I WAS impressed by a synchronicity of births in our history. The second-last decade of the fifth century (480-490 AD) was a special time. In fact it is hard to think of another period in history that produced, in the same country (Italy) and at virtually the same time, three people whose influence on the centuries to come has been as potent and far-reaching. Who am I talking about? Cassiodorus Senator, Boethius and Saint Benedict.
In a nutshell, Cassiodorus was an educational innovator who founded a scholarly community that set itself the task of preserving for posterity “the best which has been thought and said” (in Matthew Arnold’s lovely phrase). He saw no conflict between the Gospel and the noblest achievements of the secular and pagan world, believing that the latter too had God at their root.
Boethius died in prison in 524 having offended the tyrant Theodoric, and leaving behind his personal manifesto “Of the Consolation of Philosophy”, a work of such affecting power that it became one of the most widely-read and influential books in the Christian world for the next 1500 years.
The third member of the Troika is of course Saint Benedict, writer of the famous Rule, and effective founder of Western monasticism. Like Cassiodorus he took a tolerant view of secular learning – provided that it was morally consistent with the values of Christianity – and as a result all that we possess of the learning of the ancient world of Western Europe comes to us through the hands of his monks and their successors.
Until comparatively recently Western education owed everything to these three men, especially St. Benedict, and even in these fractured times that debt is still enormous.