The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
The Consolation of Philosophy
by
Boethius
{Frontispiece: The Wheel of Fortune}
Bibliographical note
The text of this edition is taken from the translation by W.V. Cooper,
published by J.M. Dent and Co. Aldine House, London 1902. The
"Editorial Note", actually an introduction, has been moved from the
end of the book to the beginning.
{Title Page}
EDITORIAL NOTE
THE incompatibility of the sufferings of good men, the impunity
and success of bad men, with the government of the world by a good
God, has been a subject of thought among men ever since religion and
abstract questions have occupied the thoughts of mankind. The poetical
books of the Bible are full of it, particularly, of course the book of
Job, which is a dramatic poem entirely devoted to the subject. The New
Testament contains much teaching on the same question. Among the
Greeks the tragedians and later philosophers delighted in working out
its problems. But from the sixth to the seventeenth centuries of our
era the De Consolatione of Boethius, in its original Latin and in many
translations, was in the hands of almost all the educated people of
the world. The author's personal history was well known. He was a man
whose fortunes had risen to the highest pitch possible under the Roman
Empire; who had himself experienced the utter collapse of those
fortunes, and was known to have sustained himself through imprisonment
and even to torture and an unjust death by the thoughts which he left
to mankind in this book.
It is a work which appealed to Pagan and Christian alike. There
is no Christian doctrine relied upon throughout the work, but there is
also nothing which could be in conflict with Christianity. Even the
personification of Philosophy, though after the form of a pagan
goddess, is precisely like the 'Wisdom' of Solomon in the Apocrypha;
and the same habit of thought led the Jews to personify the 'Word' of
God, and use it as identical with God Himself; and the same led to
that identifying of the 'Word' with Christ, which we find in the first
chapter of St. John's Gospel. So, if there is nothing distinctly or
dogmatically Christian in the work, there is also nothing which can be
condemned as pagan, in spite of the strong influence of pagan
philosophy, with which Boethius was intimate.
For though some have held that the Christianity of Boethius was
foisted upon him, with his canonisation as St. Severinus, after his
death by those who thought he must have been too good a man to have
been a heathen, and though the authenticity of his theological works
also has therefore been doubted, yet we may now be almost certain that
he was a Christian, and an orthodox Christian, for if it is true that
he wrote those works, he combated Arianism during his life, and during
his imprisonment he was engaged upon a treatise on the Unity of the
Trinity, as well as upon this work. Here perhaps lies an explanation
of what must seem strange to us at first sight, namely, that a
Christian should apparently look to Philosophy rather than to his
religion for comfort in persecution and support at the approach of
death. But it is to be feared that in his day, and in the society in
which he moved, Christianity meant to many who professed it little
more than a subject for rivalry and argument among sects and for the
combating of heresies. With many of the contemporaries of Boethius,
therefore, a new book of comfort sought for in Christian doctrine
would not have had much influence, and there seems to be no reason why
people of our own day, even those who draw the greatest help from
their religion, should not enjoy the additional comfort which solaced
an honest and pious thinker in a time of apparently intolerable and
incredible misfortune.
The wide learning of Boethius may be partly shewn by a list of
some of his writings, which included original works and translations
in many branches of study. For instance, he translated into Latin a
great number of Aristotle's works on different subjects, such as those
on Rhetoric, Logic, the Categories, etc. He translated three books of
Euclid, and wrote other mathematical works. He translated and wrote
books upon Music and Mechanics, and one upon Astronomy. His
theological works included treatises against the Nestorians and
Arians.
But his Consolation is the work upon which his fame rests. The
veneration in which this book was held in the middle ages and onward
by
Boethius
{Frontispiece: The Wheel of Fortune}
Bibliographical note
The text of this edition is taken from the translation by W.V. Cooper,
published by J.M. Dent and Co. Aldine House, London 1902. The
"Editorial Note", actually an introduction, has been moved from the
end of the book to the beginning.
{Title Page}
EDITORIAL NOTE
THE incompatibility of the sufferings of good men, the impunity
and success of bad men, with the government of the world by a good
God, has been a subject of thought among men ever since religion and
abstract questions have occupied the thoughts of mankind. The poetical
books of the Bible are full of it, particularly, of course the book of
Job, which is a dramatic poem entirely devoted to the subject. The New
Testament contains much teaching on the same question. Among the
Greeks the tragedians and later philosophers delighted in working out
its problems. But from the sixth to the seventeenth centuries of our
era the De Consolatione of Boethius, in its original Latin and in many
translations, was in the hands of almost all the educated people of
the world. The author's personal history was well known. He was a man
whose fortunes had risen to the highest pitch possible under the Roman
Empire; who had himself experienced the utter collapse of those
fortunes, and was known to have sustained himself through imprisonment
and even to torture and an unjust death by the thoughts which he left
to mankind in this book.
It is a work which appealed to Pagan and Christian alike. There
is no Christian doctrine relied upon throughout the work, but there is
also nothing which could be in conflict with Christianity. Even the
personification of Philosophy, though after the form of a pagan
goddess, is precisely like the 'Wisdom' of Solomon in the Apocrypha;
and the same habit of thought led the Jews to personify the 'Word' of
God, and use it as identical with God Himself; and the same led to
that identifying of the 'Word' with Christ, which we find in the first
chapter of St. John's Gospel. So, if there is nothing distinctly or
dogmatically Christian in the work, there is also nothing which can be
condemned as pagan, in spite of the strong influence of pagan
philosophy, with which Boethius was intimate.
For though some have held that the Christianity of Boethius was
foisted upon him, with his canonisation as St. Severinus, after his
death by those who thought he must have been too good a man to have
been a heathen, and though the authenticity of his theological works
also has therefore been doubted, yet we may now be almost certain that
he was a Christian, and an orthodox Christian, for if it is true that
he wrote those works, he combated Arianism during his life, and during
his imprisonment he was engaged upon a treatise on the Unity of the
Trinity, as well as upon this work. Here perhaps lies an explanation
of what must seem strange to us at first sight, namely, that a
Christian should apparently look to Philosophy rather than to his
religion for comfort in persecution and support at the approach of
death. But it is to be feared that in his day, and in the society in
which he moved, Christianity meant to many who professed it little
more than a subject for rivalry and argument among sects and for the
combating of heresies. With many of the contemporaries of Boethius,
therefore, a new book of comfort sought for in Christian doctrine
would not have had much influence, and there seems to be no reason why
people of our own day, even those who draw the greatest help from
their religion, should not enjoy the additional comfort which solaced
an honest and pious thinker in a time of apparently intolerable and
incredible misfortune.
The wide learning of Boethius may be partly shewn by a list of
some of his writings, which included original works and translations
in many branches of study. For instance, he translated into Latin a
great number of Aristotle's works on different subjects, such as those
on Rhetoric, Logic, the Categories, etc. He translated three books of
Euclid, and wrote other mathematical works. He translated and wrote
books upon Music and Mechanics, and one upon Astronomy. His
theological works included treatises against the Nestorians and
Arians.
But his Consolation is the work upon which his fame rests. The
veneration in which this book was held in the middle ages and onward
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