obtain a natural heir and may raise up like seed to its dead
brother, and thus may be verified that saying of Ecclesiasticus:
His father is dead, and he is as if he were not dead; for he hath
left one behind him that is like himself. And thus the
transcription of ancient books is as it were the begetting of
fresh sons, on whom the office of the father may devolve, lest it
suffer detriment. Now such transcribers are called antiquarii,
whose occupations Cassiodorus confesses please him above all the
tasks of bodily labour, adding: "Happy effort," he says,
"laudable industry, to preach to men with the hand, to let loose
tongues with the fingers, silently to give salvation to mortals,
and to fight with pen and ink against the illicit wiles of the
Evil One." So far Cassiodorus. Moreover, our Saviour exercised
the office of the scribe when He stooped down and with His finger
wrote on the ground (John viii.), that no one, however exalted,
may think it unworthy of him to do what he sees the wisdom of God
the Father did.

O singular serenity of writing, to practise which the Artificer
of the world stoops down, at whose dread name every knee doth
bow! O venerable handicraft pre-eminent above all other crafts
that are practised by the hand of man, to which our Lord humbly
inclines His breast, to which the finger of God is applied,
performing the office of a pen! We do not read of the Son of God
that He sowed or ploughed, wove or digged; nor did any other of
the mechanic arts befit the divine wisdom incarnate except to
trace letters in writing, that every gentleman and sciolist may
know that fingers are given by God to men for the task of writing
rather than for war. Wherefore we entirely approve the judgment
of books, wherein they declared in our sixth chapter the clerk