great treasures of Pagan literature were no longer being perpetuated
by the slaves who had once acted as _librarii_ to the Greek or Roman
noble; and with every movement of the Ostrogothic armies, or of the
yet more savage hordes who served under the Imperial standard, with
every sacked city and with every ravaged villa, some Codex, it may be
such as we should now deem priceless and irreplaceable, was perishing.
This being the state of Italy, Cassiodorus resolved to make of his
monastery not merely a place for pious meditation, but a theological
school and a manufactory for the multiplication of copies, not only of
the Scriptures, not only of the Fathers and the commentators on
Scripture, but also of the great writers of pagan antiquity. In the
chapter[80] which he devotes to the description of the _scriptorium_
of his monastery he describes, with an enthusiasm which must have been
contagious, the noble work done there by the _antiquarius_: 'He may
fill his mind with the Scriptures while copying the sayings of the
Lord. With his fingers he gives life to men and arms them against the
wiles of the devil. So many wounds does Satan receive as the
_antiquarius_ copies words of Christ. What he writes in his cell will
be scattered far and wide over distant Provinces. Man multiplies the
heavenly words, and by a striking figure--if I may dare so to
speak--the three fingers of his hand express the utterances of the
Holy Trinity. The fast-travelling reed writes down the holy words, and
thus avenges the malice of the Wicked One, who caused a reed to be
used to smite the head of the Saviour.'

[Footnote 80: The 30th of the De Institutione Div. Litt.]

It is true that the passage here quoted refers only to the work of the
copyist of the Christian Scriptures, but it could easily be shown from
other passages[81] that the literary activity of the monastery was not