[1] The content is taken from the collection of Dionysius Exiguus, but the division into titles (301) is copied from the Breviatio canonum of Fulgentius Ferrandus, a sixth-century deacon of Carthage.
In many manuscripts the text of Cresconius is preceded by an index or table of contents (breviarium) of the titles, first edited in 1588 by Pithou.
[2] One of its best manuscripts, the tenth-century Vallicellianus (Rome), has a note in which Cresconius is declared the author of a metrical poem called "Bella et victorias" by the "Patricius" Johannes in Africa about the Saracens.
Some, however, hold that the poem in question is the Johannis of Flavius Cresconius Corippus, a Latin poet of about 550, and on this basis identify him with the canonist, thus placing the latter in the sixth century.
Others (with Maassen, p. 810) while admitting that the poem in question can be none other than the Johannis of the aforesaid Latin poet (unknown to Fabricius, and first edited by Samuel Mazzuchelli, Milan, 1820), maintain that it has been wrongly attributed to this Cresconius, and that it cannot therefore aid in fixing his date.