The Letters of Cassiodorus Part 7

(1) He began and slowly completed a Commentary on the Psalms. This very diffuse performance (which occupies more than five hundred closely printed pages in Migne's edition) displays, in the opinion of those who have carefully studied it[84], a large amount of acquaintance with the writings of the Fathers, and was probably looked upon as a marvel of the human intellect by the Vivarian monks, for whose benefit it was composed, and to whom it revealed, in the Psalms which they were daily and nightly intoning, refutations of all the heresies that had ever racked the Church, and the rudiments of all the sciences that flourished in the world. It is impossible now for this or any future age to do aught but lament over so much wasted ingenuity, when we find the author maintaining that the whole of the one hundred and fifty Psalms were written by King David, and that Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun have only a mystical meaning; that the first seventy represent the Old Testament, and the last eighty the New, because we celebrate the Resurrection of Christ on the eighth day of the week, and so forth. A closer study of the book might perhaps discover in it some genuine additions to the sum of human knowledge; but it is difficult to repress a murmur at the misdirected industry which has preserved to us the whole of this ponderous futility, while it has allowed the History of the Goths to perish.

[Footnote 84: I take my account of this treatise chiefly from Franz (pp. 93-100).]

[Sidenote: Commentary on the Epistles.]

(2) The 'Complexiones in Epistolas Apostolorum' (first published by Maffei in 1721, from a MS. discovered by him at Verona) have at least the merit of being far shorter than the Commentary on the Psalms.

Perhaps the only points of interest in them, even for theological scholars, are that Ca.s.siodorus evidently attributes the Epistle to the Hebrews without hesitation to the Apostle Paul, and that he notices the celebrated pa.s.sage concerning the Three Heavenly Witnesses (1 John v. 7) in a way which seems to imply that he found that pa.s.sage in the text of the Vulgate, though on examination his language is seen to be consistent with the theory that these words are a gloss added by the commentator himself.

[Sidenote: Historia Tripart.i.ta.]

(3) In order to supply the want of any full Church History in the Latin tongue, a want which was probably felt not only by his own monks but throughout the Churches of the West, Ca.s.siodorus induced his friend Epiphanius to translate from the Greek the ecclesiastical histories of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, and then himself fused these three narratives into one, the well-known 'Historia Tripart.i.ta,'

which contains the story of the Church's fortunes from the accession of Constantine to the thirty-second year of the reign of Theodosius II (306-439). The fact that the numerous mistranslations of Epiphanius have pa.s.sed uncorrected, probably indicates that Ca.s.siodorus' own knowledge of Greek was but slight, and that he depended on his coadjutor entirely for this part of the work. The 'Historia Tripart.i.ta' has probably had a larger circulation than any other of its author's works; but Ca.s.siodorus himself thought so little of his share in it, that he does not include it in the list of his writings prefixed to the treatise 'De Orthographia.' And, in fact, the inartistic way in which the three narratives are soldered together, rather than recast into one symmetrical and harmonious whole, obliges us to admit that Ca.s.siodorus' work at this book was little more than mechanical, and ent.i.tles him to scarcely any other praise than that of industry.

[Sidenote: Inst.i.tutiones Divinarum et Humanarum Lectionum.]

(4) Of a different quality, though still partaking somewhat of the nature of a compilation, was his chief educational treatise, the 'Inst.i.tutiones Divinarum et Humanarum Lectionum[85].' About the year 543, some three or four years after his retirement from public life, while he was slowly ploughing his way through the Commentary on the Psalms, twenty of which he had already interpreted, he seems to have laid it aside for a time in order to devote himself to this work, which aimed more at instruction than at religious edification. In the outset of this book he describes that unsuccessful attempt of his, to which allusion has already been made, for the establishment of a theological school in Rome, and continues that, 'as the rage of war and the turbulence of strife in the Italian realm[86] had prevented the fulfilment of this desire, he felt himself constrained by Divine charity to write for his monks' behoof these _libri introductorii_, in which, after the manner of a teacher, he would open to them the series of the books of Holy Scripture, and would give them a compendious acquaintance with secular literature.' As the book is not written for the learned, he undertakes to abstain from 'affectata eloquentia,' and he does in the main keep his promise. The simple, straightforward style of the book, which occasionally rises into real and 'unaffected eloquence' where the subject inspires him to make an appeal to the hearts of his readers, presents a striking and favourable contrast to the obscure and turgid phraseology in which the perverted taste of the times caused him generally to shroud his meaning[87].

