Rousseau, Philip. Ascetics, Authority and the Church in the Age
of Jerome and Cassian. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1978.
Grover A. Zinn
CASSIODORUS
(c. 490-c. 583 or 585)
Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator, a states-
man, ecclesiastical writer, and educator, was born to a
senatorial family from southern Italy. His life can be
divided into a political period from 507 to c. 540 and a
scholarly and monastic period from 540 to his death.
Cassiodorus served the Ostrogothic rulers in various
positions: he was quaestor in 507, ordinary counsel in
514, master of offi ces from 523 to 527, and praetorian
prefect from 533 to 537. He also applied his literary tal-
ents to glorify the Ostrogoth regime. During his political
career, he produced Chronica, a chronological account
of the Italian rulers up to 519; Historia Gothorum, a his-
tory of the Goths (now lost); and Variae, a collection of
state papers and diplomatic correspondence that became
popular for its artful rhetoric.
Cassiodorus retired from public service c. 540 and
moved to Constantinople, where he devoted himself to
ecclesiastical writing. He added to Variae a philosophi-
cal thirteenth book on the nature of the soul, De anima;
and he embarked on Expositio Psalmarum, a complete
commentary on the Psalms that was to occupy him until
- In Expositio Psalmarum he attempts to rework
Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmorum into a more
accessible form; Cassiodorus’s orderly method, didactic
approach, and reliance on allegorical and numerical
symbolism provided a model for medieval scriptural
exegesis.
Probably sometime before he moved to Constanti-
nople, Cassiodorus founded the monastery of Vivarium
on his family’s property in Squillace, on the southern
coast of Italy. In 554, he himself settled at the monastery.
He was a strong believer in institutionalized classical
and Christian education, and he fashioned Vivarium as
a theological school and scriptorium. Cassiodorus be-
lieved that the monastic ideal should emphasize study
above all. To that end, he arranged for the extensive
recopying of manuscripts, commissioned the transla-
tion of theological writings from Greek into Latin, and
produced his most important later work, Institutiones
divinarum et saecularum litterarum (Institutes Concern-
ing Divine and Human Readings, c. 562).
Institutiones provides a manual for monastic schol-
ars and copyists and explains the motivations behind
Cassiodorus’s library and school. In the fi rst book
Cassiodorus describes the manuscript collection at
Vivarium, indicates the methods copyists should adopt,
instructs his readers in the study of scripture, and identi-
fi es heretical works to be avoided. In the second book,
Cassiodorus sets forth his views on the seven liberal
arts, which he deemed necessary for the proper educa-
tion of Christian students. Institutiones included a de-
tailed bibliography on theology and the liberal arts that
would benefi t manuscript collectors for years to come;
and Cassiodorus’s concise examination of the liberal
arts infl uenced writers such as Isidore of Seville (Saint
Isidore, c, 560–636) and Rabanus Maurus (Hrabanus,
Rhabanus; c. 780–856).
Late in his life, Cassiodorus composed De ortho-
graphia, a spelling handbook to be used as a reference
by manuscript copyists.
With Cassiodorus’s death came the demise of the
monastery at Vivarium, but the manuscripts his scrip-
torium had produced circulated for years throughout
medieval Europe. His legacy, moreover, reaches beyond
these manuscripts. By founding his school within the
monastery itself, Cassiodorus helped to shape monasti-
cism as an educational movement. Monasteries like the
one at Vivarium became indispensable agents of the
transmission of classical and Christian thought in early
Christian Europe.See also Isidore of Seville, Saint; Rabanus MaurusFurther ReadingEditions of Cassiodorus
Chronica, ed. Theodor Mommsen. Monumenta Germaniae His-
torica, Auctores Antichissimi, 11. Berlin: Weidmann, 1894. De
anima, ed. James W. Halporn. Corpus Christianorum, Series
Latina, 96. Turnholt: Brepols, 1973.
De orthographia, ed. Heinrich Keil. Grammatici Latini, 7 Leipzig:
Teubner, 1880.
Expositio Psalmarum, ed. M. Adriaen. Corpus Christianorum,
Series Latina, 97–98. Turnholt: Brepols, 1958.
Institutiones, ed. Roger A. B. Mynors. Oxford: Clarendon, 1937.
Omnia opera, 2 vols. In Patrolgia Latina, 69–70. Variae,
ed. Theodor Mommsen and Ludwig Traube. Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, Autores Antichissimi, 12. Berlin: Wei-
dmann, 1894.
Variae, ed. Åke J. Fridh. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina,- Turnholt: Brepols, 1973.
Translations
Expositio Psalmarum, trans. Patrick G. Walsh. New York: Paulist,
1990–1991.
An Introduction to Divine and Human Reasoning, trans. Leslie
Webber Jones. New York: Columbia University Press, 1946.
Variae, trans. S. J. B. Barnish. Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 1992.
Critical Study
O’ Donnell, James J. Cassiodorus. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1979.
Jessica Levenstein
CASSIAN, JOHN