paul meyvaert - bede, cassiodorus, and the codex amiatinus

Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus

By Paul Meyvaert

For Julian Brown, in memoriam

One of the natural shortcomings to which historians are prone is a failure to give ignorance its due, and to acknowledge the force of the haphazard in human affairs. We know that Bede was eager for knowledge and industrious in acquiring it. With respect to Cassiodorus, however, he labored under difficulties we have been slow to perceive. Before his eyes in his monastery at Jarrow lay an imposing volume that had taken shape under Cassiodorus's direction at Vivarium in southern Italy, but neither he nor his brethren, including their abbot Ceolfrith, who had bought the book in Rome, knew what it was that they possessed. For years they saw it only as a splendid old volume where all the books of the Bible had been assembled together between two covers, in a text they recognized as predating Jerome's Vul- gate. Bede had been a young boy when he accompanied Ceolfrith to Jarrow from Wearmouth; he grew to maturity in the presence of this volume, Cassiodorus's Codex Grandior, and his increasing acquaintance with it is reflected in his writings. Eventually its connection with Cassiodorus was recognized, although imperfectly. Over the years Bede's respect for Cassiodorus grew and deepened, but his knowledge remained limited to the end. The extent of that limitation and the understanding achieved despite it are examined in the following pages.1

1. THE INSTITUTIONES, A WORK OF CASSIODORUS UNKNOWN TO BEDE

A passage in Bede's commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah expresses his great respect for Cassiodorus. To understand this, we must remember that Bede never claimed to be an original writer, especially in matters relating to Christian teaching. Numerous passages, strewn throughout his works, show that he considered his task to be one of transmitting to his own generation the accumulated learning found in the writings of the church fathers.2 They were the authorities to whom he appealed, the men of true wisdom whose teaching he sought to convey to

1 In the notes that follow, CCSL = Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout, 1953-); CLCLT = Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts on CD-ROM (Turnhout, 1991); PL = J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus: Series Latina (Paris, 1844-55); and SC = Sources chretiennes (Paris, 1941-).

2 See especially Bede's prefaces to his commentaries on Genesis (CCSL 118A), the Canticle of Can- ticles (CCSL 119B), the Gospels of Luke and Mark (CCSL 120), the Acts of the Apostles (CCSL 121); also the prefaces to his De Templo (CCSL 119A) and the Thirty Questions on Kings (CCSL 119). He rejoices in viewing himself as patrum uestigia sequens. In Homeliae Evangelii 2.11 (CCSL 122, p. 258, 11. 191-92) he says, "Sed quia donante domino lectionem sancti euangelii patrum uestigia sequentes exponendo transcurrimus."

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus others. Cassiodorus shared a similar outlook; recognizing this, Bede rejoiced, and his veneration for the Roman senator grew. His allegorical interpretation of Ezra 6.8, which describes the taking of tribute from the king's chest for the building of the Temple, equates the Temple with the Church, Ecclesia, and interprets the verse as pertaining to those who build-that is, who educate and unite the church's members-by drawing on treasures found in the king's chest, namely, the works of great church fathers who lived in former times:

Sed dantur presbiteris, hoc est senioribus Iudaeorum, in sumptus operis templi dum his qui in Christi confessione praecesserunt magistris erudiendi atque ecclesiae membris adunandi committuntur. Qualis fuit Cassiodorus quondam senator repente ecclesiae doc- tor qui dum in expositione psalmorum quam egregiam fecit diligenter intuitus est quid Ambrosius quid Hilarius quid Augustinus quid Cyrillus quid Iohannes quid ceteri fratres dixerint edoctum se procul dubio a senioribus Iudaeorum, id est confitentium et laudan- tium Deum, probauit.3

Although Cassiodorus often appeals to one or another church father, there is a particular passage in the conclusion to his comments on Psalm 2 that Bede seems to have in mind here, although he is probably recalling the passage from memory:

Hoc pater Athanasius Alexandrinus, hoc Hilarius Pictauiensis, hoc Ambrosius Mediola- nensis, hoc Augustinus et Hieronymus, hoc Cyrillus, hoc alii multi patres ad tollendam quoque funditus occasionem inanissimae quaestionis. Hoc papa Leo cum sancta synodo Chalcedonensi decreuit atque constituit....4

The attractive portrait of Cassiodorus drawn by Bede lacks, however, one important component. Can we conceive that Bede would have praised the Roman senator for following the teaching of the Fathers, without ever mentioning his efforts to foster the monastic ideal at Vivarium, had he been aware of that aspect of Cassiodorus's career? If Bede is totally silent about Cassiodorus's contribution to monasticism, it would seem that he cannot have been familiar with Cassiodo- rus's Institutiones. A few scholars have held that Bede did know the Institutiones, but those who have studied him most closely deny this claim. Pierre Courcelle believed he could detect parallels between Cassiodorus's comments on Genesis in the Institutiones and Bede's preface to his own commentary on Genesis, but a close comparison of these texts fails to reveal any verbal dependency-we are dealing with a simple case of overlap: Cassiodorus lists the patristic works on Genesis at his disposal, and Bede does the same.s Bede's commentary on Genesis, moreover, shows that he knew and used the works he lists in his preface, so there is no need to assume that Cassiodorus's list, rather than the works themselves, served as Bede's source. Paul Lehmann, who explored Bede's works while prepar- ing his Cassiodorstudien, concluded that his knowledge of Cassiodorus derived

3 Bede, In Ezram et Neemiam 2 (CCSL 119A, p. 295, 11. 280-89). 4 Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum 2 (CCSL 97, p. 50, 11. 396-401). 5 Pierre Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en occident de Macrobe a Cassiodore (Paris, 1948), pp. 375-

76 and p. 375, n. 1.

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entirely from the commentary on the Psalms.6 M. L. W. Laistner did not include the Institutiones in his list of the books in Bede's library because he could find no evidence that Bede knew it.7 Carlotta Dionisotti hunted for evidence while pre- paring her study "On Bede, Grammar, and Greek" and ended by lamenting, "it was a mean trick of fate to deprive Bede of Cassiodorus's Institutes, in which he would have found so many of his interests warmly and sympathetically treated."8

Not a shred of evidence indicates that Bede ever encountered the Institutiones, and a number of circumstances demonstrate that he did not. We can begin with Bede's failure to mention Cassiodorus in the long chronicle that forms chapter 66 of his De temporum ratione; he knew the name but had no way of knowing when Cassiodorus had lived and therefore could not place him in the chronicle.9 He may have wondered about the Pater apostolicus being addressed in the preface to the Psalm commentary, but there was nothing there to tell him that this was Pope Vigilius (537-55), whom Cassiodorus had known in Constantinople.10 In the preface to his Institutiones Cassiodorus mentions his very close connection to one of Vigilius's predecessors, Pope Agapetus (535-36). Once in possession of this name, Bede would had had no problem situating Cassiodorus in his proper time since he possessed a copy of the Liber pontificalis and was also familiar with the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, where Agapetus is mentioned in connection with the emperor Justinian.1l We can conclude that Bede did not know the Institutiones.

Further evidence emerges from his scriptural commentaries, where Bede likes to note which patristic works he knew and used. Although Cassiodorus indicates in his Institutiones that Ambrose of Milan-one of Bede's favorite authors-gave an allegorical exposition of parts of the Canticle of Canticles in book 2 of his Patriarcharum,12 Bede fails to mention or use this work of Ambrose in his own allegorical commentary on the Canticle.13 In the prologue to his commentary on Ezra Bede is silent about the homilies on Ezra by Origen, which Cassiodorus's friend Bellator had translated into Latin.14 Again, Cassiodorus states that he had caused fifty-five homilies on the Acts of the Apostles by John of Constantinople

6 Paul Lehmann, Cassiodorstudien, in Erforschung des Mittelalters, 2 (Stuttgart, 1959), p. 85: "Beda ist der erste, der Cassiodor namhaft macht und ihn als Kirchenlehrer preist. Jedoch scheint sich seine Kenntnis auf das Erklarungswerk der Psalmem zu beschranken."

7 M. L. W. Laistner, "The Library of the Venerable Bede," in Bede, His Life, Times and Writings, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson (Oxford, 1935), p. 264, includes only the commentary on the Psalms and the Historia tripartita under Cassiodorus.

8 Carlotta Dionisotti,"On Bede, Grammar, and Greek," Revue benedictine 92 (1982), 129. 9 The opening words of the Psalm commentary must have led Bede to associate Cassiodorus with

Ravenna: "Repulsis aliquando in Rauennati urbe sollicitudinibus dignitatum et curis saecularibus noxio sapore conditis, cum psalterii caelestis animarum mella gustassem . ." (CCSL 97, p. 3, 11. 1- 3).

10 See Andre van de Vyver, "Cassiodore et son ceuvre," Speculum 6 (1931), 244-92, at p. 254. 1See Dialogues 3.3 (SC 260, p. 268): "Post non multum uero temporis, exigente causa Gothorum,

uir quoque beatissimus Agapitus, huius sanctae Romanae ecclesiae pontifex, cui Deo dispensante de- seruio, ad Iustinianum principem accessit."

12 Institutiones 1.6.4 (ed. R. A. B. Mynors [Oxford, 1937], p. 24). Nor does Bede refer to the other works on the Canticle listed in this section.

