preservation of the purity of the sacred text and abstinence from
plausible emendations, the author proceeds to enumerate the Christian
historians--Eusebius, Orosius, Marcellinus, Prosper, and others[89];
and he then slightly sketches the characters of some of the principal
Fathers--Hilary, Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. This part of
the work contains an interesting allusion to 'Dionysius Monachus,
Scytha natione, sed moribus omnino Romanus,' of whom Cassiodorus
speaks as a colleague in his literary enterprises. This is the
so-called Dionysius Exiguus, who fixed (erroneously, as it now
appears) the era of the birth of Christ, and whose system of
chronology founded on this event has been accepted by all the nations
of Christendom. At the conclusion of this the first part of the
treatise we find some general remarks on the nature of the monastic
life, and some pictures of Vivarium and its neighbourhood, to which we
are indebted for some of the information contained in the preceding
pages. The book ends with a prayer, and contains thirty-three
chapters, the same number, remarks Cassiodorus (who is addicted to
this kind of moralising on numbers) that was reached by the years of
the life of Christ on earth.

[Footnote 88: 1. Octateuchus (Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth).

2. Kings (Samuel and Kings, Chronicles).

3. Prophets (Four Major, including Daniel, and Twelve Minor).

4. Psalms.

5. Solomon (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Wisdom,
Ecclesiasticus).