5th........... Fifth
6th........... Sixth
7th........... Seventh
8th........... Eighth
9th........... Ninth
10th........... Tenth
11th........... Fifteenth
12th........... Sixteenth
13th........... Eleventh
14th........... Twelfth
15th........... Thirteenth
16th........... Seventeenth
17th........... Eighteenth
18th........... Fourteenth
19th........... Nineteenth
20th........... Twenty-second
21st........... Twenty-first
22d........... Twentieth
But before we discourse singly of the Homilies, and make a few observations as to the
order as well as the argument of each, it may be worth while to remark, that from the title
of the Homily which formerly was numbered the twenty-second, but not the twentieth,
which title it has in the notes of Fronton, and in our mss.; it must have been spoken ten days
before Easter; and that from these words likewise, just before the end of the Homily, “Forty
days have already passed away,” Tillemont justly infers, that Lent among the people of An-
tioch began on the Monday after Quinquagesima; and that among them the whole Lent
extended through seven weeks; and he rightly assigns this Homily to a Friday during Lent;978
so that that day was both the fortieth from the beginning of the fast, and the tenth before
Easter. Hence we hold it as a thing established, that Lent, which in divers Churches was
defined by various limits, was observed at Antioch during seven979 weeks.
Moreover, since for the causes before related, we may account the diurnal Paschal tables,
which place the Easter of the year 387 upon the 25th of April, as of doubtful authority,980
at least those for the use of the Church at Antioch; we have not discovered with certainty
on what day the people of Antioch kept Easter in this year 387, we shall abstain from men-
978 “Feriam sextam Quadragesima.” This looks like a reprint, as he is more definite.
979 As now in the Greek church. The Latins do not count the week in which Ash-Wednesday is, as not being
a whole one.
980 It has been shewn, in a former note, that there is no reason for this doubt.
443
Preface to the Benedictine Edition.