13 Bede, In Cantica Canticorum (CCSL 119B, pp. 167-375). 14 Institutiones 1.6.6 (ed. Mynors, p. 27).

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(Chrysostom) to be translated into Latin,15 but the only work on Acts to which Bede can refer in his preface to his commentary on Acts is the long poem by Arator.16 Similarly, in the preface to his commentary on the Catholic Epistles, Bede is silent about the works on these Epistles by Clement of Alexandria, Didymus the Blind, and Augustine (on the letter of James), which Cassiodorus lists in his Institutiones.17 More striking still is Bede's failure to mention Augustine's De diuersis quaestionibus ad Simplicianum in his preface and commentary on 1 Sam- uel, since Cassiodorus had singled out the particular verses of 1 Samuel for which this work of Augustine was helpful.18 The same can be said about other pointers that Cassiodorus provides regarding Latin patristic works, for example, on Prov- erbs and Tobit: Bede fails to follow these indications in his own commentaries on these books of Scripture.19

Browsing through Bede and recalling Cassiodorus, one encounters one topic after another on which Cassiodorus gives information that Bede would surely have repeated in one form or another had he known the Institutiones. One such topic of particular interest to Bede was that of the mendosus codex: when is it legitimate to correct a scriptural manuscript suspected of containing faulty readings?20 Cas- siodorus has a very long chapter on this very topic, entitled "Sub qua cautela relegi debeat caelestis auctoritas," where he discusses the many aspects of the question. There is not a hint that Bede had ever seen this chapter, which would have provided the guidance he longed for.21 In all these cases (and this applies especially to one instance to be treated later),22 Bede's failure to use the Institutiones becomes strong positive proof that he had never encountered this work. The Institutiones of Cas- siodorus was not present in the monastic libraries of Monkwearmouth or Jarrow.23 We will need to keep this fact constantly in mind as we proceed; it will force us to examine certain questions with renewed caution. Any study that makes the Institutiones the basis of its arguments in dealing with Bede or the products of his scriptorium, like the Codex Amiatinus, is basically flawed if it cannot at the same

15 Institutiones 1.9.1 (ed. Mynors, p. 33). 16 See Bede, Expositio Actuum Apostolorum, "Praefatio" (CCSL 121, p. 3). 17 Institutiones 1.8.4-6 (ed. Mynors, pp. 29-30). For Bede's prologue to the Catholic Epistles see

CCSL 121, pp. 181-82. 18 Institutiones 1.2.2 (ed. Mynors, p. 16). For Bede's commentary on 1 Samuel see CCSL 119. 19 For Proverbs see Institutiones 1.5.1-2, and for Tobit Institutiones 1.6.4. For Bede's commentaries

on these books of Scripture see CCSL 119B. 20 On this topic see P. Meyvaert, "Bede the Scholar," in Famulus Christi: Essays in Commemoration

of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede, ed. Gerald Bonner (London, 1976), pp. 47-51.

21 Institutiones 1.15 (ed. Mynors, pp. 41-51). 22 See below at n. 44. 23 Bonifatius Fischer, "Codex Amiatinus und Cassiodor," in Lateinische Bibelhandschriften im friihen

Mittelalter (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1985), p. 22, n. 3, points to a verbal similarity between the anonymous Life of Ceolfrith ("ex Hebreo et Greco fonte transfusus") and Institutiones 1.12.2 ("de Hebreo fonte transfuderet"). This, however, is insufficient evidence to prove a direct connection. According to the CLCLT, Bede three times uses similar expressions ("ex Hebreo fonte transfusi," "ex Hebraeo fonte transfusa," "de Hebraeo fonte transfusis") in parallel with Isidore's Etymologies ("ex Hebraeo in La- tinum eloquium easdem Scripturas conuertit, eloquenterque transfudit") and Gregory the Great's Mo- ralia ("ex Hebraeo ... eloquio cuncta uerius transfudisse perhibetur," "in Latina lingua transfusum"). Use of transfundere to indicate a translation would naturally suggest source (fons).

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus 831 time provide indubitable proof that this work was circulating in Northumbria in Bede's day.24

2. WORKS OF CASSIODORUS KNOWN TO BEDE

Which works of Cassiodorus did Bede know? He certainly knew the commentary on the Psalms (Expositio Psalmorum), in its longer version.25 An abbreviated version of this commentary circulated in Northumbria close to Bede's time. There is reason to think, however, that this abbreviated version slightly postdates Bede, and that the full version of the Psalm commentary was the only one he knew or used.26 Bede did have a copy of the Latin version of the Antiquities of Josephus, commissioned by Cassiodorus, but since the senator's name was lacking in the title of the work (and since he lacked the Institutiones) he cannot have been aware of the connection.27 It would certainly have interested him, since he made extensive use of the Antiquities and held the Jewish historian in high esteem: "reuoluamus scripta Iosephi quo doctior de talibus post diuina eloquia nemo facile repperitur."28 As regards Cassiodorus's Tripartite History, thought by Laistner to be the source of a tradition Bede records about John the Baptist's burial and later exhumation,29 his actual source for this story is now known to have been the Historia ecclesiastica of Eusebius in the version of Rufinus. Bede's many references to the Historia ecclesiastica, in fact, all turn out to be references to Rufinus's work. Wilhelm Levison

24 Otto-Karl Werckmeister made much use of the Institutiones in his Irisch-northumbrische Buch- malerei des 8. Jahrhunderts und monastische Spiritualitit (Berlin, 1967), relying entirely on Courcelle's study cited above (see n. 5) as proof that Bede had known this work. See my review of this work in Speculum 46 (1971), 408-11. I much regret to find myself in basic disagreement with the article by Karen Corsano, "The First Quire of the Codex Amiatinus and the Institutiones of Cassiodorus," Scriptorium 41 (1987), 3-34, which is built on the premise that the Codex Grandior never reached Northumbria and that everything is to be explained on the basis of the Institutiones. I use the word "regret" designedly here, since despite my disagreement with many of its conclusions, I have found this to be a most stimulating article, often helping me to open up some new avenue of enquiry, and constantly, through its challenging statements, forcing me to examine an "accepted" position more critically. Where I do fully agree with Corsano is in her statement that the Codex Amiatinus cannot be accepted a priori as a faithful replica of the Cassiodoran model on which it relied, for her the Institutiones, for me the Codex Grandior. One must remain continuously alert concerning possible alterations made at Wearmouth-Jarrow to the model being followed.

25 See Richard N. Bailey, "Bede's Text of Cassiodorus's Commentary on the Psalms," Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 34 (1983), 189-93.

26 This was the conclusion Richard N. Bailey reached in his Jarrow Lecture of 1978: see The Durham Cassiodorus (Jarrow, Eng., 1978).

27 Cassiodorus, Institutiones 1.17.1: "hunc tamen ab amicis nostris, quoniam est subtilis nimis et multiplex, magno labore in libris viginti duobus converti fecimus in Latinum" (ed. Mynors, p. 55). See the introduction of Franz Blatt to his critical edition, The Latin Josephus (Copenhagen, 1958), pp. 25-94, where all the manuscripts are listed and analyzed. None carries the name of Cassiodorus in its title. As regards Bede's use of the Antiquities see Heinz Schreckenberg, Die Flavius-Josephus- Tradition in Antike und Mittelalter (Leiden, 1972), pp. 107-9.

28 Bede, In 1 Samuelem 2 (CCSL 119, p. 69, 11. 45-47). 29 See "The Library of the Venerable Bede," p. 245 and n. 1, giving a reference to Bede's commentary

on Mark (PL 92:190D). This corresponds to CCSL 120, where the correct reference to Rufinus is given on p. 509, 11. 811-25.

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832 Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus therefore rightly concluded that Cassiodorus's Historia tripartita remained unknown to Bede.30 The same must be said about Cassiodorus's De orthographia, another work of which Bede would have made abundant use had he known it. Lehmann has shown that the Cassiodoran elements in Bede's didactic works all derive from the senator's commentary on the Psalms.31 This was unquestionably the work of Cassiodorus with which Bede was most familiar.32

Bede makes two other explicit references to Cassiodorus, but they concern not written works but images (picturae). It is essential to approach these references within a chronological framework. We know from Cassiodorus's Institutiones and his commentary on the Psalms that he had caused images of the Tabernacle and Temple to be painted and inserted at the beginning of his Codex Grandior.33 Through Bede we know that Ceolfrith-at the time still prior of the Wearmouth community-accompanied Benedict Biscop, the founder of Wearmouth, on the latter's fifth journey to Rome in 679-80.34 While in Rome Ceolfrith acquired a Latin pandect containing the uetus translatio of the Bible, which he brought back with him to Northumbria.3s It would seem that there was a considerable lapse of time before the Wearmouth community came to realize that this manuscript had formerly belonged to Cassiodorus. Evidence for this can be found in Bede's Thirty Questions on the Books of Kings, written for his friend the London priest Not- helm; this work has received little attention and has never been fully studied. It probably dates from c. 715, a decade earlier than the date assigned to it by Laist- ner.36 We know that Bede had completed three of the four books of his commen-

30 W. Levison, "Bede as Historian," in Bede, ed. Thompson, p. 133. 31 Lehmann, Cassiodorstudien, pp. 86-88. 32 Caution is needed when using C. W. Jones's editions of Bede's didactic works in CCSL (123A-

123C). The editor was prone to giving an overabundance of references, which on closer scrutiny often fail to show real dependence. There is unquestionably an overlap among many of the grammatical works: the problem then becomes one of discerning which source was really being used. Of the twenty- five references Jones gives to Cassiodorus's De orthographia in his index (CCSL 123C, pp. 725-26), not a single one demonstrates that Bede was using this work rather than one of the other parallel treatises. In the one instance where Cassiodorus figures alone among the sources he is obviously not the source Bede was using (CCSL 123A, p. 13: Bede has "Baluae, id est thyrae, per 'b' incipiant." Cassiodorus has "Baluae id est ianuae"). For further criticism of Jones's CCSL editions see the article of C. Dionisotti cited above in n. 8 (esp. pp. 111-12, 134).

33 See below at n. 41. 34 Concerning the date of this journey see Peter Hunter Blair, The World of Bede (London, 1960),

p. 168: "We do not know when the travellers set out, but we do know that when they reached Rome the papacy was occupied by Agatho who was elected only in the summer of 678, and we know also that they were back in England by 679 or early in 680."

35 On this see below at n. 48. For the Lateran as a possible source from which this Bible came see Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en occident, pp. 373-74. If the Lateran was the main source for all the books acquired in Rome and brought back to Northumbria, it is surprising that Bede does not tell us this, since he likes to underline benefactions that derived from the papacy. There were probably many sources in Rome from which manuscripts could be obtained for a good price, and we know that Benedict Biscop was wealthy.

