The Letters of Cassiodorus
to understand the height of the air, the extent of the earth, the
causes of storms and earthquakes, and the nature of the wandering
winds, and yet to leave the faculty, by which we grasp all this
knowledge, itself uncomprehended[72]. He therefore sets himself to
enquire, in twelve chapters:
[Footnote 72: 'Cum jam suscepti operis optato fine gauderem, meque
duodecim voluminibus jactatum quietis portus exciperet, ubi etsi non
laudatus, certe liberatus adveneram, amicorum me suave collegium in
salum rursus cogitationis expressit, postulans ut aliqua quae tam in
libris sacris, quam in saecularibus abstrusa compereram de animae
substantia, vel de ejus virtutibus aperirem, cui datum est tam
ingentium rerum secreta reserare: addens nimis ineptum esse si eam per
quam plura cognoscimus, quasi a nobis alienam ignorare patiamur, dum
ad anima sit utile nosse qua sapimus' (De Anima, Praefatio).]
1. Why the Soul is called Anima?
2. What is the definition of the Soul?
3. What is its substantial quality?
4. If it is to be believed to have any shape?
5. What moral virtues it has which contribute to its glory and its
adornment?
6. What are its natural virtues [or powers], given to enable it to
hold together the framework of the body?
7. Concerning the origin of the Soul.
8. What is its especial seat, since it appears to be in a certain
sense diffused over the whole body?
9. Concerning the form and composition of the body itself.
10. Sufficient signs by which we may discern what properties the souls
of sinners possess.
11. Similar signs by which we may distinguish the souls of righteous
men, since we cannot see them with our bodily eyes.
12. Concerning the Soul's state after death, and how it will be
affected by the general resurrection.
The treatise ends with a prayer to Christ to preserve the body in good
health, that it may be in tune with the harmony of the soul; to give
reason the ascendancy over the flesh; and to keep the mind in happy
equipoise, neither so strong as to be puffed up with pride, nor so
languid as to fail of its proper powers.
[Sidenote: Cassiodorus retires to the cloister.]
The line of thought indicated by the 'De Anima' led, in such a country
as Italy, at such a time as the Gothic War, to one inevitable end--the
cloister. It can have surprised none of the friends of Cassiodorus
when the veteran statesman announced his intention of spending the
remainder of his days in monastic retirement. He was now sixty years
of age[73]; his wife, if he had ever married, was probably by this
time dead; and we hear nothing of any children for whose sake he need
have remained longer in the world. The Emperor would probably have
received him gladly into his service, but Cassiodorus had now done
with politics. The dream of his life had been to build up an
independent Italian State, strong with the strength of the Goths, and
wise with the wisdom of the Romans. That dream was now scattered to
the winds. Providence had made it plain that not by this bridge was
civilisation to pass over from the Old World to the New. Cassiodorus
accepted the decision, and consecrated his old age to religious
meditation and to a work even more important than any of his political
labours (though one which must be lightly touched on here), the
preservation by the pens of monastic copyists of the Christian
Scriptures, and of the great works of classical antiquity.
[Footnote 73: Fifty-eight, if the retirement was in 538.]
[Sidenote: He founds two monasteries at Scyllacium.]
It was to his ancestral Scyllacium that Cassiodorus retired; and here,
between the mountains of Aspromonte and the sea, he founded his
monastery, or, more accurately, his two monasteries, one for the
austere hermit, and the other for the less aspiring coenobite. The
former was situated among the 'sweet recesses of Mons Castellius[74],'
the latter among the well-watered gardens which took their name from
the Vivaria (fish-ponds) that Cassiodorus had constructed among them
in connection with the river Pellena[75]. Baths, too, especially
intended for the use of the sick, had been prepared on the banks of
the stream[76]. Here in monastic simplicity, but not without comfort,
Cassiodorus ordained that his monks should dwell. The Rule of the
order--in so far as it had a written Rule--was drawn from the writings
of Cassian, the great founder of Western Monachism, who had died about
a century before the Vivarian monastery was founded. In commending the
writings of Cassian to the study of his monks, Cassiodorus warns them
against the bias shown in them towards the Semi-Pelagian heresy, and
desires them to choose the good in those treatises and to refuse the
evil. Whatever the reason may have been, it seems clear that
Cassiodorus did not make the Rule of Benedict the law of his new
monastery; and indeed, strange as the omission may appear, there is, I
believe, no allusion to that great contemporary Saint, the 'Father of
Monks,' in the whole of his writings.
[Footnote 74: 'Nam si vos in monasterio Vivariensi divina gratia
suffragante coenobiorum consuetudo competenter erudiat, et aliquid
sublimius defaecatis animis optare contingat, habetis mentis Castelli
secreta suavia, ubi velut anachoritae (praestante Domino) feliciter
esse possitis' (De Inst. Div. Litt. xxix.).]
[Footnote 75: 'Invitat vos locus Vivariensis monasterii ... quando
habetis hortos irriguos, et piscosi amnis Pellenae fluenta vicina, qui
nec magnitudine undarum suspectus habetur, nec exiguitate temnibilis.
Influit vobis arte moderatus, ubicunque necessarius judicatur et
hortis vestris sufficiens et molendinis.... Maria quoque vobis ita
subjacent, ut piscationibus variis pateant; et captus piscis, cum
libuerit, vivariis possit includi. Fecimus enim illic (juvante Deo)
grata receptacula ubi sub claustro fideli vagetur piscium multitudo;
ita consentanea montium speluncis, ut nullatenus se sentiat captum,
cui libertas eat escas sumere, et per solitas se cavernas
abscondere.']
