SOURCE: “The Value and Influence of Cassiodorus's Ecclesiastical History,” in Harvard Theological Review, Vol. XLI, No. 1, January, 1948, pp. 51-67.

In the essay below, Laistner analyzes the ecclesiastical history edited by and translated under the direction of Cassiodorus, praising his critical skill in selecting the material to be included in the Historia Tripartita.

Most students of history or literature have had at some time the experience of encountering statements or generalizations made by a writer of an earlier generation and then finding them repeated without question by his successors working in the same field of inquiry. What is more, if dissentient voices have been raised, they have often been overlooked or disregarded. The prevailing estimate of Cassiodorus' Ecclesiastical History affords an excellent example of the manner in which erroneous opinions have been repeated ad nauseam from one generation to the next, although more than thirty years have passed since...