Intellectual Culture And Literary Practices 341
learning: focusing on the study of Holy Scripture, the course began with the
Psalms and progressed to patristic commentaries such as those by Ambrose,
Jerome, and Augustine. Cassiodorus wrote: “For commentary on Scripture is,
as it were, Jacob’s ladder, by which the angels ascend and descend [Gen. 28:12];
on which the Lord leans, stretching out his hand to those who are weary, and
supports the tired steps of those ascending by granting them contemplation
of Him.”113 He also summarized the decisions of the four church councils and
discussed different divisions of Scripture and provided concrete instructions
for correcting and emending the biblical text (from orthography and grammar
to punctuation marks and Hebrew names).114 By the end of book 1 Cassiodorus
listed additional texts that he considered useful for Christian studies. Among
these were historians such as Josephus, Eusebius, and Orosius; geographers and
cosmographers such as Julius Honorius, Dionysius Periegetes, and Ptolemy;
and medical writers such as Dioscorides and Galen.
In book 2 Cassiodorus addressed secular learning, arranging his material
in the order of the seven liberal arts. Drawing on a variety of sources from
Ammonius to Augustine and Boethius, Cassiodorus briefly described the con-
tents and goals of each discipline from grammar to astronomy and gave rec-
ommendations for readings. By the end of the section on astronomy, he thus
summarized his current position on the role of secular learning: “Now that we
have completed the discussion of secular teaching, it is clear that these dis-
ciplines bring considerable usefulness to our understanding of divine law, as
some of the holy Fathers also point out.”115
The hierarchy of Christian learning that Cassiodorus proposed in his
Institutions, with secular disciplines understood as the necessary steps lead-
ing to a better understanding of Scripture, largely relied on the authority of
Augustine. We do not know if the rather ambitious programme of studies that
Cassiodorus compiled for the monks of Vivarium ever became reality in his
lifetime, but Cassiodorus’ book 2, with its straightforward scheme of the lib-
eral arts and concise summaries of the contents of each discipline, became a
113 Cassiodorus, Institutiones 1, Preface 2, p. 4, trans. p. 106: “ista est enim fortasse scala Iacob,
per quam angeli ascendunt atque descendunt; cui Dominus innititur, lassis porrigens
manum et fessos ascendentium gressus sui contemplatione sustentans.”
114 Cassiodorus, Institutiones 1.15; Vessey, “Introduction”, pp. 53–4.
115 Cassiodorus, Institutiones 2.7.4, trans. p. 229: “His igitur breviter de doctrinis saeculari-
bus comprehensis, ostenditur quia non parvam utilitatem ad intellegentiam divinae legis
afferre noscuntur, sicut etiam a quibusdam sanctis Patribus indicatur.”