[Footnote 85: Printed hitherto as two works, De Inst.i.tutione Divinarum Litterarum, and De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarum. But, as Ebert has shown (i. 477), the Preface to the Orthographia makes it probable that these two really formed one book, with a t.i.tle like that given above.]

[Footnote 86: 'In Italico regno.' These words seem to favour the conjecture that Theodoric may have called himself King of Italy.]

[Footnote 87: As a specimen of this better style of Ca.s.siodorus, I may refer to his praises of the life of the literary monk, and his exhortation to him who is of duller brain to practise gardening: 'Quapropter toto nisu, toto labore, totis desideriis exquiramus ut ad tale tantumque munus, Domino largiente, pervenire mereamur. Hoc enim n.o.bis est salutare, proficuum, gloriosum, perpetuum, quod nulla mors, nulla mobilitas, nulla possit separare oblivio; sed in illa suavitate patriae, c.u.m Domino faciet aeterna exsultatione gaudere. Quod si alicui fratrum, ut meminit Virgilius,

"Frigidus obst.i.terit circ.u.m praecordia sanguis,"

ut nec humanis nec divinis litteris perfecte possit erudiri, aliqua tamen scientiae mediocritate suffultus, eligat certe quod sequitur,

"Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes."

Quia nec ipsum est a monachis alienum hortos colere, agros exercere, et pomorum fecunditate gratulari; legitur enim in Psalmo centesimo vigesimo septimo, "Labores manuum tuarum manducabis; beatus es et bene tibi erit."']

In the first part of this treatise (commonly called the 'De Inst.i.tutione Divinarum Litterarum') Ca.s.siodorus briefly describes the contents of the nine Codices[88] which made up the Scripture of the Old and New Testaments, and mentions the names of the chief commentators upon each. After some important cautions as to the preservation of the purity of the sacred text and abstinence from plausible emendations, the author proceeds to enumerate the Christian historians--Eusebius, Orosius, Marcellinus, Prosper, and others[89]; and he then slightly sketches the characters of some of the princ.i.p.al Fathers--Hilary, Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. This part of the work contains an interesting allusion to 'Dionysius Monachus, Scytha natione, sed moribus omnino Roma.n.u.s,' of whom Ca.s.siodorus speaks as a colleague in his literary enterprises. This is the so-called Dionysius Exiguus, who fixed (erroneously, as it now appears) the era of the birth of Christ, and whose system of chronology founded on this event has been accepted by all the nations of Christendom. At the conclusion of this the first part of the treatise we find some general remarks on the nature of the monastic life, and some pictures of Vivarium and its neighbourhood, to which we are indebted for some of the information contained in the preceding pages. The book ends with a prayer, and contains thirty-three chapters, the same number, remarks Ca.s.siodorus (who is addicted to this kind of moralising on numbers) that was reached by the years of the life of Christ on earth.

[Footnote 88: 1. Octateuchus (Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth).

2. Kings (Samuel and Kings, Chronicles).

3. Prophets (Four Major, including Daniel, and Twelve Minor).

4. Psalms.

5. Solomon (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus).

6. Hagiographa (Tobias, Esther, Judith, Maccabees, Esdras).

7. Gospels.

8. Epistles of the Apostles (including that to the Hebrews).

9. Acts of the Apostles and Apocalypse.]

[Footnote 89: The remarks on Marcellinus Comes and Prosper are worth transcribing: 'Hunc [Eusebium] subsecutus est suprascriptus Marcellinus Illyricia.n.u.s, qui adhuc patricii Justiniani fertur egisse cancellos; sed meliore conditione devotus, a tempore Theodosii principis usque ad finem imperii triumphalis Augusti Justiniani opus suum, Domino juvante, perduxit; ut qui ante fuit in obsequio suscepto gratus, postea ipsius imperio copiose amantissimus appareret.' [The allusion to 'finem imperii Justiniani' was probably added in a later revision of the Inst.i.tutiones.] 'Sanctus quoque Prosper Chronica ab Adam ad Genserici tempora et urbis Romae depraedationem usque perduxit.']

