[[1.]] PL 69.49A-B: "Sed quia semel et secundo adhortatione nostra per fratres nostros episcopos, id est, Ioannem Marsicanum, et Iulianum Cingulanum, vel Sapatum filium nostrum atque diaconum, nec non et per gloriosum virum patricium Cethegum, et religiosum virum item filium nostrum Senatorem, aliosque filios nostros commoniti noluistis audire, et neque ad ecclesiam, neque ad nos reverti, sicut omnia facitis, volvistis detestanda superbia." Zacchaeus, bishop of Squillace, is also known to have been in Constantinople with Vigilius, subscribing to the pope's Constitutum de tribus capitulis (May 14, 553: Mansi 9.106A) and mentioned in a letter of Vigilius at about the same time (Mansi 9.359B); probably this is mere coincidence.

[[2.]] E. Stein, BARB, Ser. 5, 23(1937), 365-390, esp. 378-384; Stein also marshaled the evidence on Junillus' name in the same article.

[[3.]] On the Three Chapters controversy, see Fliche et Martin, 4.457-477.

[[4.]] Facundus is cited at Ex. Ps. 138.548-552; the dedication to Vigilius at Ex. Ps., praef. 121-124.

[[5.]] The Pragmatic Sanction: Corpus Iuris Civilis (ed. R. Schö11 and W. Kroll), Novellae app. VII (Aug. 13, 554).

[[6.]] The best study of Cassiodorus' Expositio is R. Schlieben, Cassiodors Psalmenexegese (Dissertation, Tubingen, 1970); an abridged version is also available: R. Schlieben, Christliche Theologie und Philologie in der Spätantike (1974), but all my references are to the fuller version. See also, less impressively, G.A. Löffler, Der Psalmenkommentar des M. Aur. Cassiodor Senator (Dissertation, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1920). A somewhat more technical, but very useful approach was taken by U. Hahner, Cassiodors Psalmenkommentar: Sprachliche Untersuchungen (1973); the first section, "Sprachliche Mittel der Exegese" (pp. 17-172), analyzes Cassiodorus' exegetical terminology, while the second, "Sprachlich-stilistische Untersuchungen" (pp. 173-325), analyzes his strictly linguistic habits. This very competent volume reached me after this chapter had been substantially completed; I will refer the reader to some of Hahner's discussions, since I have chosen not to use the material myself lest this chapter be swollen further.

[[7.]] H. de Lubac, Exégèse Médiévale (1959-1964).

[[8.]] The Vulgate is used exclusively in this chapter for numbers of Psalms and names of biblical books.

[[9.]] Inst. 1.4 (written in the 560's): "in omnibus tamcn beatus Augustinus studjose nimis latiusque tractavit; cx quibus iam duas decadas Domino praestante collegi."

[[10.]] Another Psalm chosen at random, number 109, on which Augustine discourses at much greater length than Cassiodorus, reveals three identical proof texts in their treatments of verse one, six for verse three, and one each for verses five, six, and seven.

[[11.]] For example, in his treatment of Psalm 109.3 (see the preceding note), Cassiodorus used six texts already used by Augustine and three more of his own; in 109.4, he used seven texts, none cited by Augustine.

[[12.]] The role of memory in scripture study at this time was still great; Augustine held (De doct. christ. 2.8.12-2.9. 14) that all scripture study should begin with intesive study and memorization of the text.

[[13.]] Protessor Halporn advises me, however, that Cassiodorus made considerable use, undetected by Adriaen, of Latin grammarians and rhetoricians, as well as more use of Marius Victorinus and possibly of Pelagius on Paul.

[[14.]] Ex. Ps., praef.. 16.17-29; Ex. Ps. 150.189-191; if the commentary was in fact written in the order we now have, the last lines of the last comment might well have been writtcn very shortly before the preface. Athanasius' epistle was available at the Vivarium: Inst. 1.4.3.

[[15.]] Ex. Ps., praef.., "Ordo Dicendorum," 1-51. (The words "Ordo Dicendorum" were inserted in the editio princeps; MSS give "Prolegomena.")

[[16.]] Cf. Jerome, Ep. 107.12, "Discat primo Psalterium .... "

[[17.]] Schlieben, Cassiodors Psalmenexegese (1970), 92.

[[18.]] For most of his name-interpretations, e.g., the "sons of Core," Cassiodorus followed the received opinion of the fathers as given in Augustine, with help from Jerome.

[[19.]] Cf Enarr. in Psal. 4.1, 139.3, and often elsewhere.

[[20.]] Hahner, Cassiodors Psalmenkommentar (1973), 65-96, treats this subject more fully.

[[21.]] Hilary of Poitiers seems to be his source for this information (Schlieben, Cassiodors Psalmenexegese [1970], 26), which he summarizes in the seventh chapter of the preface and again at Ex. Ps. 9.307-313, where he alludes explicitly back to the treatment in the preface.

[[22.]] I.e., both Nestorians and Monophysites; the rebuke of such heresy is a very common subject of conclusiones (see Ex. Ps., Praef. 14.23-25).

[[23.]] Ex. Ps. 81. 157-159: "Talis enim error est duas naturas divisas secundum duas personas in Christo Domino profiteri, qualis unam confusam credere, quamvis in unitate personae."

