Francis Patrick Kenrick

St. Basil observes, that this reference to the beginning of all things is expressly directed to exclude the error of those who maintained that the world had no beginning. Laplace, quoted by Qenoude, says : A remarkable astronomical epoch is that in which the great axis of the earthly globe coincided with the line of the equinoxes: for then the true equinox and the middle equinox were united. I find that this phenomenon took place about the year 4004 before the Christian era, an epoch at which most of our chrono- logists place the creation of the world, and which, under this point of view, ought to be regarded as an astronomical epoch." Mecanique celetU , p. 113.