ception is that the second syllable of 'ecclesiæ ' is shortened. The same anomaly occurs repeatedly in Bede's metrical Life of St. Cuthbert, and in others of his poems. Greek scholarship was not then very extensive or accurate. They used Greek words much as we now use the Hebrew when we speak of Lébanon, Chérubim, Séraphim, whereas those who are skilled in the Hebrew tongue tell us that we ought to say Lebanon, Cherubim, Seraphim. It is very far from unlikely that this inscription was written by the Venerable Bede. Does it even seem an extravagant stretch of fancy to suppose that it may be an autograph?

There cannot now be the least shadow of doubt that this famous manuscript is the identical Pandect which was intended by Abbot Ceolfrid as a gift to St. Peter; and of course Servandus was relegated to the region of shades. It is supposed that he might have been the writer of the manuscript from which the Pandect was copied, and that the scribe, who, though clearly a master in calligraphy, may not after all have been a very intelligent man, had simply copied what he found, without regard to the fact that it was really no part of the work.

There is still another point to which Dr. Hort has directed attention. As far back as 1883 it was pointed out by Dr. Peter Corssen, of Jever, that there was some close relationship between the Codex Amiatinus and the three Latin Bibles described by Cassiodorus,3 as presented by him to his monastery at Vivarium. This eminent and excellent man had held various high offices under Theodoric, the Ostrogothic

1 In a verse of Alcuin's, quoted by the Bishop of Salisbury (Guardian, Feb. 16), we have a similar instance—

'Quod nunc a multis constat Bibliotheca dicta.'

2 See the Bishop of Salisbury's paper in the Guardian, Feb. 16, and Dr. Hort's paper in the Academy, Feb. 26.

3 Always so named until of late the spelling 'Cassiodorius' has come into favour. The history of this remarkable man has recently been illustrated most fully by Mr. Hodgkin in vol. iv. of Italy and her Invaders, a work in which evidence of the most laborious research is joined to a most attractive style, qualities which are not always found combined. Mr. Hodgkin has also published the Letters of Cassiodorus in a separate work, to which is prefixed a biography, in p. 5 of which the question of the spelling of the name is discussed. Mr. Hodgkin, for the present at least, prefers 'Cassiodorus,' and quotes an hexameter verse of Alcuin as evidence of the spelling in the eighth century. He might have added the Venerable Bede, only in this case prose is not such sure evidence as verse. Gibbon and Dr. Westcott in 1866 (The Bible in the Church) agree with Mr. Hodgkin. In such company we may be excused if we write 'Cassiodorus.'

King of Italy, and at the age of sixty retired from public life to 'spend the remainder of his days in monastic seclusion.'1 He survived thirty-five years, and 'consecrated his old age to religious meditation and to a work even more important than any of his political labours, the preservation by the pens of monastic copyists of the Christian Scriptures and of the great works of classical antiquity.' Among other things he wrote a book for his monks called Institutio Divinarum et Humanarum Literarum, in which he gives various lists of the sacred books, and speaks of a representation of the Temple of Solomon, and of Ezra writing at a table, of which he gives a description. Now, the Codex Amiatinus contains similar lists of the sacred books, and also a representation of the Temple of Solomon and of Ezra writing at his table, so that little doubt is left that the preliminary matter of the Codex is derived directly or indirectly from Cassiodorus.

Amongst others of his codices Cassiodorus notices particularly one of the old translation, which he describes as codex grandior littera clariore conscriptus.' In this he had caused the lists of the sacred books and the representation of the Temple of Solomon to be inserted. Now it has been pointed out by Dr. Hort2 that the Venerable Bede, in two of his expository works, mentions a representation of the Temple of Solomon in a Pandect of Cassiodorus, of which he speaks as one who had actually seen it.

3

'In his tract on the Tabernacle, ii. 12 (vii. 107 of Giles), Bæda speaks as follows: "Quomodo in pictura Cassiodori Senatoris cujus ipse in expositione Psalmorum 3 meminit expressum vidimus ;" and again in his tract on Solomon's Temple, c. 16 (viii. 314 f. of Giles), "Has vero porticus Cassiodorus Senator in Pandectis, ut ipse Psalmorum expositione commemorat, triplici ordine distinxit," adding below, "Hæc ut in pictura Cassiodori reperimus distincta.”

But we have no reason to believe that Bede was ever in Italy, or, in fact, ever travelled farther south than York. He must, therefore, have seen the Pandect of Cassiodorus at home, so that it is as nearly certain as can be that this was the Pandect of the old translation which Benedict or Ceolfrid brought from Rome. In course of time it had found its way from

1 Hodgkin, Letters of Cassiodorus, p. 54. See also the article on 'Cassiodorus' in C. Q. R. for July 1880, pp. 289–318.

2 The Academy, February 26.

3 It may be worth noting in connexion with these passages that there is in the cathedral library at Durham a manuscript of Cassiodorus's Exposition of the Psalms, which tradition, perhaps not on very secure grounds, asserts to be the handiwork of the Venerable Bede himself.

Vivarium to Rome, where, after the new translation by St. Jerome came into favour, it might not be so highly prized, and had been acquired by Benedict in one of his numerous journeys. It would naturally be regarded with great reverence in Northumbria, and though Ceolfrid's Pandects were certainly not copied from it, seeing they were of a different translation, yet it is plain that the preliminary matter would be equally suitable to either version.

