ABSTRACT
The celebrated picture of a scribe in his study in the Codex Amiatinus has long been viewed as a window into the library of sixth-century Vivarium. The picture derives from a portrait of Cassiodorus in the codex grandior which the Wearmouth-Jarrow community, not knowing the Institutiones, failed to recognise as Cassiodorus. In the Institutiones Cassiodorus showed that the harmony of the various books of the Bible is reflected in the harmony of the diverse Hebrew, Greek and Latin texts of Scripture and related works of Christian scholarship. Many scholars have speculated that all or part of Cassiodorus’s multi-volumed Bible, the novem codices, also reached Northumbria. The Septuagint translation of the Hebrew text of the Jewish Scriptures was regarded by patristic commentators, followed by Bede, as the providential preparation for the conversion of Greek-speaking Gentiles to Christianity and the building up of the Church.
