XI. AMBROSE, Archbishop of Milan (A.D. 374-397) freely quotes this portion of the Gospel,—citing ver. 15 four times: verses 16, 17 and 18, each three times: ver. 20, once.(47) XII. The testimony of CHRYSOSTOM (A.D. 400) has been all but overlooked. In part of a Homily claimed for him by his Benedictine Editors, he points out that S. Luke alone of the Evangelists describes the Ascension: S. Matthew and S. John not speaking of it,—S. Mark recording the event only. Then he quotes verses 19, 20. “This” (he adds) “is the end of the Gospel. Mark makes no extended mention of the Ascension.”(48) Elsewhere he has an unmistakable reference to S. Mark xvi. 9.(49) XIII. JEROME, on a point like this, is entitled to more attention than any other Father of the Church. Living at a very early period, (for he was born in 331 and died in 420,)—endowed with extraordinary Biblical learning,—a man of excellent judgment,—and a professed Editor of the New Testament, for the execution of which task he enjoyed extraordinary facilities,—his testimony is most weighty. Not unaware am I that Jerome is commonly supposed to be a witness on the opposite side: concerning which mistake I shall have to speak largely in Chapter V. But it ought to be enough to point out that we should not have met with these last twelve verses in the Vulgate, had Jerome held them to be spurious.(50) He familiarly quotes the 9th verse in one place of his writings;(51) in another place he makes the extraordinary statement that in certain of the copies, (especially the Greek,) was found after ver. 14 _the reply of the eleven Apostles_, when our SAVIOUR “upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen Him after He was risen.”(52) To discuss so weak and worthless a forgery,—no trace of which is found in any MS. in existence, and of which nothing whatever is known except what Jerome here tells us,—would be to waste our time indeed. The fact remains, however, that Jerome, besides giving these last twelve verses a place in the Vulgate, quotes S. Mark xvi. 14, as well as ver. 9, in the course of his writings. XIV. It was to have been expected that AUGUSTINE would quote these verses: but he more than quotes them. He brings them forward again and again,(53)—discusses them as the work of S. Mark,—remarks that “in diebus Paschalibus,” S. Mark’s narrative of the Resurrection was publicly read in the Church.(54) All this is noteworthy. Augustine flourished A.D. 395-430.