36 In Regum Librum XXX quaestiones was edited by David Hurst in CCSL 119, pp. 289-322, who repeats (p. v) the date of 725 given by M. L. W. Laistner in A Hand-List of Bede Manuscripts (Ithaca, N.Y., 1943), p. 62. Laistner's conclusion was not based on a thorough study of the work. The Thirty Questions dates from around 714-15 and belongs to the period when Bede was composing books 1 through 3 of his commentary on 1 Samuel; I discuss the question of the date in "The Date of Bede's Thirty Questions on Kings to Nothelm" (to appear in 1997).

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tary on 1 Samuel by early June of 716, when Ceolfrith suddenly announced that he was leaving Northumbria to end his days in Rome.37 This would suggest that the commentary was begun about 714. It can be shown that the Thirty Questions on Kings was composed after Bede had finished book 1 but before he had completed book 3 of the commentary. A date of 715, therefore, seems likely for the replies to Nothelm. In the eighteenth reply he deals with some verses of chapter 11 of 4 Kings having to do with events that occurred in Solomon's Temple.38

Whenever he touches on matters concerning the Temple, we become aware that Bede seems to have an extraordinarily lucid picture in his mind of the whole topography of the Temple complex. Here he proceeds to give Nothelm a detailed description of the Temple layout, but realizing that he cannot point to a particular text of Scripture that might provide this detailed knowledge he makes the following comment:

Quorum omnium in libro paralipomenon ita generalis fit mentio, "Dedit autem Dauid Salomoni filio suo descriptionem porticus et templi et cellariorum et caenaculi et cubi- culorum in aditis et domus propitiationis nec non et omnium quae cogitauerat atriorum et exedrarum per circuitum in thesauros domus domini in thesauris sanctorum," sed Iosephi scriptura uel pictura ab antiquis formata plenius quo sint haec ordine facta distinguit.39

Bede is therefore appealing here both to the writings of Josephus and to a pictura ab antiquis formata as his main sources for information on this matter, without making it completely clear which elements of the description he owed to Josephus and which to the pictura ab antiquis formata. Nor does he tell us where this pictura was to be found.

When he next returned to this topic, in his treatise on the Temple of Solomon- dating from around 729-31-we find an important change. The same information about the Temple layout is given, but now it is linked, not to an anonymous pictura ab antiquis formata, but directly to Cassiodorus:

Has uero porticus Cassiodorus Senator in pictura templi quam in pandecte posuit ut ipse in psalmorum expositione commemorat triplici ordine distinxit.... Haec ut in pictura Cassiodori distincta repperimus breuiter adnotare curauimus rati eum ab antiquis haec Iudaeis didicisse neque uirum tam eruditum uoluisse in exemplum legendi propo- nere quae non ipse prius uera esse cognouisset.40 What had happened in the interval, close to fifteen years, between the Thirty

Questions on Kings and the treatise De Templo? In his continuing exploration of Cassiodorus's commentary on the Psalms, Bede must have come upon a brief remark on Psalm 86:

37 See Bede's opening comments in book 4 of his commentary: CCSL 119, p. 212. Bede had been linked to Ceolfrith since his boyhood days, and his abbot's sudden departure for Rome in 716 deeply upset him. It took him a while to recover and resume work on book 4 of the commentary.

38 CCSL 119, pp. 311-13. 39 Ibid., p. 312, 11. 52-59. Here and throughout this article I have italicized key phrases in quoted

matter. 40 De Templo 2 (CCSL 119A, pp. 192-93,11. 28-30, 48-52).

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus Nos enim et tabernaculum, quod eius imago primitus fuit, et templum ipsum fecimus pingi et in pandecte nostro corpore grandiore elegimus conlocare; quatenus quod scripturae diuinae de ipsis textus eloquitur, oculis redditum clarius panderetur.41

The lapse of time is not to be wondered at. Which of us knows the full contents of all the books on our study shelves? Our acquaintance with these volumes is usually a gradual process. For Bede, moreover, there were special difficulties. He belonged to a community of twin monasteries, each with its own library. The distance between them is six or seven miles as the crow flies, but ease of travel would have been somewhat dependent on the season, and the books Bede wanted to consult may not always have been immediately at hand.

In his commentary on Psalm 14, where the word tabernaculum occurs, Cassi- odorus had likewise inserted an allusion to the image of the Tabernacle he had placed in the Codex Grandior.42 Although at this juncture he does not specifically mention the image of the Temple, his statement that his image was inserted at the beginning of the pandect ("quod nos fecimus pingi et in Pandectis maioris capite collocari") would have been sufficient to alert Bede or one of his brethren to this indication of the former ownership of their pandect. One can also suspect that if the reference to Psalm 14 was the first to be encountered, it would have provided a spur to further exploration of this work of Cassiodorus, in search of similar information.

Bede's eventual identification of the pictura ab antiquis formata with the image Cassiodorus placed in his pandect tells us where this image was located, namely, in the pandect with the uetus translatio that Ceolfrith had brought back from Rome; we know from Cassiodorus himself that the Codex Grandior was the one that contained the uetus translatio.43 It is important to note that Bede mentions only Cassiodorus's commentary on the Psalms as the source of his information.44 Had he known the Institutiones, where Cassiodorus again speaks of inserting

41 Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum 86 (CCSL 98, pp. 789-90, 11. 40-44); I incorporate here the corrections to the text proposed by James H. Halporn, "Pandectes, Pandecta, and the Cassiodorian Commentary on the Psalms," Revue benedictine 90 (1980), 290-300. In his Institutiones (1.5.2) Cas- siodorus wrote, "[Eusebius] commonuit etiam tabernaculum templumque Domini ad instar caeli fuisse formatum; quae depicta subtiliter lineamentis propriis in pandecte Latino corporis grandioris com- petenter aptaui" (ed. Mynors, p. 23). The wording of this passage has sometimes been interpreted to indicate only one single image (of the Tabernacle combined with the Temple) in the Codex Grandior. Taken in conjunction with the passage in the Psalm commentary there can be no doubt whatever that Cassiodorus is referring to two distinct images, both of which were examined and described by Bede.

42 CCSL 97, p. 133,11. 43-45: "De quo [Tabernaculo] etiam et Iosephus in libro Antiquitatum tertio, titulo septimo, diligenti narratione disseruit, quod nos fecimus pingi et in Pandectis maioris capite collocari." Van de Vyver has shown that Cassiodorus's method often led him to add marginal comments to works previously composed. The Psalm commentary dates from before the foundation of Vivarium and the making of the pandects, and this notation gives every appearance of being such a later addition: see "Cassiodore et son ceuvre," pp. 272-80; see also, by the same author, "Les Institutiones de Cas- siodore et sa fondation a Vivarium," Revue benedictine 53 (1941), 59-88, at pp. 59-76. 43 Institutiones 1.14.2 (ed. Mynors, p. 40): "Tertia vero divisio [secundum LXX] est inter alias in codice grandiore ... conscripto...."

44 The article on the date of Bede's Thirty Questions on Kings to Nothelm (see n. 36, above) will show that two stages in Bede's use of Cassiodorus's Psalm commentary need to be distinguished.

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images both of the Tabernacle and the Temple into his Codex Grandior, he would certainly have mentioned this source. And he would undoubtedly also have mentioned the role played by the blind Eusebius, whose visit to Vivarium and eloquent discourse had caused the senator to have the two images prepared.45

While the images of the Tabernacle and Temple helped to identify the former owner of Wearmouth-Jarrow's ancient pandect, we must be careful not to read too much into this finding. The danger for the modern historian, aware of all the sources and here, in particular, of the information given in the Institutiones, will be to draw more from the evidence than it warrants. Without the Institutiones at their disposal Bede and his community could not have known that Cassiodorus himself had been responsible for producing the Codex Grandior. Indeed Bede must have concluded, from the manner in which Cassiodorus phrased his two statements in the Psalm commentary, that the senator had simply inserted these images into a large Bible already in his possession;46 the fact that he mentions the insertion of only two images would have reinforced this impression. Bede, whose knowledge of Cassiodorus seems to have been completely confined to what he could draw from the Psalm commentary, had no reason to hold the Roman senator responsible for other images or diagrams found in the Codex Grandior. He and his community knew from a simple comparison of the text with the manuscripts of Jerome's Vulgate that its text was that of the uetus translatio, predating Jerome, and this naturally led them to view their manuscript as one of great antiquity (ab antiquis formata). It is from this perspective that we must imagine Bede and his brethren examining the contents of their ancient pandect-with great reverence, interest, care, and continuing puzzlement.

3. THE CODEX GRANDIOR, MODEL FOR CEOLFRITH'S NEW PANDECTS

Were the anonymous Life of Ceolfrith our only source, we would never have known that it was he who acquired the pandect in Rome, but only that he had caused three new pandects to be made:

45 Institutiones 1.5.2 (ed. Mynors, pp. 22-23). According to Cassiodorus this blind Eusebius came "de partibus Asiae ... ad nos." The very sparse details relating to his discourse on the Tabernacle and Temple must be noted: "commonuit etiam tabernaculum templumque Domini ad instar caeli fuisse formatum. ..." The dates for Eusebius's visit must fall between the foundation of Vivarium (c. 540) and the completion of the Institutiones (post-551). It is around this very same period (c. 547) that the Alexandrian merchant Cosmas Indicopleustes was composing his Christian Topography, whose central thesis concerned the Old Testament Tabernacle viewed as a model of the universe (z6ino zov oipavov)-ad instar caeli! The drawings of the Tabernacle found in Cosmas's work will be referred to below. His theological speculations are connected with Mar Aba and the school of Nisibis. It is tempting to link the theories of the blind Eusebius (de partibus Asiae) with this same school, especially since Cassiodorus opens his introduction to the Institutiones with a word of praise for the flourishing school of Nisibis. For dates concerning Cassiodorus, see the two articles by Andre van de Vyver cited above, nn. 10 and 42. On Cosmas Indicopleustes and his background see Wanda Wolska, La "Topo- graphie chretienne" de Cosmas Indicopleustes (Paris, 1962) and, as Wanda Wolska-Conus, her three- volume edition (with a long introduction) of the Topographie chretienne (SC 141, 159, 197).

