Complete Works of Cassiodorus, Vol. I

4. Finally, it is most evident that our most learned Abbot did not study only Augustine in these Commentaries; rather, he gathered in abundance the opinions of other holy Fathers, such as Cyprian, Origen, Athanasius, Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Leo, Chrysostom, Cyril, Didymus, Facundus, Primasius, Sedulius, etc. He used the works and authority of all these men just as he used Augustine’s. Our Venerable Bede even admits this: In the Exposition of the Psalms, which he made excellent, Cassiodorus looked diligently at what Ambrose, what Hilary, what Augustine, what Cyril, what John, and what the other Fathers had said.

However, we will not deny that the teaching of Augustine was familiar to our Senator, toward which he aimed more often in his other studies; but he did so by selecting what was most agreeable, not by choosing someone to whom he would cling more intensely and exclusively. He himself professes this willingly and gratefully regarding his own Commentary on the Psalms, which is the subject now, when he says: Borrowing light from light, as is customary, I have written some things from it, namely the Psalter, by the Lord's bounty. Lib. div. litt. ch. 4. Nor did he insist upon the footsteps of Augustine for any other reason than because he knew most steadfastly that Augustine had always opened the safest path, who, as he himself warns, is found to be wholly orthodox, wholly Catholic. In Preface to Comm. on the Psalms.

Now, there are not wanting some—supported by the Most Eminent Cardinal Baronius—who think that Cassiodorus did not undertake his Exposition on the Psalms of his own accord, but at the command of the Supreme Pontiff. They summon him as a witness when he speaks thus: In Preface to the Psalms. Wherefore, Apostolic Father, who by holy customs hast restored the heavenly letters, by the grace of God, provoked by your invitation, I shall enter the divine abysses: you who mercifully correct errors, nor sternly impute what you amend. The conjecture would indeed be weightier if one were to notice with us, what we read that no one had noted before, that in all his works Cassiodorus is addressed by such a title, Apostolic Father, by no one except St. Leo; for it is an indication that he turned his speech toward one of the Supreme Pontiffs.

It can be answered, however, that he intended such an address toward St. Jerome, cited a little earlier; and this is proven by the fact that the words by your invitation, and not provoked by the invitation, are read in the printed editions and in Baronius himself, by which he would only imply that he undertook the explanation of the Psalms following the example of Jerome. But in truth, the Senator indicates not obscurely that he applied his hand to this work not by another's impulse, but by his own, when he prefaces the Prologue at the very beginning thus: When I had tasted the honey of the heavenly Psalter, etc. Where he shows himself to have been sweetly drawn by their sweetness, so that he might open to his monks the richer delights of the hidden spirit under the veil of the letter, which he had happily foretasted. Who would also believe that a man of such polished, miraculous humanity, who lived constantly at the height of the Court, would address the Supreme Pontiff abruptly and—as they say—out of the blue, without having greeted him before; indeed, about whom he has not a single word before or after? Come, indeed, they want this to be Pope Agapetus. But how can it be that the Senator so ineptly addressed one who had already departed from the living for many years when he began the treatise on the Psalms? We do not wish to detract from the judgment of the readers here, so that his own opinion may remain for each.

Regarding the Commentary on the Song of Songs. Next to this Commentary on the Psalms, which is the genuine offspring of Cassiodorus, we have placed another on the Song of Songs, which we read inscribed with his name in our manuscript codices and in the German Edition, which—with the exception of the Rev. Father Philippe Labbé, S.J.—everyone who has provided a catalogue of the books of Cassiodorus has followed. Perhaps these final words of the Commentary on the Psalms deceived them: Now let us see the sayings of Solomon, which are known to have their own expositors. Cardinal Baronius, imbued differently by these words, sensed something else, namely that our Abbot of Vivarium wrote on the Parables of Solomon: but with such a singular assertion that no one besides him seems to have guessed it.

But many things demonstrate that these commentaries are a supposititious offspring of Cassiodorus. 1. For in this little work on the Canticles, Gregory the Great is cited, and especially on the Gospels, to which work he did not apply his hand until he was called to the Pontifical miter, which happened in the year of Christ 592, at which time at least 17 years had already elapsed since the death of Cassiodorus, whom the common opinion of authors holds was not alive in the year 575. 2. This commentary on the sacred Epithalamium differs much from the style and character of Cassiodorus’s writing. 3. Our Senator nowhere mentions that he wrote this treatise, and he maintains deep silence about it in the Preface to his book on Orthography: where he reviews all the books that the monk had published. Finally, it is characteristic of our Cassiodorus to present texts of Sacred Scripture according to the version of the 70 the Septuagint, unlike this fictitious one.