On the Epitome — The Fifth Method
The Epitome (ΕΠΙΤΟΜΗ) — that is, the Breviary, or compendium — is the briefest summary of the divine volumes, 1 comprehending in the fewest words, and (so far as can be done) in succinct and clear speech, grazing [the whole]… [continues p172]
[continuing from p171] …grazing those things which are narrated more fully, and through many repetitions, in the divine scripture (to which Tautology is most familiar), 2 the integrity and sense of the sacred narration being always preserved. Since an example of this Method cannot be exhibited in Psalm 116, on account of its narrow brevity, I will set before you, in its stead, the first chapter of Genesis, which Marcus Antonius Sabellicus thus contracted into a Compendium.
An Example of a Compendium upon the whole first chapter of Genesis
That eternal Majesty, the maker of all things — having wrought the whole world from the beginning in six days — first separated light from darkness, when the raw matter was now present, and that formless, which God had prepared from the beginning; and this was the first light of all, the day, which shone upon the world. Night was straightway joined to it. Heaven thence, on the second day, was established on high; and this was called the firmament. Then, on the third day, the earth was made stable, and moisture was poured around the earth. The Sun, on the fourth day’s light, the Moon, and the stars flashed forth into the world; of these, a few — like those greater lights — wander in fixed spaces, while the rest of the multitude, which is moreover immense, and diffused in variety, describes almost innumerable effigies of things and of animals. Soon, on the fifth day, the birds and all swimming things were given to the two elements. Finally, on the sixth day, the creeping things, and the very race of quadrupeds, were assigned to the earth; and with these, the most noble animal, man — who alone, having obtained a heavenly mind, was made to the image of God. They have left us, as report has it, not-to-be-despised monuments of this labor upon the whole of divine scripture: Aurelius Cassiodorus, and Richard [of St.] Victor.