o which it professes to belong.
The fourth treatise, _De Fide Catholica_, does not contain any
distinct chronological data; but the tone and opinions of the treatise
produce the impression that it probably belonged to the same period as
the treatise against Eutyches and Nestorius. Several inscriptions
ascribe both these treatises to Boetius. It will be seen from this
statement that Peiper bases his conclusions on grounds far too narrow;
and on the whole it is perhaps more probable that Boetius wrote none
of the four Christian treatises, particularly as they are not ascribed
to him by any of his contemporaries. Three of them express in the
strongest language the orthodox faith of the church in opposition to
the Arian heresy, and these three put in unmistakable language the
procession of the Holy Spirit from both Father and Son. The fourth
argues for the orthodox belief of the two natures and one person of
Christ. When the desire arose that it should be believed that Boetius
perished from his opposition to the heresy of Theodoric, it was
natural to ascribe to him works which were in harmony with this
supposed fact. The works may really have been written by one Boetius,
a bishop of Africa, as Jourdain supposes, or by some Saint Severinus,
as Nitzsch conjectures, and the similarity of name may have aided the
transference of them to the heathen or neutral Boetius.

Important and, if genuine, decisive evidence upon this point is
afforded by a passage in the _Anecdoton Holderi_, a fragment contained
in a 10th-century MS. (ed. H. Usener, Leipzig, 1877). The fragment
gives an extract from a previously unknown letter of Cassiodorus, the
important words being "Scripsit (i.e. Boetius) librum de sancta
trinitate, et capita quaedam dogmatica, et librum contra Nestorium."
Nitzsch, however, held that this was a copyist's gloss, harmonizing
with the received Boetius legend, which had been transferred to the
text, and did not consider that it outweighed the opposing internal
evidence from _De Cons. Phil._

EDITIONS.--The first collected edition of the works of Boetius was
published at Venice in 1492 (Basel, 1570); the last in J.P. Migne's
_Patrologia_, lxiii., lxiv. (Paris, 1847). Of the numerous editions of
the _De Consolatione_ the best are those of Theodorus Obbarius (Jena,
1843) and R. Peiper (Leipzig, 1871). The first contains prolegomena on
the life and writin