composed in this same year 522, the year of the Consulship of the young Boethii. Of their father's investiture with the office of _Magister Officiorum_ on September 1, 522, of his sudden fall from the royal favour, of the charge of treason which was preferred against him before the end of that year, of his imprisonment during 523 and execution (probably in the early part of 524), we have of course no trace in this extract; and the fact that we have none is a strong argument for the genuineness and contemporary character of the treatise from which it is taken. [Footnote 105: Chiefly derived from the Paraenesis of Ennodius (Opusc. vi.).] [Footnote 106: In the Paraenesis.] [Footnote 107: Usener's suggestion (pp. 38, 39) that he obtained this honour in consequence of having filled the place of _Comes Sacrarum Largitionum_ seems to me only to land us in the further difficulty caused by the entire omission of all allusion to this fact both in the Paraenesis and in the Anecdoton Holderi.] [Footnote 108: See Var. i. 10 and 45; ii. 40.] [Sidenote: His theological treatises.] So far, then, we have in the 'Anecdoton Holderi' only a somewhat meagre reiteration of facts already known to us. But when we come to the statement of the literary labours of Boethius the case is entirely altered. It is well known that in the Middle Ages certain treatises on disputed points of Christian theology were attributed to him as their author. They are:-- 1. A treatise 'De Sancta Trinitate.' 2. 'Ad Johannem Diaconum: Utrum Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus de Divinitate substantialiter praedicentur.' 3. 'Ad eundem: Quomodo substantiae in eo quod sint bonae sint cum non sint substantialia bona.' 4. 'De Fide Catholica.' 5. 'Contra Eutychen et Nestorium.' It may be said at once that in the earlier MSS. the fourth treatise is not attributed to Boethius. It seems to have been included with the others by some mistake, and I shall therefore in the following remarks assume that it is not his, and shall confine my attention to the first three and the fifth. [Sidenote: Difficulty as to religious position of Boethius.]