very early date in the
history of their order, the Benedictines, influenced probably by the
example of the monastery of Vivaria, commenced that long series of
services to the cause of literature which they have never wholly
intermitted. Thus, instead of accepting the obsolete formula for which
some scholars in the last age contended, 'Cassiodorus was a
Benedictine,' we should perhaps be rather justified in maintaining
that Benedict, or at least his immediate followers, were
Cassiodorians.

[Sidenote: Cassiodorus as a transcriber of the Scriptures.]

In order to set an example of literary diligence to his monks, and to
be able to sympathise with the difficulties of an amanuensis,
Cassiodorus himself transcribed the Psalter, the Prophets, and the
Epistles[83], no doubt from the translation of Jerome. This is not the
place for enlarging on the merits of Cassiodorus as a custodian and
transmitter of the sacred text. They were no doubt considerable; and
the rules which he gives to his monks, to guide them in the work of
transcription, show that he belonged to the Conservative school of
critics, and was anxious to guard against hasty emendations of the
text, however plausible. Practically, however, his MSS. of the Latin
Scriptures, showing the Itala and the Vulgate in parallel columns,
seem to have been answerable for some of that confusion between the
two versions which to some extent spoiled the text of Jerome, without
preserving to us in its purity the interesting translation of the
earlier Church.

[Footnote 83: 'In Psalterio et Prophetis et Epistolis apostolorum
studium maximum laboris impendi.... Quos ego cunctos novem codices
auctoritatis divinae (ut senex potui) sub collatione priscorum codicum
amicis ante me legentibus, sedula lectione transivi' (De Inst.
Praefatio). We should have expected 'tres' rather than 'novem,' as the
Psalter, the Prophets, and the Epistles each formed one codex.]

Besides his labours as a transcriber, Cassiodorus, both as an original
author and a compiler, used his pen for the instruction of his
fellow-inmates at Vivarium.

[Sidenote: Commentary on the Psalms.]

(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 look