year of the reign of Theodosius II
(306-439). The fact that the numerous mistranslations of Epiphanius
have passed uncorrected, probably indicates that Cassiodorus' own
knowledge of Greek was but slight, and that he depended on his
coadjutor entirely for this part of the work. The 'Historia
Tripartita' has probably had a larger circulation than any other of
its author's works; but Cassiodorus himself thought so little of his
share in it, that he does not include it in the list of his writings
prefixed to the treatise 'De Orthographia.' And, in fact, the
inartistic way in which the three narratives are soldered together,
rather than recast into one symmetrical and harmonious whole, obliges
us to admit that Cassiodorus' work at this book was little more than
mechanical, and entitles him to scarcely any other praise than that of
industry.

[Sidenote: Institutiones Divinarum et Humanarum Lectionum.]

(4) Of a different quality, though still partaking somewhat of the
nature of a compilation, was his chief educational treatise, the
'Institutiones Divinarum et Humanarum Lectionum[85].' About the year
543, some three or four years after his retirement from public life,
while he was slowly ploughing his way through the Commentary on the
Psalms, twenty of which he had already interpreted, he seems to have
laid it aside for a time in order to devote himself to this work,
which aimed more at instruction than at religious edification. In the
outset of this book he describes that unsuccessful attempt of his, to
which allusion has already been made, for the establishment of a
theological school in Rome, and continues that, 'as the rage of war
and the turbulence of strife in the Italian realm[86] had prevented
the fulfilment of this desire, he felt himself constrained by Divine
charity to write for his monks' behoof these _libri introductorii_, in
which, after the manner of a teacher, he would open to them the
series of the books of Holy Scripture, and would give them a
compendious acquaintance with secular literature.' As the book is not
written for the learned, he undertakes to abstain from 'affectata
eloquentia,' and he does in the main keep his promise. The simple,
straightforward style of the book, which occasionally rises into real
and 'unaffected eloquence' where the subject inspires him to make an
appeal to the hearts of his readers, presents a striking and
favourable contrast to the obscure and turgid phraseology in which t