Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 17, 2025
The children of Clovis absorbed that kingdom also. But the strongest example of all remains. In vain, too, had Theodorick, after the murder of his rival Odoacer when an invited guest in the banquet of Ravenna, covered over the savage, and governed with wisdom and moderation a Catholic people, whom he soothed by choosing their noblest Cassiodorus, Symmachus, and Boethius for his ministers.
These carrels may be seen in unusual perfection in Gloucester. In very cold weather a small brazier of charcoal was also introduced. Cassiodorus writes thus of the privilege of being a copyist of holy books.
In all Benedictine monasteries flagellations ceased, discipline was relaxed, and the inmates were enjoined to use their energies in their work, and find peace by imitating God, and like Him creating beautiful things. Beautiful bookmaking traces its genesis almost directly to Benedict and Cassiodorus.
Whence did they come? An answer to that question has been offered recently which finds favour among experts. They are the relics, it is said, of the library formed by Cassiodorus at his monastery of Vivarium or Squillace, in South Italy. Cassiodorus is a great figure in the history of his own time, and in his influence upon the general course of learning.
A series of commentaries on portions of the Scriptures was written, the Jewish antiquities of Josephus translated, and the ecclesiastical histories of Theodoric, Sozomen, and Socrates made available in Latin. Cassiodorus himself is said to have made a compendium of these, called the "Historia Tripartita," which was much used as a manual of history during succeeding centuries.
There is happy probability that Cassiodorus lived out his life in peace; but the monastery did not long exist; like that of Benedict on Monte Cassino, it seems to have been destroyed by the Lombards, savages and Arians. No trace of it remains.
The literary services of the earlier monks did not consist in original production, but in the reproduction and preservation of the classics. This work was first begun as a part of the prescribed routine of European monastic life in the monastery at Vivaria, or Viviers, France, which was founded by Cassiodorus about 539.
Cassiodorus ascribes to Theodoric the words, "Let other kings seek to procure booty, or the downfall of conquered cities: our purpose is, with God's help, so to conquer that our subjects shall lament that they have too late come under our rule." He did what he could to promote peace among other barbarian nations.
"We have collated Capella with the several authors who have treated the same subjects: in the two first books with those who have written of the sentiments of the ancient Philosophers, Apuleius, Albricus, and others too tedious to name, on Grammar we have compared him with Grammarians: what he has said on Rhetoric, with Cicero and Aquila; on Logic, with Porphyry, Aristotle, Cassiodorus, Apuleius; on Geography, with Strabo, Mela, Solinus, Ptolemy, but chiefly Pliny; on Arithmetic, with Euclid; on Astronomy, with Hygin, and the rest who have treated that subject; on Music, with Cleonides, Vitruvius, Boëthius."
The letters of Cassiodorus, as his private secretary, counsellor, and intimate friend, remain to attest, with the force of an eye-witness, a noble Roman and a devoted Christian, who was also Patricius and Prætorian Prefect the nature of the government, as well as the state of Italian society at that time. We hardly possess such another source of knowledge for this century.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking