Complete Works of Cassiodorus, Vol. I

...so that through their erudition, the obscure elocution of Jornandes might become clearer.

Regarding the Commentaries on the Psalms.

The second volume encompasses those things which pertain to the Holy Scriptures or to their sacred study, which are preceded by merit and order by the illustrious Commentary on the Psalms, or Exposition of the Psalter. We know this excellent work of Cassiodorus the Senator was published nowhere except first at Basel, then at Paris, with Gothic characters and a more frequent abbreviation of letters. Consequently, because it was less accommodated to the uses of people of our time, and could scarcely, if at all, be found in major libraries, it left behind a great desire for itself among the learned. Therefore, so that such a lucid Exposition of the Psalms, elaborated with such great study by Cassiodorus, might not be missing to learned and pious men, I undertook the difficult task of publishing it again. This subsequently gave the first occasion for our labor in editing all the works of the author. Moreover, since our booksellers could not use the books published earlier due to the Gothic characters, faulty punctuation, frequent abbreviations, and countless other errors, I transcribed the Basel exemplar, which was less erroneous, entirely with my own hand, and compared and amended it to the fidelity of four manuscript codices of better quality. The first three of these exhibit the entire Commentary; the fourth, however, is mutilated in one part and does not exceed the first hundred Psalms. The first was supplied to Paris from the Library of Saint-Germain by the Reverend Father Lucas Dacherius; no one will deny that this codex was written about nine hundred years ago. The second, which we may conjecture was written five hundred years ago, we owe to the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity of Fécamp. The third, of almost the same age, was lent by the Monastery of the Blessed Mary of Lyre, which our Royal Abbey of Saint-Ouen of Rouen preserves, having been granted willingly. The fourth, also of advanced age, is from the Monastery of Bec. Having seriously consulted all of these, we diligently corrected more than six hundred places that were foully swarming with errors.

We also judged that the texts and passages of Holy Scripture, which are either cited wrongly or are missing in the two previous editions, should be rectified. This was not done without labor and weariness, due to the lack of concordances for the version of the 70 Interpreters The Septuagint, which Cassiodorus used as familiar and almost solely. I made it my concern to reduce his citations to the form of the Vulgate edition. We also had to uncover and eliminate the error of the manuscript codices, in which, through the drowsiness of the scribes, one Prophet is usually praised for another—Jeremiah for Isaiah or Daniel—which those who devoted effort to the Basel and Parisian editions had preferred to pass over. It is manifest which version of the Psalms our Cassiodorus the Senator followed in his commentaries: he adhered to the older Roman one. But as Faber Stapulensis testifies, he had compared it to the primordial purity of the previous editions which were then circulating, and the Hebrew text, as one can infer from chapter 16 of his Preface, and his commentary on Psalms 13 (verse 6), 54 (verse 3), etc. Hence it arises that the distinction of the verses of the Psalter is not always the same in Cassiodorus as is found in the Vulgate edition.

We have furthermore indicated other texts of the Holy Fathers, which the Senator indeed praised, but with the name of the book silent, and without indicated chapters, both in the manuscript codices and in the edited ones. For this reason, it was necessary for us more than once to turn over the entire treatises and books of the Fathers, so that the source being detected, the place of even one authority cited by Cassiodorus might be designated.

In the Preface to the Psalms, Chapter 16.

Certain recent authors think these Commentaries of Cassiodorus are a mere epitome of Augustine, which that most famous Doctor composed in a more prolix style: but that is invented entirely without cause. For, first, the version of the Psalms which Cassiodorus follows differs greatly from the one to which Augustine constantly adhered, as Faber Stapulensis noted before us: "Augustine," he says, "followed the old Psalter, which is less corrected than the others; Cassiodorus followed the Roman psalmody." Second, Cassiodorus lacked no expense and no study so that this Commentary might come into the public eye most absolute in its own measures. For this reason, having summoned those most skilled in the Hebrew language from everywhere, as he himself suggests, he compared whatever he wrote on the Psalms with their volume. A simple abbreviator of Augustine would have easily dispensed with all of these. Third, the Senator himself declares this more openly in his own words when he says: "It is such a thing to steal something from his sense, namely Augustine's, as it is to take the club from the hand of Hercules." And after a few words: "I have added certain things newly found after such a wonderful Master, solely by the presumption of the Lord, who gives confidence to the little ones, sight to the blind, etc."