46 See the text quoted above at n. 41.

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus ... bibliothecam, quam de Roma uel ipse [Ceolfridus], uel Benedictus adtulerat, nobiliter ampliauit, ita ut inter alia tres Pandectes faceret describi, quorum duo per totidem sua monasteria posuit in aecclesiis, ut cunctis qui aliquod capitulum de utrolibet Testamento legere uoluissent, in promtu esset inuenire quod cuperent; tertium autem Romam pro- fecturus donum beato Petro apostolorum principi offerre decreuit.47

Bibliotheca here simply means "library," as it does in Bede's text quoted next; it does not have the special connotation of "Bible" acquired in some regions. Bede, on the other hand, was intent in his Historia abbatum on linking all four pandects with the name of his abbot:

... bibliothecam utriusque monasterii, quam Benedictus abbas magna caepit instantia, ipse [Ceolfridus] non minori geminauit industria; ita ut tres pandectes nouae translationis, ad unum uetustae translationis quem de Roma adtulerat, ipse super adiungeret; quorum unum senex Romam rediens secum inter alia pro munere sumpsit, duos utrique monasterio reliquit....48

Bede, therefore, is our only source for confirming that it was Ceolfrith, not Benedict Biscop, who acquired the pandect with the uetus translatio in Rome and brought it back to Northumbria. When he accompanied Biscop in 679-80, Ceol- frith was prior of Wearmouth. Not long after returning home, Biscop appointed him abbot over the small group, including the young Bede, sent north from Wear- mouth to establish their new monastic foundation at Jarrow, on the southern bank of the river Tyne.49 Bede's narrative implies a certain possessiveness on Ceolfrith's part toward his pandects, and we must assume that on moving to Jarrow Ceolfrith took his Roman pandect with him. The Wearmouth-Jarrow communities were familiar with the story of abba Gelasios placing a complete Bible in the church "so that any of the brethren who wished to read it could do so."S When the new church of Jarrow was consecrated on 23 April 685, we can therefore imagine Ceolfrith's pandect finding a place of honor in the new building.s1 Bede lived in immediate proximity to this manuscript, and this no doubt explains his great familiarity with its images of the Tabernacle and Temple. In 689, a year before his death, Biscop appointed Ceolfrith to be abbot of both communities, Wear- mouth and Jarrow. It was no doubt this new double responsibility that led Ceol- frith to conceive the plan of endowing each of his monastic churches with a new pandect containing the preferred text for the Bible, namely, Jerome's noua trans-

47 Historia abbatum auctore anonymo 20 (ed. C. Plummer [Oxford, 1896], p. 395). For community use of a Bible placed for that purpose in the church, see the Verba seniorum (on Gelasios): "Continebat [codex] vetus et novum Testamentum totum; et positus erat Codex ipse in ecclesia, ut qui vellet de fratribus legeret" (PL 73:969C).

48 Bede, Historia abbatum 15 (ed. Plummer, pp. 379-80). 49 On the foundation of Jarrow see Hunter Blair, The World of Bede, pp. 175-83. 50 See n. 47 above. 51 We know the date from the dedication stone that still survives, now set in the wall above the

chancel arch of St. Paul's, Jarrow: see The Anglo-Saxons, ed. J. Campbell, et al. (Oxford, 1982), p. 75. I recognize a certain weakness in this suggestion, pointed out by one of the early readers of the article: it is more likely that the decision to follow the example of abba Gelasios and place a Bible in each of the two monastic churches followed the production of Ceolfrith's first two pandects, since they contained the text of the Bible that enjoyed the greatest approval, namely, Jerome's Vulgate.

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus 837 latio. The plan must have come to maturity while Ceolfrith watched the writing skills of his two monastic scriptoria develop and blossom. Given the amount of material and labor involved, the project (even if begun soon after his appointment) must have taken many years to complete.52

Bede's account suggests that the Codex Grandior served Ceolfrith as the model for the new pandects he produced. The idea of putting all the books of the Bible between two covers was not entirely new, but for this Northumbrian community the Codex Grandior was probably the first physical example they had seen. Since they viewed it as a manuscript of great antiquity (ab antiquis formata), they must have held it in great reverence, worthy of being imitated.53 Among the changes projected was that of replacing the uetus translatio with Jerome's noua translatio or Vulgate text.54 It was also decided to depart from the model in another respect; the Codex Grandior was almost certainly not written per cola et commata,55 but Jerome was known to favor this presentation at least for some of the biblical books, and this disposition of the text must have appealed to an Anglo-Saxon community for which Latin was not the mother tongue. Apart from these differ- ences, the Codex Grandior undoubtedly loomed large as a prototype for the new pandects.

First, as regards size: Cassiodorus, in his Institutiones, tells us that his codex

52 On the problem of dating Amiatinus and its sister pandects see now the comments of Richard Marsden, The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, Eng., 1995), pp. 98- 106. Any calculation involving time should take into account the difficulty of writing during the cold winter months. We know this from the letter sent by Cuthbert, abbot of Wearmouth, to St. Boniface in 764: "the conditions of the past winter oppressed the island of our race very horribly with cold and ice and long and widespread storms of wind and rain, so that the hand of the scribe was hindered from producing a great number of books": cited from English Historical Documents, 1: C.500-1042, ed. D. Whitelock (London, 1968), p. 766.

53 That the Codex Amiatinus is the work of English scribes is no longer in doubt. In seeking to determine which models may have helped the Wearmouth-Jarrow scriptorium to develop its own type of uncial, the Codex Grandior should be kept in mind. Cassiodorus tells us only that it was "littera clariore conscripto" (Institutiones 1.14, ed. Mynors, p. 40). Given what we know of sixth-century manuscripts it seems more than likely that its main script was uncial. Since Ceolfrith had acquired the pandect in Rome, it was probably viewed as a Roman manuscript, and therefore, like all things Roman, considered a model to be imitated. In his introduction to English Uncial (Oxford, 1960), E. A. Lowe failed to mention the possible influence of the Codex Grandior on the Wearmouth uncial. Others- without specifically alluding to Vivarium-have since pointed to some south-Italian manuscripts as being closest to the main script of Amiatinus: see the discussion in Marsden, The Text of the Old Testament, pp. 111-13. It is possible that the Codex Grandior used different forms of script for titles, summaries, etc., and this may have played a role in helping to shape the hierarchy of scripts found in Amiatinus.

54 In comparing the two passages cited above at nn. 47 and 48 we can note that Bede is the only one to inform us explicitly that Ceolfrith's pandects had the noua translatio.

55 I accept van de Vyver's conclusions concerning Cassiodorus's attitude toward the use of cola et commata for presenting a text. He writes, "il est hors de doute que le codex grandior de Vivarium pr6sentant l'antiqua translatio n'6tait pas dispose per cola et commata" ("Cassiodore et son ceuvre," p. 269). Cassiodorus was ready, but perhaps grudgingly, to follow Jerome in those cases where Jerome had used cola et commata in his translation of certain books of the Bible. Whether all the part-Bibles of the noua translatio used at Wearmouth-Jarrow to construct the new pandects had cola et commata we do not know. If they did not, Ceolfrith must have decided for reasons of consistency (as well as to facilitate the reading of the text) to apply the system to the whole Bible.

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus consisted of 95 quaterniones (760 folios).s6 Since the Codex Grandior's text was not written per cola et commata, we could expect the new pandects to be somewhat longer, since more space would be needed for the same amount of text. On the other hand, the size of the Codex Amiatinus, with its 1,030 folios in 131 gatherings, presents an enormous contrast with its prototype. We need to remember, however, that Amiatinus was the last pandect to be made, and that it was bulkier than its two earlier sister volumes. Amiatinus, in fact, needs to be considered somewhat apart.57 Ceolfrith had probably commissioned it from the first with the intention of making it a gift volume, perhaps when he originally conceived the plan-a plan not divulged to his community until it was put into execution-of ending his days in Rome.s8 This helps to explain some of its features. It uses fewer abbreviations than its sister pandects; its script is more stately and less cramped. The fact that some leaves survive from one of the earlier pandects would seem to provide grounds for a comparison, but Richard Marsden has recently shown that firm conclusions in this matter are not easy to reach.59 In his estimate, 1,029 leaves in Amiatinus would correspond to about 940 in the earlier pandect. This would result in 117 gatherings of 8 leaves, whereas Amiatinus presently has 131 quires. Allowing for the fact that a text written per cola et commata (Amiatinus) would need considerably more space than one not so arranged (Codex Grandior), we come closer to the number of gatherings (95) of Cassiodorus's great pandect. It seems legitimate to conclude that the Codex Grandior and the first two North- umbrian pandects probably resembled each other fairly closely as regards size.

What other features did the new pandects borrow from their model? From the Institutiones we know that in addition to the images of the Tabernacle and Temple the Codex Grandior contained illustrations of three divisions of Scripture, outlined by Cassiodorus in chapters 12-14 of his work. Of these, the Codex Amiatinus presents us only with an image of the Tabernacle and diagrammatic presentations of the three divisions of Scripture. It has other elements, however, not alluded to in the Institutiones, namely, a general preface and an image of Ezra. In the absence of the Codex Grandior itself, our task now becomes one of determining whether the material found in the opening pages of Amiatinus is of Cassiodoran origin, and whether those pages present a faithful or modified version of what was bor-

56 Institutiones 1.14.2 (ed. Mynors, p. 40). Marsden, The Text of the Old Testament, pp. 114 and 131, gives 380 folios, but this must be a slip since each quaternion had 4 bifolia, or 8 leaves.

57 find Marsden's analysis of the uniqueness and importance of the Codex Amiatinus fully persua- sive: see especially The Text of the Old Testament, pp. 103 and 105.

