2 153. CASSIODOKUS. 655
Italy, which he had himself founded and richly endowed. Upon the mountain he built another monastery (Castellense) in which the less accomplished monks seem to have lived, while the society of Viviers was highly cultivated and devoted to literature. Those monks who could do it were employed in copying and correct ing classical and Christian MSS., while the others bound books, prepared medicine and cultivated the garden.1 He moved his own large library to the monastery and increased it at great ex pense. Thus Viviers in that sadly confused and degenerate time became an asylum of culture and a fountain of learning. The example he set was happily followed by other monasteries, particularly by the Benedictine, and copying of MSS. was added to the list of monastic duties. By this means the literature of the old classical world has come down to us. And since the initiation of the movement was given by Cassiodorus he deserves to be honored as the link between the old thought and the new. His life thus usefully spent was unusually prolonged. The year of his death is uncertain, but it was between 570 and 580.
The WORKS of Cassiodorus arc quite numerous. They are characterized by great erudition, ingenuity and labor, but disfig ured by an incorrect and artificial style. Some were written while a statesman, more while a monk.2
1. The most important is the Miscellany? in twelve books, a collection of about four hundred rescripts and edicts issued by Cassiodorus in the King's name while Qucestor and Magister ojjieionnn, and in his own name while Pretorian prefect. He gives also in the sixth and seventh books a collection of formulas for the different offices, an idea which found imitation in the Middle Age. From the Miscellany a true insight into the state of Italy in the period can be obtained. One noticeable feature of these rescripts is the amount of animation and variety which
1 De Inatit. div. lift. c. 28, 30, 31 (Migne, LXX. cols. 1141-1147).
2 The order here followed is that of Migne.
8 Variarum libri duodecim, in Migne, LXIX. col. 501-880.
656 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
Cassiodorus manages to give their naturally stiff and formal con tents. This he does by ingeniously changing the style to suit the occasion and often by interweaving a disquisition upon some relevant theme. The work was prepared at the request of friends and as a guide to his successors, and published between 534 and 538.
2. His Ecclesiastical History, called Tripartite!,,1 is a compila tion. His own part in it is confined to a revision of the Latin condensation of Sozomen, Socrates and Theodoret, made by Epiphanius Scholasticus. It was designed by Cassiodorus to supply the omissions of Rufinus' translation of Eusebius, and was indeed with Rufinus the monastic text-book on church his tory in the Middle Age. But it is by no means a model work, being obscure, inaccurate and confused.
3. The Chronicle,2 the earliest of his productions, dating from 519, is a consular list drawn from different sources, with occasional notes of historical events. Prefaced to the list proper, which * goes from Junius Brutus to Theodoric, is a very defective list of Assyrian (!), Latin and Roman Kings.
4. The Computation of Easter, written in 562. 3
5. Origin and History of the Goths, originally in twelve books, but now extant only in the excerpt of Jordanis.4 In it Cassio dorus reveals his great desire to cultivate friendship between the Goths and the Romans. It dates from about 534.
6. Exposition of the Psalter.5 This is by far the longest, as it was in the Middle Age the most influential, of his works. It was prepared in Yiviers, and was begun before but finished after the Institutes6 (see below). Its chief source is Augustin.
1 Historica ecclesiastica vocata Tripartite, ibid. col. 879-1214.
3 Chronicon, ibid. col. 1213-1248.
s Computus Paschalis, ibid. col. 1249, 1250.
* De Getarum sive Gothorum origine et rebus gestis, ibid. 1251-1296.
5 Expositio in Psalterium. Migne, LXX. col. 9-1056.
6 Inst. I. 4. 1. 1. (Migne, LXX. col. 1115)" Sequitur Psalterium codex guartus, gui nobis primus est in commentatorum labore."