It is plain that the preceding enumeration could not have been made at any earlier period: for the Epiphany of our SAVIOUR and His Nativity were originally but one Festival.(369) Moreover, the circumstances are well known under which Chrysostom (A.D. 386) announced to his Eastern auditory that in conformity with what had been correctly ascertained at Rome, the ancient Festival was henceforth to be disintegrated.(370) But this is not material to the present inquiry. We know that, as a matter of fact, “the Epiphanies” (for τὰ ἐπιφανία is the name of the Festival) became in consequence distributed over Dec. 25 and Jan. 5: our LORD’S _Baptism_ being the event chiefly commemorated on the latter anniversary,(371)—which used to be chiefly observed in honour of His _Birth_(372)—Concerning the Lessons for Passion-tide and Easter, as well as concerning those for the Nativity and Epiphany, something has been offered already; to which may be added that Hesychius, in the opening sentences of that “Homily” which has already engaged so much of our attention,(373) testifies that the conclusion of S. Mark’s Gospel was in his days, as it has been ever since, one of the lections for Easter. He begins by saying that the Evangelical narratives of the Resurrection were read on the Sunday night; and proceeds to reconcile _S. Mark’s_ with the rest.—Chrysostom once and again adverts to the practice of discontinuing the reading of the Acts after Pentecost,(374)—which is observed to be also the method of the Lectionaries. III. I speak separately of the Festival of the Ascension, for an obvious reason. It ranked, as we have seen, in the estimation of Primitive Christendom, with the greatest Festivals of the Church. Augustine, in a well-known passage, hints that it may have been of Apostolical origin;(375) so exceedingly remote was its institution accounted in the days of the great African Father, as well as so entirely forgotten by that time was its first beginning. I have to shew that in the Great Oriental Lectionary (whether of the Greek or of the Syrian Church) the last Twelve Verses of S. Mark’s Gospel occupy a conspicuous as well as a most honourable place. And this is easily done: for, (_a_) The Lesson for Matins _on Ascension-Day_ in the East, in the oldest documents to which we have access, consisted (as now it does) of _the last Twelve Verses_,—neither more nor less,—of S. Mark’s Gospel. At the Liturgy on Ascension was read S. Luke xxiv. 36-53: but at Matins, S. Mark xvi. 9-20. The witness of the “Synaxaria” is constant to this effect.