58 The account Bede gives of Ceolfrith's departure for Rome in the opening paragraph to book 4 of his commentary on 1 Samuel shows that the abbot's decision to leave took not only Bede but his whole community by surprise: see CCSL 119, p. 212. From the anonymous Life of Ceolfrith we know that his brother, Cynefrith, abbot of Gilling, had acted in a somewhat similar fashion, relinquishing his abbacy to end his days in Ireland, in the study of the Scriptures: see English Historical Documents, 1: C.500-1042, ed. Whitelock, pp. 697-98. In Ceolfrith's case, the pull was toward Rome rather than Ireland.

59 See, again, the excellent discussion in Marsden, The Text of the Old Testament, pp. 123-29. For a brief history of the twelve leaves presently in the British Library, see also Janet Backhouse's account in The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture, AD 600-900 (London, 1991), pp. 122- 23.

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus 839 rowed from Ceolfrith's ancient pandect, the Codex Grandior. Each feature will deserve separate consideration.

4. THE TRIPLE DIVISION OF SCRIPTURE

Let us turn first to the three divisions of Scripture.60 These are dealt with in chapters 12 to 14 of book 1 of the Institutiones and are listed as follows in the chapter headings, or tituli (to use Cassiodorus's own terminology), that precede the work: (12) "Divisio Scripturae divinae secundum sanctum Hieronymum"; (13) "Divisio Scripturae divinae secundum sanctum Augustinum"; (14) "Divisio Scrip- turae divinae secundum LXX."61 Cassiodorus indicates that he also placed these divisions in his Codex Grandior.62 We know from the evidence, especially of the Bamberg manuscript, that he liked to present divisions of this kind in a schematic form, and we can assume that he would have adopted a similar presentation for the Codex Grandior.63 The Amiatinus divisions therefore reflect what was in the Codex Grandior, though we have no way of knowing whether or not an attempt was made to improve the layout of the design on the page. Divergences between the text of Amiatinus and the Institutiones need to be treated cautiously: Cassi- odorus may have modified some of the wording of the Institutiones when pre- paring his diagrams for the pandect, or the text of the Codex Grandior may have been modified in Northumbria when copied into Amiatinus. The naming of the books of Scripture in each division is less important here than the short statements contained in rectangles placed at the bottom of each page of Amiatinus.64 These statements need to be compared with the Institutiones. In the transcriptions that follow, concerning the divisions linked to Jerome and Augustine, the text of the Institutiones is given first:

60 All three divisions are reproduced in J. J. G. Alexander, Insular Manuscripts, Sixth to the Ninth Century (London, 1978). Fig. 27 (opposite p. 27) shows "Augustine," illus. 24 "Jerome," illus. 25 "the Septuaginta." For reasons that will soon become obvious I adhere throughout to this last term of Cassiodorus, rather than to the "Hilary division" now prevalent in the literature. The same three illustrations are also found in R. S. L. Bruce-Mitford's Jarrow Lecture of 1967, "The Art of the Codex Amiatinus," Journal of the Archaeological Association, 3rd ser., 32 (1969), illus. C (opposite p. 8) "Septuaginta," plates IX and X "Jerome" and "Augustine."

61 Institutiones 1.12-14 (ed. Mynors, pp. 36-41). 62 This fact is acknowledged by Corsano, "The First Quire," p. 7: "In the Institutiones, Cassiodorus,

having just discussed three ways of dividing Scripture, mentions that he had all three types of divisions attached to his larger pandect." These divisions in the Codex Grandior then fade from sight for the rest of her article. No reason exists for refusing to consider the Codex Grandior as the vehicle that transmitted the three divisions of Scripture to Northumbria-particularly given the absence of the Institutiones there.

63 For the manner in which the divisions are shown in the Bamberg codex of the Institutiones see plates 2-4 of Corsano, "The First Quire." The Bamberg codex of the Institutiones is not the neatest of manuscripts, and one may suspect that the diagrams were more tastefully produced in Cassiodorus's own copy, as well as in the Codex Grandior.

64 See the illustrations listed above in n. 60. One should note how the opening words of each division in Amiatinus correspond exactly to what we find in the Institutiones: "Auctoritas divina" (c. 12, Jerome), "Scriptura divina" (c. 13, Augustine), "Scriptura sancta" (c. 14, Septuaginta). The Codex Grandior was being carefully copied here.

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus Divisio Scripturae divinae secundum sanctum Hieronymum

... qui colliguntur simul quadraginta novem. cui numero adde omnipotentem et indi- visibilem Trinitatem, per quam haec facta et propter quam ista praedicta sunt, et quinquagenarius numerus indubitanter efficitur, quia ad instar iobelei anni magna pietate beneficii debita relaxat et pure paenitentium peccata dissolvit.65 [Amiatinus] Sic fiunt ueteris nouique testamenti secundum hieronymum libri quadraginta nouem quibus adde dominum christum de quo et per quem ista conscripta sunt fit quinquagenarius numerus qui ad instar iobelei anni debita remittit et paenitentium peccata dissoluit.66

Divisio Scripturae divinae secundum sanctum Augustinum Beatus igitur Augustinus secundum praefatos novem codices, quos sancta meditatur

Ecclesia, secundo libro de Doctrina Christiana Scripturas divinas LXXI librorum calculo comprehendit; quibus cum sanctae Trinitatis addideris unitatem, fit totius librae competens et gloriosa perfectio.67 [Amiatinus] Sic fiunt ueteris noui que testamenti sicut pater augustinus in libris de doctrina christiana complexus est simul libri numero septuaginta uno quibus adde unitatem diuinam per quam ista completa sunt. Fit totius librae competens et gloriosa perfectio ipsa est enim rerum conditrix et uitalis omnium plenitudo uirtutum.68

In Amiatinus the little summary that follows the list of scriptural books begins each time (this also holds for the third division) with the phrase Sic fiunt ueteris nouique testamenti, and we can assume that this was Cassiodorus's doing. He was very fond of calling Augustine pater Augustinus.69 Likewise the sentence that com- pletes the Augustine synopsis is unquestionably his.70 Having stated that the Trin- ity was perfection (gloriosa perfectio), to which nothing therefore can be added, he reinforced this with a reflection similar to one he made in his commentary on Psalm 138: "Nam cum ad illum peruentum fuerit, non est ultra quod quaerere debeamus: quoniam ipse ad omnia sufficit, in quo est maiestatis cuncta perfectio et omnium plenitudo uirtutum."71

To achieve the desired numbers (fifty in the case of Jerome and seventy-two in

65 Institutiones 1.12.2 (ed. Mynors, p. 37); I adopt the reading "iobelei" of manuscripts B, G, H, since this coincides with the text of Amiatinus.

66 Quoted from Biblia Sacra, 1, ed. H. Quentin (Vatican City, 1926), p. xxiii (here and below abbreviations have been expanded). See n. 60 above for photographic reproductions of this folio. The full text of the Institutiones chapters and of the Codex Amiatinus, placed side by side, will be found in H. J. White, "The Codex Amiatinus and Its Birthplace," in Studia biblica et ecclesiastica, 2 (Oxford, 1890), pp. 292-93 (Jerome), 293-95 (Septuaginta), 296-97 (Augustine). See also Corsano, "The First Quire," pp. 25-27; her discussion of the three diagrams fills pp. 22-30.

67 Institutiones 1.13.2 (ed. Mynors, p. 39). 68 Biblia Sacra, ed. Quentin, l:xxiv. For the illustrations of this folio see n. 60 above. 69 Bede uses pater Augustinus only twice, while the CLCLT shows it occurs twenty-three times in

Cassiodorus's Psalm commentary. As regards the Institutiones (not available in the CLCLT), Mynors notes (p. 178) in the index rerum under pater, "usurpatur de Augustino saepissime, de Hieronymo quater, de Basilio semel." It is such patterns of usage that help to throw light on problems of authorship.

70 Corsano, "The First Quire," p. 26, writes, "Here the Amiatinus tag line is not found in Cassiodorus [Institutiones] and while appropriate as a comment on the Divine Unity is a non-sequitur in reference to the number 72." But the ipsa est can only refer to unitas diuina (Trinitas in the Codex Grandior) and so must be Cassiodorus's comment on the divine perfectio.

71 CCSL 98, p. 1241, 11. 8-11.

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus 841 the case of Augustine), Cassiodorus proposes adding the Trinity, viewed as unity, to forty-nine and seventy-one. In Amiatinus Christ is substituted for the Trinity in the Jerome summary, and divina unitas replaces the explicit mention of the Trinity in the Augustine summary. It is difficult to see what reasons Cassiodorus himself could have had for introducing these alterations into the summaries of his Codex Grandior. It seems more likely that someone at Wearmouth-Jarrow became a little uneasy about the explicit mention of the Trinity-even though the triune God was considered one-when only a single digit was needed to complete the arithmetical computation! The statement in the Jerome synopsis that the whole of Scripture was not only about Christ but had been brought into being by him, per quem ista conscripta sunt, coincides, moreover, as we shall see, with what Bede has to say about Ezra, representing Christ, who caused the books of the Old and New Testament to be written (Christus . . . fecit describi) through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon the writers of these books.72 We have some ground, therefore, for considering that the text of the Codex Grandior was modified here. This is also the case with respect to the division according to the Septuaginta (LXX):

Divisio Scripturae divinae secundum LXX Scriptura sancta secundum antiquam translationem in Testamenta duo ita dividitur,

id est: ... Tertia vero divisio est inter alias in codice grandiore littera clariore conscripto, qui

habet quaterniones nonaginta quinque, in quo septuaginta interpretum translatio veteris Testamenti in libris quadraginta quattuor continetur; cui subiuncti sunt novi Testamenti libri viginti sex, fiuntque simul libri septuaginta, in illo palmarum numero fortasse praesagati, quas in mansione Helim invenit populus Hebreorum.

