the date of the

MSS., that neither work was drawn up later than the end of the ninth, or the beginning of the tenth, century. But here some external evidence is supplied by the fact that the Bouhier Commentary is expressly attributed in Troyes, No. 1979, to St. Augustine. Whatever may have been the cause of this-whether it arose from the Commentary being so deeply impregnated with the teaching of the great Western Father, or from its being drawn in some degree from his writings, or from its having been mixed up with his works the fact disposes us to regard it as the product of the eighth century, not later. It would not have been attributed to St. Augustine in the tenth century, unless it had then possessed the character of antiquity. And the Bouhier has been shown to be the later of the two Commentaries. The conclusion to which we are thus directed is confirmed by internal evidence. It has been seen that both documents contain language evidently borrowed from the Definition of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which was terminated in September, A.D. 681. And this circumstance, while it is a conclusive proof that neither of them existed prior to that date, is also a probable proof, to say the least, that neither of them originated very much later; that they were both composed before the Monothelete controversy-the subject of the Definition-had ceased to occupy the attention of theologians. The eighth century was not far advanced when that controversy, after agitating the Church for nearly a century, became extinct, the subject of image-worship usurping its place in the arena of religious discussion and dispute.

It was never afterwards revived; nor did it leave, like the Eutychian and Nestorian controversies, a permanent and formal impression upon theology. The conclusions of the Sixth Council were tacitly accepted, not continually reasserted, like those of the earlier General Councils. The two wills, divine and human, have not been dwelt upon with the same explicitness as the two natures, the latter being assumed to imply the former. Thus, in the Professions of Faith of the Popes, contained in the 'Liber Diurnus,' which were certainly drawn up within forty years of the Sixth Council, we find express assertions of the two wills and operations in our Blessed Lord; but in dogmatic treatises of a century later, we shall search for similar assertions in vain. For instance, in the treatise of Alcuin, De Fide S. Trinitatis,' which has been already noticed as bearing much resemblance to the Oratorian Commentary, for it deals with the same subjects, and is in like manner drawn from earlier works, not a single explicit assertion of the two wills, not a single repudiation of Monotheletism is to be found, though he distinctly maintains the two natures. in the Unity of our Lord's Person. Nor does such a thing appear in any of his works; and he was a copious writer on dogmatic theology. In the writings of Paulinus, the friend and contemporary of Alcuin, there is one only mention of the two wills; and that is introduced incidentally for the purpose of guarding against the imputation of Monotheletism, which his language might have furnished occasion for. The 1 MIGNE, Patrologiæ,' tom. cv. pp. 52-58.