The second part of the treatise, commonly called 'De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium Litterarum,' contains so much as the author thought that every monk should be acquainted with concerning the four liberal arts--Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Mathematics--the last of which is divided into the four 'disciplines' of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. As ill.u.s.trating the relative importance of these sciences (as we call them) as apprehended by Ca.s.siodorus, it is curious to observe that while Geometry and Astronomy occupy only about one page, and Arithmetic and Music two pages each, Logic takes up eighteen pages, Grammar two, and Rhetoric six.

[Sidenote: De Orthographia.]

(5) Some other works, chiefly of a grammatical kind[90], which have now perished, together with the exegetical treatises already named, occupied the leisure hours of the old age of Ca.s.siodorus. At length, in the ninety-third year of his age, the veteran statesman, n.o.bleman, and judge crowned his life of useful service by writing for his beloved monks his still extant treatise 'De Orthographia[91].' He tells us that the monks suddenly exclaimed, 'What doth it profit us to study either those works which the ancients have composed or those which your Wisdom has caused to be added to the list, if we are altogether ignorant how we ought to write these things, and on the other hand cannot understand and accurately represent in speech the words which we find written?' In other words, 'Give us a treatise on spelling.' The venerable teacher gladly complied with the request, and compiled from twelve grammarians[92] various rules, the observance of which would prevent the student from committing the usual faults in spelling. It is no doubt true[93] that this work is a mere collection of excerpts from other authors, not arranged on any systematic principle. Still, even as such a collection, it does great credit to the industry of a nonagenarian; and it seems to me that there is much in it which a person who was studying the transition of Latin into the Lingua Volgare might peruse with profit. To an epigraphist especially it must be interesting to see what were the mistakes which an imperfectly educated Italian in that age was most likely to commit.

The confusion between _b_ and _v_ was evidently a great source of error, and their nice discrimination, to which Ca.s.siodorus devotes four chapters, a very _crux_ of accurate scholarship. We see also from a pa.s.sage in the 'De Inst.i.tutione Divinarum Litterarum[94]' that the practice of a.s.similating the last letter of the prefix in compound words, like i_l_luminatio, i_r_risio, i_m_probus, though it had been introduced, was as yet hardly universal; and similarly that the monks required to be instructed to write qui_c_quam for euphony, instead of qui_d_quam.

[Footnote 90: They were a compilation from the 'Artes' of Donatus, from a book on Etymologies (perhaps also by Donatus), and from a treatise by Sacerdos on Schemata; and a short Table of Contents of the Books of Scripture, prepared in such a form as to be easily committed to memory.]

[Footnote 91: Ad amantissimos orthographos discutiendos anno aetatis meae nonagesimo tertio (Domino adjuvante) perveni.]

[Footnote 92: They were Donatus, Cn. Cornutus, Velius Longus, Curtius Valeria.n.u.s, Papiria.n.u.s, Adamantius Martyrius, Eutiches, Caesellius, Lucius Caecilius, and 'Priscia.n.u.s grammaticus, qui nostro tempore Constantinopoli doctor fuit.' Two names seem to be omitted by Ca.s.siodorus.]

[Footnote 93: As stated by Ebert (p. 481).]

[Footnote 94: Cap. xv.]

[Sidenote: Death of Ca.s.siodorus, 575 (?).]