Hic textus multorum translatione variatus, sicut in prologo Psalterii positum est, pa- tris Hieronymi diligenti cura emendatus compositusque relictus est, ubi nos omnia tria genera divisionum iudicavimus affigenda, ut inspecta diligenter atque tractata non im- pugnare sed invicem se potius exponere videantur. unde licet multi Patres, id est sanctus Hilarius, Pictaviensis urbis antistes, et Rufinus presbyter Aquileiensis et Epiphanius epis- copus Cypri et synodus Nicaena et Calchedonensis non contraria dixerint sed diversa, omnes tamen per divisiones suas libros divinos sacramentis competentibus aptave- runt... .73 [Amiatinus, Cassiodorus's prologue, fol. IVr] ... in hoc autem corpore utrumque testamentum septuagenario numero probatur impletum, in illa palmarum quantitate for- sitan praesagatus, quas in mansione helim inuenit populus hebraeorum.... 74 [Amiatinus, fol. VIIr] Sic fiunt ueteris noui que testamenti sicut diuidit sanctus hilar[i]us romanae urbis antistes et epiphanius cyprius quem latino fecimus sermone transferri libri. LXX. In illo palmarum numero fortasse praesagati quas in mansione helim inuenit populus hebreorum.75

72 See below, pp. 881-82. 73 Institutiones 1.14.1-3 (ed. Mynors, pp. 39-40). 74 Biblia Sacra, ed. Quentin, l:xxi-xxii. 75 Ibid., p. xxiv. The same scribe who wrote this short summary, placed at the bottom of the page,

also wrote the "Jerome" summary quoted above, p. 840, but not the "Augustine" summary also quoted there or any of the other texts found in the three diagrams giving the divisions of Scripture. His slightly slanted ductus and manner of forming d single him out for attention and suggest that he wrote rather rapidly. David Wright, in "Some Notes on English Uncial," Traditio 17 (1961), 452, remarked that

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus The previous divisions presented no problem since they were explicitly linked

to the names of Jerome and Augustine. It is unfortunate that we no longer have the original text of the Codex Grandior for the Septuaginta division since I strongly suspect that it was longer than the one we now read in Amiatinus and that it followed some of the wording of the Institutiones more closely. It must have begun, like the other two, with the words "Sic fiunt ueteris nouique testamenti secundum Septuaginta," echoing the title Cassiodorus had given this chapter in his Institutiones. However, without the benefit of the Institutiones, showing that Cassiodorus was making double use of the number seventy, such an intro- ductory phrase was bound to cause puzzlement at Wearmouth-Jarrow, where "Septuaginta" would be naturally associated with those who translated the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, and not with a division of Scripture that totalled seventy books and included both Old and New Testaments.76 Cassiodorus himself was mainly intent on a game of combining numbers, forty-four books for the Old Testament added to twenty-six for the New Testament, allowing him to reach the mystical number seventy, which he associated with Exod. 15.27 and the seventy palm trees at Elim.

One can also conjecture, on the basis of the Institutiones, that in the Codex Grandior summary, in addition to the names of Hilary of Poitiers and Epiphanius of Cyprus, those of Rufinus and of the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon were also included. Since Cassiodorus had caused works of Epiphanius to be translated into Latin,77 he again paraded this fact in his summary, and the Wearmouth- Jarrow community (again without benefit of the Institutiones) must have wondered about the identity of the author making this personal statement: "quem Latino fecimus sermone transferri."78 That Hilary of Poitiers's name should appear connected with a division headed secundum Septuaginta convinced them that a mistake had been made, and they did some sleuthing to rectify it. This is the most interesting element of the Amiatinus summary, since Bede may well have had a hand in the "correction" that was introduced. We saw above that in the list of the Institutiones the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon were included. If we assume that the names of these same councils were present in the summary of the Codex Grandior, we may have the key to the puzzle. Bede was quite familiar with the

"one hand active in the diagrams appears to have made a number of corrections throughout the Codex." If the hand he had in mind was this distinctive hand just alluded to, a full study of all his interventions in the manuscript would be worth undertaking, to see if the evidence suggests it could be Bede's.

76 Note that Cassiodorus's text cited above combines the seventy translators of the Old Testament with another use of seventy to indicate the total for the Old and New Testament books, taken together. In the title he gave to this chapter the number game, rather than the translators, seems to have been uppermost in his mind.

77 Institutiones 1.5.4 (ed. Mynors, p. 24): "... Epiphanius antistes Cyprius totum librum [Canticle of Canticles] Graeco sermone uno volumine sub brevitate complexus est. hunc nos ut alios in Latinam linguam per amicum nostrum virum disertissimum Epiphanium fecimus Domino iuvante tranferri." It is not clear whether the alios refers to other works of Bishop Epiphanius, or to other Greek works also translated by Cassiodorus's friend, whom elsewhere he calls Epiphanius scholasticus.

78 It seems doubtful that the Codex Grandior summary also included the name of Epiphanius scholasticus.

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus 843

figure of Pope Hilarus (461-68), who as deacon to Pope Leo had requested Victor of Aquitaine to look into the matter of the Easter table.79 We know also that Wearmouth-Jarrow possessed a copy of the Liber pontificalis. Here in the biography for Pope Hilarus we read:

[Hilarus] confirmans III synodos Niceni, Epheseni et Calcidonense uel tomum sancti episcopi Leonis et damnavit Eutychem et Nestorium vel omnes sequaces eorum et vel omnes hereses; et confirmans dominationem et principatum sanctae sedis catholicae et apostolicae.... Hic fecit monasterio ad sanctum Laurentium et balneum et alium sub aere et pretorium [sancto Stephano. Fecit autem oratorium sancti Stephani in baptisterio Lateranense]. Fecit autem et bibliothecas II in eodem loco.80

Reading the last sentences Bede would have concluded no more than that Pope Hilarus had caused two libraries to be built at the Lateran.81 L. Duchesne's omission of the text in square brackets spawned the theory that Pope Hilarus (461- 68) had presented a Bible (or a Bible in two parts) to the monastery of S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, that Cassiodorus had then consulted this Bible and taken its division of the books of Scripture as the basis for the Septuaginta division of his Institu- tiones, all this implying, in turn, that Hilarus Romanae urbis antistes of the Codex Amiatinus was Cassiodorus's correct text, while Hilarius Pictaviensis urbis antistes of the Institutiones was a slip made either by Cassiodorus or some later scribe.82

79 Bede, De temporum ratione 43: "Haec et Hilarum [Hilarium ed.] papam post tot Nicaeni Concilii tempora nouum cyclum petere et Victorium paschalem nouum condere persuasit" (CCSL 123B, p. 417). The excellent quality of Bede's text for the Ecclesiastical History shows that he accepted the form Hilarus rather than Hilarius: see Historia ecclesiastica 2.19 (ed. Plummer, p. 123). One should note that the presence of sanctus before the name in the Amiatinus summary guarantees that Hilary of Poitiers was the original name in the Codex Grandior, corresponding to c. 14 of the Institutiones (sanctus Hilarius); nowhere does Bede refer to Pope Hilarus as sanctus in his later writings.

801 quote from Theodor Mommsen's edition of the Liber pontificalis, MGH, Gesta pontificum Ro- manorum 1, pp. 107, 110. This corresponds to L. Duchesne, Le Liber pontificalis, 1 (Paris, 1886), pp. 242, 245. It is recognized that Mommsen's edition is often to be preferred to Duchesne's-a fact admitted by Duchesne himself in his review of Mommsen (Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire 18 [1898], esp. pp. 382-83). Duchesne omitted the portion of the text in square brackets because it was missing in A1 (Lucca 490) and A2 (a manuscript full of omissions). As my friend Michael McCormick pointed out to me, we are dealing here with what was almost certainly originally an omission (in A1) through word skip (Fecit autem ... Fecit autem). There are no serious grounds, as Mommsen recognized, for not accepting these words as part of the authentic text. This eliminates the basis for the legend of Pope Hilarus's gift of a Bible (in two volumes) to San Lorenzo. What the text tells us is that Hilarus constructed two libraries at the Lateran.

81 The use of bibliotheca specifically to designate the Bible was rare and localized, especially in the early Middle Ages. Bede's use of bibliotheca, throughout his works, always reflects Isidore's definition (locus ubi reponuntur libri; librorum repositio; [ubi] recondantur libri). To designate a complete Bible, Bede uses pandectes. Alcuin's invective against those-he probably had the Spanish Theodulf of Or- leans in mind-who used bibliotheca (instead of pandectes) for a Bible demonstrates that the English usage of pandectes rather than bibliotheca was well established during the early Middle Ages. On Alcuin in this connection see P. Meyvaert, "The Authorship of the 'Libri Carolini': Observations Prompted by a Recent Book," Revue benedictine 99 (1979), 42-43.

82 This was the theory Samuel Berger proposed in "La Bible du Pape Hilarus," Bulletin critique 13 (1892), 147-52. It was accepted by Dom J. Chapman, "The Codex Amiatinus and Cassiodorus," Revue benedictine 38 (1926), 143-44; by Dom De Bruyne, ibid., 39 (1927), 262; by Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en occident, p. 357, n. 2: "Cassiodore ... commet la bevue d'attribuer cette list, non plus a Hilarus Romanae urbis antistes, mais a Hilarius Pictauiensis urbis antistes"; by Anscari Mundo,

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844 Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus The section of Hilarus's biography that probably most impressed Bede and his brethren was his ratification and confirmation (confirmans) of the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, the two councils Cassiodorus explicitly mentions in connection with his Septuaginta division of the Bible. Hilarus, bishop of Rome, must therefore have seemed a more appropriate person than Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, to approve any divisions of Scripture sanctioned by these councils. I remain convinced, therefore, that the substitution of Romanae urbis antistes for Pictaviensis urbis antistes was not a slip of the pen but a deliberate attempt made in North- umbria to clarify what was considered a puzzle in part of Cassiodorus's lost summary.83 This proves once again the difficulty experienced there in understanding some elements of the Codex Grandior without the benefit of the Institutiones; the Wearmouth-Jarrow community needed always to come to terms with the Codex Grandior viewed in isolation, on its own. The greatest puzzle they encountered, as we shall presently see, was that of interpreting the image they found standing at the opening of their ancient pandect.84

5. THE TABERNACLE IMAGE IN THE CODEX AMIATINUS

Cassiodorus placed an image of the Tabernacle in his Codex Grandior, and the Codex Amiatinus likewise contains such an image (Fig. 1).85 Can we take it for granted that the Northumbrians faithfully copied the late-antique model from Vivarium? Several considerations indicate that they did. First, as regards the po-

"'Bibliotheca': Bible et lecture du Careme d'apres Saint Benoit," Revue benedictine 60 (1950), 90- 91. G. Wilpert, also using Duchesne's text of the Liber pontificalis, took the passage to mean that Hilarus had built two libraries at San Lorenzo: see Miscellanea agostiniana, 2 (Rome, 1931), p. 3. The point that really requires explaining is why, at Wearmouth-Jarrow, Hilarius Pictauiensis of the Codex Grandior (and of the Institutiones) was changed to Hilarus Romanae urbis antistes in the Codex Amiatinus.

