Complete Works of Cassiodorus, Vol. I

...of those who compare this edition of ours, sincerely restored according to the faith of the manuscripts, with the additions of Rhenanus. Perhaps he will wonder why, for the most part, he the editor corrected nothing but certain words, which—because he judged them to be barbarisms and solecisms—had stirred his bile and stomach in a strange manner due to a certain most delicate fastidiousness. We do not deny that the version of Epiphanius has little of pure Latinity and much of Gothic barbarity; but he did not err so foully that the entire face of the work should perish on account of barbaric trifles and uncultivated speech, just as no one would rightly say that other Gothic writers should be removed from the public sphere for the same reason. Wherefore, we thought it would be pleasing to all learned men, for whom the reading of the original authors was always more important than that of the interpolators, if we were to restore the entire work—such as it is—of Cassiodorus the Senator and Epiphanius to its original integrity. This is especially true since it differs in sense from the version of the most learned Valesius in very few places, and we see that he himself, not unsuccessfully, made use of our interpreter in his own observations.

Therefore, an ancient codex of the Monastery of St. Mary of Lyra, written by an excellent hand some four hundred years ago, assisted in reforming this edition. No less useful was another manuscript from St. Theodoric near Rheims, which presents a character of approximately six hundred years of age. We cannot deny that in these manuscript codices there are found those figures of speech which Rhenanus called barbarisms and solecisms; but they are to be forgiven more kindly in a Latin interpreter writing among the Goths and for the Goths, who perhaps, in order to render the Greek phrase better, judged that word ought to be expressed for word.

The work of Rhenanus would indeed be most useful if he had corrected the faults of the scribes just as he did the Latinity of Epiphanius; for it is certain that many errors have crept into these books, which deceive readers and create no small difficulties. We are attempting to correct many things with the help of manuscript codices; yet it must be confessed that we have hesitated for a long time in two places in particular, which it is worth the reader’s effort to explain. The first occurs in a place in the Tripartita The Tripartite History, a work compiled by Cassiodorus, book 9, chapter 38, so famous in the disputes of so many scholars, where we read: For the Romans fast for three weeks before Easter, besides the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, in succession. However, the Lyra manuscript codex and the old edition, which came forth from other manuscript codices, have not three but six weeks. But we have hitherto doubted whether that reading should be admitted by us, since men of the highest learning argue that there is no error there in the Tripartita; but most suspect that the fault was committed either through the error of Socrates or the negligence of that historian. However, having seriously weighed the matter for a long time, we have inserted the reading of our manuscript and the old edition into our text; to which not only the authority of both induced us, but truly weightier reasons. 1. Because very many learned men have excellently proven that a fast of six weeks before Easter was observed at Rome in the time of Socrates. 2. Our Cassiodorus clearly teaches that the Romans fasted for as many weeks in the explanation of the title of Psalm 40, where he says: For forty days Saint Moses abstained from bodily food... In the same way Elias... The Lord himself also fasted for the same number of days and nights, to show us the form of blessed purification. We are taught Lent by his example. A time of abstinence is placed beforehand, so that, with the filth of sins washed away, we may approach the Resurrection of the Lord with pure minds. Cassiodorus would certainly not speak of a forty-day fast in such a way if the Romans had fasted for only three weeks in the time of Socrates, excluding the Sabbath and Sunday, that is, if they had fasted for only fifteen days before Easter; for he had lived with many who had flourished at Rome in the age of Socrates, from whom he had received without doubt what the observance of the Lenten fast was like among the Romans at that time. 3. It is most certainly established that some error of the writer must be acknowledged in that chapter of the Tripartita, which even the Heterodox those holding beliefs contrary to the established church themselves do not deny; for after the words cited above: The Romans fast for three weeks before Easter, besides the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, in succession, these things are read immediately after: They fast on all Sabbaths at Rome, and all the more during the time of Lent. Who therefore can know whether it was originally written there by Cassiodorus as six rather than three weeks, which was later changed either by the deceit or carelessness of the antiquarians.

Dissertation on the Sabbath fast.

We know indeed that the most learned Quenellius has solved the knot of this most complex difficulty, when he casts the entire error upon Socrates, a Greek man far removed from the city of Rome and deceived by false rumors, which he says was copied by Cassiodorus, not out of the vice of a malicious mind, but out of the duty of an expositor, because, since he was performing the office of an expositor there...