[Footnote 76: 'Balnea quoque congruenter aegris praeparata corporibus
jussimus aedificari, ubi fontium perspicuitas decenter illabitur, quae
et potui gratissima cognoscitur et lavacris.']
[Sidenote: Probably never Abbot.]
Though the founder and patron of these two monasteries, it seems
probable that Cassiodorus never formally assumed the office of Abbot
in either of them[77]. He had probably still some duties to perform as
a large landholder in Bruttii; but besides these he had also work to
do for 'his monks' (as he affectionately called them)--work of a
literary and educational kind--which perhaps made it undesirable that
he should be burdened with the petty daily routine of an Abbot's
duties. Some years before, he had endeavoured to induce Pope
Agapetus[78] to found a School of Theology and Christian Literature at
Rome, in imitation of the schools of Alexandria and Nisibis[79]. The
clash of arms consequent on the invasion of Italy by Belisarius had
prevented the fulfilment of this scheme; but the aged statesman now
determined to devote the remainder of his days to the accomplishment
of the same purpose in connection with the Vivarian convent.
[Footnote 77: But the words of Trithemius (quoted by Migne, Patrologia
lxix. 498), 'Hic post aliquot conversionis suae annos abbas electus
est, et monasterio multo tempore utiliter praefuit,' _may_ preserve a
genuine and accurate tradition. Cassiodorus' mention of the two
Abbots, Chalcedonius and Geruntius (De Inst. Div. Litt. cap. xxxii.)
shows that at any rate in the infancy of his monasteries he was not
Abbot of either of them.]
[Footnote 78: Agapetus was Pope in 535 and 536.]
[Footnote 79: 'Nisus sum ergo cum beatissimo Agapeto papa urbis Romae,
ut sicut apud Alexandriam multo tempore fuisse traditur institutum,
nunc etiam in Nisibi civitate Syrorum ab Hebraeis sedulo fertur
exponi, collatis expensis in urbe Romana professos doctores scholae
potius acciperent Christianae, unde et anima susciperet aeternam
salutem, et casto atque purissimo eloquio fidelium lingua comeretur'
(De Inst. Praefatio).]
In the earliest days of Monasticism men like the hermits of the
Thebaid had thought of little else but mortifying the flesh by vigils
and fastings, and withdrawing from all human voices to enjoy an
ecstatic communion with their Maker. The life in common of monks like
those of Nitria and Lerinum had chastened some of the extravagances of
these lonely enthusiasts while still keeping their main ends in view.
St. Jerome, in his cell at Bethlehem, had shown what great results
might be obtained for the Church of all ages from the patient literary
toil of one religious recluse. And finally St. Benedict, in that Rule
of his which was to be the code of monastic Christendom for centuries,
had sanctified Work as one of the most effectual preservatives of the
bodily and spiritual health of the ascetic, bringing together
_Laborare_ and _Orare_ in friendly union, and proclaiming anew for the
monk as for the untonsured citizen the primal ordinance, 'In the sweat
of thy brow thou shalt eat bread.'
[Sidenote: The father of literary Monasticism.]
The great merit of Cassiodorus, that which shows his deep insight into
the needs of his age and entitles him to the eternal gratitude of
Europe, was his determination to utilise the vast leisure of the
convent for the preservation of Divine and human learning and for its
transmission to after ages. In the miserable circumstances of the
times Theology was in danger of becoming brutified and ignorant; the
great treasures of Pagan literature were no longer being perpetuated
by the slaves who had once acted as _librarii_ to the Greek or Roman
noble; and with every movement of the Ostrogothic armies, or of the
yet more savage hordes who served under the Imperial standard, with
every sacked city and with every ravaged villa, some Codex, it may be
such as we should now deem priceless and irreplaceable, was perishing.
This being the state of Italy, Cassiodorus resolved to make of his
monastery not merely a place for pious meditation, but a theological
school and a manufactory for the multiplication of copies, not only of
the Scriptures, not only of the Fathers and the commentators on
Scripture, but also of the great writers of pagan antiquity. In the
chapter[80] which he devotes to the description of the _scriptorium_
of his monastery he describes, with an enthusiasm which must have been
contagious, the noble work done there by the _antiquarius_: 'He may
fill his mind with the Scriptures while copying the sayings of the
Lord. With his fingers he gives life to men and arms them against the
wiles of the devil. So many wounds does Satan receive as the
_antiquarius_ copies words of Christ. What he writes in his cell will
be scattered far and wide over distant Provinces. Man multiplies the
heavenly words, and by a striking figure--if I may dare so to
speak--the three fingers of his hand express the utterances of the
Holy Trinity. The fast-travelling reed writes down the holy words, and
thus avenges the malice of the Wicked One, who caused a reed to be
used to smite the head of the Saviour.'
[Footnote 80: The 30th of the De Institutione Div. Litt.]
It is true that the passage here quoted refers only to the work of the
copyist of the Christian Scriptures, but it could easily be shown from
other passages[81] that the literary activity of the monastery was not
confined to these, but was also employed on secular literature.
[Footnote 81: For instance, in cap. xv., after cautioning his copyists
against rash corrections of apparent faults in the sacred MSS., he
says: 'Ubicunque paragrammata in disertis hominibus [i.e. in classical
authors] reperta fuerint, intrepidus vitiosa recorrigat.' And the