83 It is interesting that in Amiatinus the second i of Hilarius was deliberately erased, probably to eliminate further confusion. The manuscript tradition of Bede's De temporum ratione shows confusion between Hilarus/Hilarius, while Bede's Historia ecclesiastica (2.19) firmly maintains the form Hilarus; see n. 79 above.

84 See the discussion of the "Ezra" image below, pp. 870-82. 85 The image occupies the present fols. IIv-IIIr (or 2v-IIIr; on the mixing of arabic and roman

numerals in the present foliation see below, p. 860). For reproductions of this image see Henri Quentin, Memoire sur I'etablissement du texte de la Vulgate (Rome, 1922), p. 447; Cecil Roth, "Jewish Ante- cedents of Christian Art," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953), plate 10a (entitled "The Sanctuary"); Bruce-Mitford, "The Art of the Codex Amiatinus," color plate D (wrongly entitled "Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem"); Alexander, Insular Manuscripts, illus. 23 (wrongly entitled "Tabernacle in the Temple"); Elisabeth Revel-Neher, "Du Codex Amiatinus et ses rapports avec les plans du tabernacle dans l'art juif et dans l'art byzantin," Journal of Jewish Art 9 (1982), p. 7, fig. 1; Bianca Kiihnel, "Jewish Symbolism of the Temple and the Tabernacle and Christian Symbolism of the Holy Sepulchre and the Heavenly Tabernacle," Jewish Art 12-13 (1986-87), 166, fig. 11. The illustration given here (Fig. 1) is based on the drawing made for Raffaele Garrucci's Storia della arte cristiana nei primi otto secoli della chiesa (Prato, 1872-81), tav. 126, 2. A comparison of this drawing with the best photographic reproductions shows that the artist had made a careful and accurate copy. Garrucci's artist left out the names that surround the court and the Tabernacle (of the Tribes and Levites), and they have not been added to Fig. 1. See n. 104 below, however, for the probable source from which Cassiodorus borrowed these names.

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus 845 sition of the vase in the court, any image designed or remodeled at Wearmouth- Jarrow would certainly have placed the altar of holocausts much more toward the east within the court, so that the labrum could be situated between it and the entrance to the Tabernacle, in accordance with the texts of Exodus: (40.7) "labrum inter altare et tabernaculum quod implebis aqua"; (40.28) "labrum quoque statuit inter tabernaculum testimonii et altare." Bede several times comments specifically on the allegorical meaning of this placement of the labrum between the two altars, of holocausts in the court and of incense within the Tabernacle.86 We can be sure that a design originating in his monastery would have adhered more closely to the text of Scripture. The Amiatinus image depicts this labrum-the laver for cere- monial washing that stood in the court of the Tabernacle-as a large, two-handled vase with a broad base.

What is striking about this vase, apart from its position in the court, is its size, the elegant shape of its handles, and its decoration. The best drawing to consult is the one prepared well over a century ago for Raffaele Garrucci's Storia della arte cristiana, showing some elements of decoration on the vase still discernible at the time but now difficult to make out in more recent photographic reproductions. Exod. 38.8 refers to a bronze laver (labrum aeneum), and the handles shown in the image indicate that we are dealing with a metal rather than a ceramic vase.87 This is a vase that comes out of the world of Cassiodorus, as can be seen from examples both in the Byzantine art of the period88 and in the art of Ravenna.89 This feature deserves notice since the closest parallel to the armarium with the books of the Bible in the Ezra image of Amiatinus is the one with Gospel books in the mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna.90 This must represent a style of vase current in Italy in Cassiodorus's time; Vivarium may have possessed several such labra. In the Amiatinus image the labrum takes pride of place in the court, almost dwarfing the rather minuscule altar of holocausts. Cassiodorus's artist obviously took pleasure in presenting this object, and one must regret no longer being able to see the original version of the Codex Grandior.

A further point that underlines the accuracy of the Amiatinus copy concerns the two altars. Exodus (c. 27) specified that the altar of holocausts was to be made of acacia wood and was to be portable. Bede, no doubt accustomed to seeing and thinking of altars as rather solid and massive structures, was therefore surprised

86 For example, De Tabernaculo 3 (CCSL 119A, p. 137, 11. 1729-36): "Post altare uero holocausti labrum erat positum in quo lauarentur qui ad altare incensi intrabant quia nemo repente fit summus sed proficientibus meritis quisque primo bella debet uitiorum deuincere deinde a conditore suo cum compunctione lacrimarum supplex impetrare ut pro ingressu regni dulces fundere fletus possit qui pro timore poenarum pridem fundebat amaros."

87 I am very grateful to my friend Dr. Cecile Evers, a classical scholar (presently Attachee aux Musees Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire at Brussels), for pointing this out to me, and providing me with numerous references to similar vase designs. It was she who drew my attention to the prevalence of such designs at Ravenna.

88 See in particular the vases depicted in Byzantine mosaics in Jordan: Michele Piccirillo, The Mosaics of Jordan (Amman, Jordan, 1993), illus. 34, 98, 302, 374, 449.

89 See Giselda Valenti Zucchini and Mileda Bucci, eds., I sarcofagi a figure e a carattere simbolico, Corpus della scultura paleocristiana bizantina ed altomedioevale di Ravenna 2 (Rome, 1968), tav. 11 d; 12 c; 17 a, b; 25 c; 28 b; 29 b; 31 c.

90 On the Ezra image see below, pp. 870-82.

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,.. : ,I .. zv, -. _ 0,~

Ii !NWI I

L ^ A ; er.,,-.B r

I . . ANT t

ENOS ES AE w

Fig. 1. Codex Amiatinus: The court with Tabernacle (see n. 85).

that the two altars in Cassiodorus's image should be represented as pieces of fur- niture, each standing on four legs-a detail for which he could find no support in Scripture or in the writings of Josephus. He concluded that Cassiodorus had received information about this detail from some learned Jews.91 Since both altars

91 Bede, De Tabernaculo 2 (CCSL 119A, pp. 81-82,11. 1567-70): "... in qua etiam [pictura] utrique altari et holocausti uidelicet et incensi pedes quattuor fecit quod utrumque eum sicut et tabernaculi et templi positionem a doctoribus Iudaeorum didicisse putamus." Bede was obviously unaware of Byzan-

846

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N- A AR KTOC

'" *II1; Cr. rr~~~~~~~~~~~s ~~eE , I I

if I.if I

H i.

II II H lj i

M*CH M bPIA

Fig. 2. "Covered and anchored" Tabernacle in the court (see n. 101).

Fig. 3. "Uncovered" Tabernacle (see n. 110).

Y 1 C ly

A N A T 0 A 1.

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848 Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus in the Amiatinus painting are shown with four pedes, they must have been copied faithfully from the Codex Grandior. One can observe that the altar of incense, despite its feet, has a more solid look than the altar of holocausts. Bede remarks that this last altar had an opening in the front, on the eastern side, to allow wood to be added and coals to be removed from the fire pan.92 Did he expect an opening for such a purpose to be placed less conspicuously, either in the back or on the side? The description he gives of the frontal opening corresponds to what we see in the Amiatinus image, although it is only the perspective from which the altar was drawn that caused the opening on the eastern side to appear to be the largest.93 One can well imagine a Jarrow artist, working under Bede's supervision, presenting very different designs for these altars. Bede therefore becomes a witness to the fact that certain elements in the Tabernacle image of Amiatinus were borrowed directly from the image of the Codex Grandior.

A fuller analysis of the Tabernacle image takes us into a cultural world with which Cassiodorus was more familiar than were the monks of Jarrow. Although it has sometimes been suggested that the image of Amiatinus is related to Jewish iconographic traditions,94 the direct link is with illustrations in Greek manuscripts, like illustrated Octateuchs and the manuscripts of Cosmas Indicopleustes, some of whose Exodus illustrations seem linked to the Octateuch tradition.95 There are

tine images that showed altars with pedes. For some examples: (1) the altar of holocausts on fol. 104v of the [now lost] Smyrna Octateuch (Derk Christiaan Hesseling, Miniatures de l'Octateuque grec de Smyrne [Leiden, 1909], illus. 199); (2) the altar on fol. 88r of the Seraglio Octateuch (Kurt Weitzmann, Illustrations in Roll and Codex [Princeton, N.J., 1970], plate xxxix, illus. 128); (3) an altar of incense having feet, placed within the Tabernacle, in a Byzantine illustration first published by Suzy Dufrenne ("Une illustration 'historique' inconnue, du Psautier du Mont-Athos, Pantocrator 61," Cahiers ar- cheologiques 15 [1965], 83, fig. 1). The pre-iconoclastic Byzantine tradition must have been a rich one; these illustrations merely provide hints about the many artistic models available to Cassiodorus's artist.

92 Bede, De Tabernaculo 2 (CCSL 119A, p. 81, 11. 1563-67): "Erat enim contra arulam ostium in pariete altaris orientali unde uel ligna ad alendum ignem inmitti uel carbones et cineres possent egeri quo modo in pictura Cassiodori Senatoris ... expressum uidimus...."