The treatise 'De Orthographia' was the last product, as far as we know, of the industrious brain of Ca.s.siodorus. Two years after its composition the aged statesman and scholar, in the ninety-sixth year of his age, entered into his well-earned rest[95]. The death of Ca.s.siodorus occurred (as I believe) in the year 575, three years before the death of the Emperor Justin II, nephew and successor of Justinian. The period covered by his life had been one of vast changes. Born when the Kingdom of Odovacar was only four years old, he had as a young man seen that Kingdom overthrown by the arms of Theodoric; he had sat by the cradle of the Ostrogothic monarchy, and mourned over its grave; had seen the eunuch Na.r.s.es supreme vicegerent of the Emperor; had heard the avalanche of the Lombard invasion thunder over Italy, and had outlived even the Lombard invader Alboin.

Pope Leo, the tamer of Attila and the hero of Chalcedon, had not been dead twenty years when Ca.s.siodorus was born. Pope Gregory the Great, the converter of England, was within fifteen years of his accession to the Pontificate when Ca.s.siodorus died. The first great schism between the Eastern and Western Churches was begun in his boyhood and ended before he had reached old age. He saw the irretrievable ruin of Rome, such as Augustus and Trajan had known her; the extinction of the Roman Senate; the practical abolition of the Consulate; the close of the schools of philosophy at Athens.

[Footnote 95: In a.s.signing the death of Ca.s.siodorus to the ninety-sixth year of his age I rest upon the authority of Trittheim (as quoted in the earlier part of this chapter), who appears to me to have preserved the chronology which was generally accepted, before the question became entangled by the confusion between Ca.s.siodorus and his father.]

Reverting to the line of thought with which this chapter opened, if one were asked to specify any single life which more than another was in contact both with the Ancient World and the Modern, none could be more suitably named than the life of Ca.s.siodorus.

NOTE ON THE TOPOGRAPHY OF SQUILLACE.

The chief conclusions which Mr. Evans came to after his two days'

study of the country about Squillace are these:--

[Sidenote: Position of Scylacium.]

I. The Scylacium or Scolacium of Roman times, the city of Ca.s.siodorus, is not to be looked for at the modern Squillace, but at the place called Roccella in the Italian military map, which Lenormant and Evans know as _La Roccelletta del Vescovo di Squillace_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [map] _Oxford University Press_]

This place, which is about ten kilometres north-east of modern Squillace, is on a little hill immediately overhanging the sea, while Squillace is on a spur of the Apennines three or four miles distant from the sea. Mr. Evans' chief reasons for identifying Roccella with Scylacium are (1) its position, 'hanging like a cl.u.s.ter of grapes on hills not so high as to make the ascent of them a weariness, but high enough to command a delightful prospect over land and sea.' This description by Ca.s.siodorus exactly suits Roccella, but does not suit Squillace, which is at the top of a conical hill, and is reached only by a very toilsome ascent. 'With its gradual southern and eastern slope and its freedom from overlooking heights (different in this respect from Squillace),' says Mr. Evans, 'Roccella was emphatically, as Ca.s.siodorus describes it, "a city of the sun."'

(2) Its ruins. While no remains of a pre-mediaeval time have been discovered at Squillace, there is still standing at Roccella the sh.e.l.l of a splendid basilica, of which Mr. Evans has taken some plans and sketches, but which seems to have strangely escaped the notice of most preceding travellers. The total length of this building is 94 paces, the width of the nave 30, the extreme width of the transept 54. It has three fine apses at the eastern end, and is built in the form of a Latin cross. On either side of the nave was an exterior arcade, which apparently consisted originally of eleven window arches, six of them not being for the transmission of light. 'Altogether,' says Mr. Evans, 'this church, even in its dilapidated state, is one of the finest monuments of the kind anywhere existing. We should have to go to Rome, to Ravenna, or to Thessalonica, to find its parallel; but I doubt whether, even at any of those places, there is to be seen a basilica with such fine exterior arcading. It is a great tribute to the strength of the original fabric that so much should have survived the repeated shocks of earthquake that have desolated Calabria, and scarcely left one stone upon another of her ancient cities.'

After a careful examination of the architectural peculiarities of this basilica, Mr. Evans is disposed to fix its erection somewhere about the time of the Emperor Justinian.

In addition to this fine building there are at Roccella the ruins of two smaller late Roman churches, mausolea, and endless foundations of buildings which must have formed very extensive suburbs.