But there is an earlier codex than those mentioned by Bishop, and from it, it is argued that the feast is of Irish origin. In a metrical calendar, which is reasonably referred to the time of Alfred the Great (871-901), there is the line "Concipitur Virgo maria cognomine senio"; and this calendar exhibits, says Father Thurston, S.J., "most unmistakable signs of the influence of an Irish character." It was written, Dr. Whitely Stokes believed, by an Irishman in the ninth century or thereabouts. The script appears to him to be "old Irish, rather than Anglo-Saxon, and the large numbers of commemorations of Irish saints and the accuracy with which the names are spelt, point to an Irish origin." This calendar places the feast of our Lady's Conception on the 2nd May. In the metrical calendar of Oengus, the feast is assigned to the 3rd May, and in his _Leabhar Breac_, the scribe adds the Latin note, "Feir mar Muire et reliqua, _i.e._, inceptio ejus ut alii putant--sed in februo mense vel in Martio facta est illa, quae post VII. menses nata est, ut innaratur--vel quae libet alia feria ejus." Again, in the martyrology of Tallaght, from which Gorman, a later martyrologist, says that Oengus, the Culdee, drew his materials, is found under date May 3rd, a mention of the celebration of the Conception of Mary. This evidence seems to show--although it is not perfectly conclusive--that the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was celebrated in the Irish Church in the ninth and tenth centuries, but not on the 8th December (see Father Thurston, S.J., _The Month_, May and June, 1904; Father Doncoeur, S.J., _Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique_, Louvain, 1907, p. 278, et seq.; Baudot, _The Roman Breviary_, pp. 253-255; Kellner, _op. cit._). It is to be regretted that even in the new Breviary the lessons for the second nocturn of this feast are taken from the composition, _Cogitis me_, falsely attributed to St. Jerome, and rejected by critics, from the days of Baronius, as spurious (Baudot, _op. cit._, p. 236). _February. The Purification._ Candlemas. According to the Gospel narrative, Mary fulfilled the commands of the Law (Lev. XII. 2-8), and on the fortieth day brought the prescribed offering to the Temple, where she met Simeon and Anna.