93 On a point like this it becomes interesting to speculate what notion of perspective drawing Bede could have had. If something is obvious to us, with our modern-day understanding of perspective, it does not necessarily follow that Bede would have reached our conclusions. Looking at the Amiatinus altar we would tend to conclude that it could have been serviced equally efficiently from any one of its four sides.

94 Roth, "Jewish Antecedents," pp. 37-38, considered the Amiatinus image proof of the existence of a contemporary Jewish iconographic tradition depicting the Tabernacle with its court, an opinion about which Revel-Neher has serious doubts (see next note).

95 Revel-Neher, "Du Codex Amiatinus," pp. 12-13, questions Roth's theory of a continuous Jewish iconographic tradition (see previous note) and considers the Byzantine tradition, as shown in the manuscripts of Cosmas and the Greek Octateuchs, to be a more likely source of inspiration for Cas- siodorus's illustration. The present analysis aims to explore her suggestion more fully. To the illustrations of Vatican Library, Vat. gr. 746 and 747 cited by Revel-Neher, one can add those of the (twelfth- century) Greek Octateuch of Smyrna published by Hesseling (Miniatures de l'Octateuque). As regards the manuscripts of Cosmas (Vat. gr. 699; Mount Sinai, St. Catherine's Monastery, gr. 1186; and Flor- ence, Laurenziana, Plut. IX.28) the references here will be to Wolska-Conus's study and edition (above, n. 45). For the illustrations of Vat. gr. 699 alone, see Cosimo Stornajolo, Le miniature della Topografia cristiana di Cosma Indicopleuste: Codice Vaticano greco 699 (Milan, 1908). Weitzmann, Illustrations in Roll and Codex (see esp. pp. 141 and 198-99), has argued strongly that many of the biblical

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus 849 at least two Greek manuscripts for whose presence at Jarrow Bede provides evidence, namely, a copy of the Acts of the Apostles and a Greek calendar.96 We know, on the other hand, that Cassiodorus caused a Greek pandect, containing the whole of Scripture in seventy-five books, to be prepared for his community.97 This implies that he had other Greek biblical manuscripts at his disposal, from which to prepare the pandect. His familiarity with and possession of Greek manuscripts should cause no surprise, since we know that he spent many years at Con- stantinople.98 The Institutiones, moreover, bears ample witness to the fact that he had accumulated a substantial library of Greek texts, some of which he caused to be translated into Latin.99

Two particular illustrations from the Greek tradition, one showing the court of the Tabernacle, the other the Tabernacle itself (Figs. 2 and 3), were apparently fused together by Cassiodorus's artist, and transformed in the process, to produce the image of the Codex Grandior whose reflection we find in the Codex Amia-

illustrations in Cosmas derive from the Byzantine Octateuch tradition. It was this tradition on which Cassiodorus most probably drew. For a contrary view, arguing that the Cosmas illustrations of the Tabernacle are the source of the Greek Octateuch images, see Leslie Brubaker, "The Tabernacle Min- iatures of the Byzantine Octateuchs," Actes du XVe Congres International d'Etudes Byzantines (Ath- ens, 1981), 2/1:73-92. Whatever the precise original source, there can be no doubt that Cassiodorus had at his disposal Byzantine images enabling him to construct the image of the Tabernacle whose reflection we perceive in the Codex Amiatinus.

96 Carmela Franklin is undertaking a full study of Bede's knowledge of Greek that will help to determine what Greek manuscripts were present at Wearmouth-Jarrow. It is recognized that Bede worked with a Greek manuscript of Acts while composing his commentary: see M. L. W. Laistner's introduction to Bedae Venerabilis Expositio Actuum Apostolorum et Retractatio (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), pp. xxxix-xl. As regards the Greek calendar sent to Jarrow from Rome, we have the testimony of Bede himself in chapter 14 of his De temporum ratione (CCSL 123B, pp. 327-28). Unfortunately this chapter was misintepreted by C. W. Jones, then at the very outset of his investigation into this text, as referring to the reception at Jarrow of the Latin calendar of Polemius Silvius ("Polemius Silvius, Bede, and the Names of the Months," Speculum 9 [1934], 50-56). Bede never knew the calendar of Polemius, as I hope to show in a forthcoming article, "Bede's Calendar and the Origins of Valentine's Day." This article will, alas, also dispel the theory that the Cosmographiorum codex (referred to by Bede in his Historia abbatum) could have been a Greek manuscript of the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes, as recently suggested in Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian, ed. Bernhard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge (Cambridge, Eng., 1994), pp. 209-10. Bede's statement in chapter 35 of the De temporum ratione allows us to conclude that this "most noble" codex, containing the works of the cosmographers, was a Latin manuscript that included, among other items, a Roman calendar, some of whose entries Bede copied into his own calendar of the De temporum ratione.

97 Institutiones 1.14.4 (ed. Mynors, p. 41): "... ideoque vobis et Graecum pandectem reliqui com- prehensum in libris septuaginta quinque...."

98 James J. O'Donnell, Cassiodorus (Berkeley, Calif., 1979), p. 132, gives 540 to 545 as the dates of Cassiodorus's stay in Constantinople. Van de Vyver's more meticulous analysis of the data places this stay from at least 549 to 553; see "Les Institutiones de Cassiodore," p. 78. Whatever its exact length, Cassiodorus had plenty of time to familiarize himself with and collect Greek biblical and other manuscripts. Van de Vyver also conjectures that it was during his stay in the imperial city that Cassiodorus came to know about the school of Nisibis mentioned at the beginning of his Institutiones (on this see also n. 45 above).

99 On the Latin translations Cassiodorus commissioned see Walter Berschin, Griechisch-lateinisches Mittelalter (Bern, 1980), pp. 100-102.

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus tinus.100 We need first to examine the layout of the Tabernacle court. There seems to have been a conventional manner of representing this court in the Byzantine tradition, because we find the same arrangement in the Octateuchs and in the manuscripts of Cosmas.101 The outline of the court consists of a series of pillars (columnae)-the number shown is usually less than the twenty (long side) and ten (narrow side) specified in Exod. 26.9-19. They can be described as lying flat on the ground and seen from above.102 The function of these pillars or shafts was to support the hangings that stretched around the whole perimeter of the courtyard. Since the pillars have a uniform cylindrical appearance, with no observable distinction made between base and capital, it is not immediately obvious whether the hangings were meant to be seen as "outside" or "inside" the pillars by someone standing within the court. The image can be read either way, depending on which end of the column one considers to be its base. The distinguishing feature of these Byzantine illustrations is the presence of corner columns placed at a different angle to the rest.

A first point to determine about the Amiatinus image is the angle from which the bifolium should be viewed. Elisabeth Revel-Neher writes, "Nous dechiffrons la miniature, non 'livre ouvert,' mais en faisant un quart de tour a la double page: I'entree du parvis, situee sur la partie droite en devient ainsi le cote inferieur." I agree with this observation, which will turn out to be crucial for understanding the drawing. Normally the reader placed in front of a book has the bottom mar- gins of both pages before him. But the Amiatinus image, designed to fill two pages, was meant to be seen as a single unit, on its own. To see it properly the viewer must glance at it from the outer margin of the recto sheet, thus facing the entrance to the courtyard, and looking all the way up that courtyard to the entrance of the Tabernacle itself. From this position all the objects shown within the courtyard and the Tabernacle, together with their labels, appear in a frontal perspective to the viewer.

100 In these Byzantine images of the courtyard, the Tabernacle itself, "covered," is also shown, anchored by two ropes, which stretch from the corners of the roof to anchor pegs in the ground. Revel- Neher ("Du Codex Amiatinus," p. 13) believed that this feature of anchoring the Tabernacle was "une erreur, ce sont les murs du parvis qui etaient ainsi fixes et non ceux du Tabernacle." The Hebrew text, however, associates anchor pegs with both the Tabernacle and the courtyard (Exod. 27.19): "all the tent pegs for it [the Tabernacle] and those for the courtyard are to be of bronze" (see John R. Kohlen- berger III, The NIV Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament, 1 [Grand Rapids, Mich., 1979], p. 222). Although the Septuagint text refers only to anchor pegs for the courtyard, we also find mention of the Tabernacle here and there among the manuscript variants for Exod. 27.19 (see John William Wevers's edition of Exodus in the Gottingen Septuaginta series [Gottingen, 1991], p. 310). This must have led the Byzantine artist to represent this feature. The Tabernacle anchor pegs were not borrowed by Cassiodorus's artist, but he made those for the courtyard an integral part of his drawing, as we shall presently see.

101 Fig. 2, above, is based on the images of Cosmas in Vat. gr. 699, fol. 49r (Stornajolo, Le miniature della Topografia, plate 15), and Mount Sinai gr. 1186, fol. 82v (SC 159, p. 71) and in the Octateuch in Vat. gr. 746, fol. 242v (Revel-Neher, "Du Codex Amiatinus," p. 12, fig. 8). The entrance to the court is suggested either through a change in the background color or by introducing a different design, as in the Mount Sinai manuscript (copied here).

102 Finding the appropriate terminology for describing the layout of the pillars is not easy. Revel- Neher ("Du Codex Amiatinus") uses both "perspective rayonnante" and "perspective aerienne."

850

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Bede, Cassiodorus, and the Codex Amiatinus 851 For the outline of his courtyard Cassiodorus's artist adopted the basic Byzantine

plan, maintaining the corner pillars at the same angle, but he introduced a number of changes aimed at presenting a more realistic image of the courtyard.103 He made a clear distinction between the base of the column and its capital; the base is rounded and the capital, shaped like a rectangle, had a spike at its summit, pre- sumably to hold rings from which the hangings were suspended. He likewise carefully oriented the pillars on the north (arctos) and west (dysis) sides in the same direction as those on the east (anatol) and south (mesembria) sides, and he created the illusion of an "outside" and "inside" view of the court by placing the hangings behind the pillars on the north and west sides and in front of them on the east and south sides.104 To someone standing in the court the hangings would therefore appear as a kind of continuous wall all the way around, in accordance with Cas- siod