The Purposes and Authority of Secular Education in the Monastic Rule of Cassiodorus

This article examines the purposes, origins, and authority of ‘secular education,’ or the seven liberal arts, in Cassiodorus’ Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum. Whilst previous scholarship has argued that Cassiodorus traces the origins of the liberal arts to Holy Scripture and views their primary purpose as aiding biblical exegesis, closer analysis of Institutiones reveals a more complex picture. Some passages suggest that the liberal arts also derive, in part, from the order of the created universe, and that their principal purpose lies in the cultivation of virtues. These virtues, while grounded in the specific ends of the liberal arts, are ultimately directed toward the theoretical contemplation of God, echoing Aristotle’s hierarchy of sciences and virtues.