Thus this grand Codex, of which Dr. Hort says, 'Even on a modern spectator this prodigy of a manuscript leaves an impression not far removed from awe,' has been fairly traced to its birthplace in the united monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow. First, it was manifest that the inscription at the beginning was not in its original state; part had been erased and new words written over the erasures. Then came the guess founded on the hint conveyed in the inscription at the end of the prologue to Leviticus, referring to Servandus. Next comes the persuasion that 'extremis de finibus' fits neither Lombardy nor Latium in reference to Rome, and the most happy conjecture of G. B. de Rossi about St. Ceolfrid, founded on the Venerable Bede's Lives of the Abbats, which ultimately led to the restoration-still by conjecture-of every word but one of the original inscription. Then Dr. Hort directs attention to the passages in the anonymous Life of St. Ceolfrid, in which it is stated that Ceolfrid caused three Pandects of the new translation to be written, one of which he intended for the Pope; and along with this, to the original inscription itself, agreeing in every word but one with the conjectural restoration of the inscription now to be seen in the Codex, so that the origin and early history of 'this prodigy of a manuscript' were removed from the region of doubt and conjecture into that of absolute certainty. Lastly, we have Dr. Hort's identification of the Pandect of the old translation at Wearmouth with Cassiodorus's 'codex grandior littera clariore conscriptus.' It is surely a most interesting and a most marvellous history.

There, then, were these three great manuscripts, the 'codex grandior' of the old translation in the library, and the two Pandects of the new, one in the Church of St. Peter, the other in the Church of St. Paul, in the ancient united monastery. Dr. Hort thinks it would be 'a wonder if these two huge manuscripts in the two famous abbey churches did not exercise a wide influence for centuries.' Alas! it must be feared that their time was very brief. In little more than seventy years after the death of St. Ceolfrid came the first Danish invasion of Northumbria. Lindisfarne, Wearmouth, and Jarrow

were sacked with circumstances of peculiar atrocity, and there can be little doubt that the 'codex grandior' of Cassiodorus, and the two Pandects of St. Ceolfrid, were then destroyed. After that, a long period of intellectual torpor and darkness succeeded in the north; indeed, in England generally. Let us rejoice that the third Pandect of St. Ceolfrid was far away in Italy, safe from the heathen ravager, and that it has remained to this day the admiration of all who behold it, to be a monument of the pious zeal and learning of the monks of Wearmouth and Jarrow, and their learned and holy abbat, ST. CEOLFRID.

ART. IX.-OWEN'S DOGMATIC THEOLOGY.

A Treatise on Dogmatic Theology. By the Rev. ROBERT OWEN, B.D., late Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. Second Edition. (London, 1887.)

AMONG the earliest efforts of teachers to impart knowledge to the minds of even very young children there will be found, in a prominent position, the constant endeavour to make the pupil understand the difference between the essential and the accidental. Not, indeed, that these alarming words will be actually pronounced; but that, nevertheless, the idea represented by them will be constantly in play. The child is shown a bright new shilling, with some explanation of the nature of money, and immediately a tin counter is supposed to be a coin of the realm; a horned quadruped in a park is at once dubbed a cow; and so forth. Even children of a larger growth, unless self-education be constantly at work, are liable to similar mistakes. Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, was fond of insisting on this tendency to error. He has somewhere commented on the supposition, fostered by certain would-be historical critics, that the invention of gunpowder must needs render any inquiry into ancient strategy an unprofitable task for the soldier. Arnold justly points out that the essentials of strategy remain the same, whatever be the accidental differences respecting the means of destruction employed; and, in homely phrase, he clinches his argument by calling attention to the advice of Napoleon (assuredly no mean judge, even though a prejudiced one) bidding the youthful student

of the art of war content himself with a thorough study of the campaigns of seven great captains: namely, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Cæsar, Turenne, Montecuculi, Eugene of Savoy, and Frederick of Prussia; a list in which three are ancient masters.' '

Accordingly, both in the world of action and in the world of thought, we find men laying down certain maxims which must needs be granted as a condition of procedure. Such a maxim may be called a dogma; that is to say, a principle which, at any rate for the purpose in hand, must not be gainsaid or reversed. As regards action, an illustration or two may suffice to render our meaning clear.

Look at the British House of Lords. Apart from the restraints imposed by public opinion, by the temper of the assembly, by what we have heard called by one of its late members its chilling atmosphere,' few constituted bodies of men enjoy greater freedom of debate. The speakers need not pause to consider, as members of the Lower House may have occasion to do, whether constituents will approve of their utterances. Still, however, apart from the vague checks to which allusion has been made, there are distinct limitations on this freedom. Thus, for example, no peer can question the right of the Sovereign to introduce (of course with due observance of the proper forms) a new member into that society. That, from time to time, persons may be created peers who, if the House were a club, would have been blackballed is, we suppose, indubitable. But the right of the Sovereign in this respect, even though it may possibly be sometimes exercised under the almost compulsory sway of a powerful minister, is a dogma of the constitution, and no man rises in that House to contradict it.

Even in the matter of amusements the same principle obtains. When the victory of Waterloo had given peace to Europe, yacht clubs (previously all but unknown) were formed for the promotion of pleasure-sailing, and rapidly sprang up around all the coasts of England. A member of one of these associations, having sailed in a fine schooner to the shores of Spain, saw an opportunity of effecting an excellent stroke of business by the purchase of Seville oranges. He returned

1 'It was only an unworthy feeling which made him omit the name of Marlborough, and no one could hesitate to add to the list his own. But he spoke of generals who were dead, and of course in adding no other name to this catalogue I am following the same rule.' Arnold, Lectures on Modern History (Lect. iv. p. 154). This lecture was delivered in 1842, when Wellington was still alive. G G

VOL. XXV.-NO. L.