[[24.]] On Cassiodorus' terms for the senses of scriptural interpretation, see Hahner, Cassiodors Psalmenkommentar (1973), 28-65.

[[25.]] Lubac, Exégèse Médiévale, 1.129-169, catalogues the various ways of listing the senses and their implications.

[[26.]] A similar abandonment of the obvious historical reference of a Psalm takes place in the first lines of Cassiodorus' treatment of Psalm 95.

[[27.]] On Cassiodorus' varied terms for introducing and describing allegorical interpretations, see Hahner, Cassiodors Psalmenkommentar (1973), 132-165.

[[28.]] E.R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (1953), 41. 29. See also Ex. Ps., praef. 15.45-76; Inst., praef.. 6; Inst. 1.4.2. Cassiodorus' statement of this theory forces him to abandon the traditional patristic use of Romans 1.20 as a general theory of the availability of divine knowledge to the pagans. That passage, speaking of the invisible things of God being visible through the things that are made, never appears in the Expositio Psalmorum; it would, one sees, contradict Cassiodorus' belief that the scriptures themselves were known to all men. (Augustine does recommend the study of the Bible as a repository of rhetorical figures: De doct. christ. 4.2 and 4.20.) See also J.-M. Courtes, Revue des études latines, 42(1964), 361-375.

[[30.]] Curtius, op. cit., 448. Lubac, Exégèse Médiévale, 3.53-77, has once and (one hopes) for all removed clouds of misunderstanding from Gregory's passage in particular. In general, however, it should be noted that modern scholars agonize over medieval attitudes towards the classics more than the medieval authors themselves ever did.

[[31.]] The marginal signs are printed in the editio princeps and in Adriaen's edition. Professor Halporn advises me that they appear in all the best early MSS, a point on which Adriaen is misleading; he also points out their possible derivation from scholiastic tradition. The complete list of Cassiodorus' signs is as follows:

[[32.]] Many of (Cassiodorus' etymologies come from Varro, whether directly or by an intermediary. See G. Goetz, Berliner Philologische Wochenscrift, 30(1910), 1367-1368, and the dissertation that note inspired, H. Erdbrugger, Cassiodorus unde etymologias in Psalterii commentario prolatas petivisse putandus sit (1912). Erdbrugger examines 160 etymologies, of which 55 come from identifiable sources (or analogues), of which 41 are Varronian.

[[33.]] These propria genera locutionum are a common Augustinian notion (e.g., De vera religione 50.99), which Cassiodorus treated again at Inst. 1.15.

[[34.]] R. Schlieben, Cassiodors Psalmenexegese (1970), 170, 222.

[[35.]] I say "later" on the assumption, which this development of the conclusiones tends to support but does not prove, that the treatises in Ex. Ps. were written m the numerical order of the Psalms themselves.

[[36.]] These prayerful conclusions were useful independently as well, for devotional purposes, as shown by H. Ashworth, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 45 (1962-1963), 287-304.

[[37.]] Schlicbcn, Cassiodors Psalmenexegese (1970), 183.

[[38.]] Note the foreshadowing of the first words of the Athanasian Creed.

[[39.]] The chi-rho appears in the margin for a "dogma valde necessarium."

[[40.]] At Ex. Ps. 81.175-182, the same adjectives are rendered "inconfusas, immutabiles, indivisas, inseparatas."

[[41.]] See W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (1972), for a coherent account of the development of the theological pressures that Justinian felt.

[[42.]] Columbanus, Ep. 5.9 (ed. G.S.M. Walker [1957], 44, lines 25-28).

[[43.]] Jerome, Ep. 107.12. Ex. Ps., praef. 16.39-43: "Non enim tirones incohant a Genesi, non ab apostolo, non inter ipsa initia auctoritas evangelica sancta pulsatur; sed, licet psalterium quartus codex sit auctoritatis divinae, primum tamen tirones incohantes scripturas sanctas inde legendi faciunt decenter initium." This mention of the "fourth codex" probably identifies this passage as an insertion made at Squillace; cf Inst. 1.4.

[[44.]] The two mentions of thc canonical hours in Cassiodorus (Ex. Ps., praef. 77-82 and Ex. Ps. 118.3045-3048) are confused by manuscript interpolations and a mass of scholarship, of which chiefly see G. Morin, Rev. Ben., 43(1931), 145-152, and M.J. Cappuyns (completely off the mark), RTAM, 15(1948), 209-268.

[[45.]] This principle is put into practice, vividly and explicitly, by Augustine in his Confessions, 9.4.8-11.

[[46.]] There is a faint echo in this sentence of Romans 13.11, the beginning of the passage that Augustine picked up in the garden at Milan at the moment of his "conversion" (Conf. 8.12.29). There is a further parallel to Augustine in that in the corresponding position at the end of the Enarrationes there is a paragraph headed, "Sancti Aurelii Augustini Oratio quam post singulos sermones atque tractatus dicere consuevit," and which begins with the phrase, "Conversi ad Dominum Deum Patrem omnipotentem...."

[[47.]] Adriaen in CCSL 96.v.

[[48.]] Schlieben, Cassiodors Psalmenexegese (1970), 242.