Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, of the famous Praenestine family of the
Anicii, was born about 480 A.D. in Rome. His father was an ex-consul; he
himself was consul under Theodoric the Ostrogoth in 510, and his two sons,
children of a great grand-daughter of the renowned Q. Aurelius Symmachus,
were joint consuls in 522. His public career was splendid and honourable,
as befitted a man of his race, attainments, and character. But he fell
under the displeasure of Theodoric, and was charged with conspiring to
deliver Rome from his rule, and with corresponding treasonably to this end
with Justin, Emperor of the East. He was thrown into prison at Pavia, where
he wrote the _Consolation of Philosophy_, and he was brutally put to death
in 524. His brief and busy life was marked by great literary achievement.
His learning was vast, his industry untiring, his object unattainable--
nothing less than the transmission to his countrymen of all the works of
Plato and Aristotle, and the reconciliation of their apparently divergent
views. To form the idea was a silent judgment on the learning of his day;
to realize it was more than one man could accomplish; but Boethius
accomplished much. He translated the [Greek: Eisagogae] of Porphyry, and
the whole of Aristotle's _Organon_. He wrote a double commentary on the
[Greek: Eisagogae] and commentaries on the _Categories_ and the _De
Interpretatione_ of Aristotle, and on the _Topica_ of Cicero. He also
composed original treatises on the categorical and hypothetical syllogism,
on Division and on Topical Differences. He adapted the arithmetic of
Nicomachus, and his textbook on music, founded on various Greek
authorities, was in use at Oxford and Cambridge until modern times. His
five theological _Tractates_ are here, together with the _Consolation of
Philosophy_, to speak for themselves.
Boethius was the last of the Roman philosophers, and the first of the
scholastic theologians. The present volume serves to prove the truth of
both these assertions.
The _Consolation of Philosophy_ is indeed, as Gibbon called it, "a golden
volume, not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or of Tully." To belittle its
originality and sincerity, as is sometimes done, with a view to saving the
Christianity of the writer, is to misunderstand his mind and his method.
The _Consolatio_ is not, as has been maintained, a mere patchwork of
translations from Aristotle and the Neoplatonists. Rather it is the supreme
essay of one who throughout his life had found his highest solace in the
dry light of reason. His chief source of refreshment, in the dungeon to
which his beloved library had not accompanied him, was a memory well
stocked with the poetry and thought of former days. The development of the
argument is anything but Neoplatonic; it is all his own.
And if the _Consolation of Philosophy_ admits Boethius to the company of
Cicero or even of Plato, the theological _Tractates_ mark him as the
forerunner of St. Thomas. It was the habit of a former generation to regard
Boethius as an eclectic, the transmitter of a distorted Aristotelianism, a
pagan, or at best a luke-warm Christian, who at the end cast off the faith
which he had worn in times of peace, and wrapped himself in the philosophic
cloak which properly belonged to him. The authenticity of the _Tractates_
was freely denied. We know better now. The discovery by Alfred Holder, and
the illuminating discussion by Hermann Usener,[1] of a fragment of
Cassiodorus are sufficient confirmation of the manuscript tradition, apart
from the work of scholars who have sought to justify that tradition from
internal evidence. In that fragment Cassiodorus definitely ascribes to his
friend Boethius "a book on the Trinity, some dogmatic chapters, and a book
against Nestorius."[2] Boethius was without doubt a Christian, a Doctor and
perhaps a martyr. Nor is it necessary to think that, when in prison, he put
away his faith. If it is asked why the _Consolation of Philosophy_ contains
no conscious or direct reference to the doctrines which are traced in the
_Tractates_ with so sure a hand, and is, at most, not out of harmony with
Christianity, the answer is simple. In the _Consolation_ he is writing
philosophy; in the _Tractates_ he is writing theology. He observes what
Pascal calls the orders of things. Philosophy belongs to one order,
theology to another. They have different objects. The object of philosophy
is to understand and explain the nature of the world around us; the object
of theology is to understand and explain doctrines delivered by divine
revelation. The scholastics recognized the distinction,[3] and the
corresponding difference in the function of Faith and Reason. Their final
aim was to co-ordinate the two, but this was not possible before the
thirteenth century. Meanwhile Boethius helps to prepare the way. In the
_Consolation_ he gives Reason her range, and suffers her, unaided, to
vindicate the ways of Providence. In the _Tractates_ Reason is called in to
give to the claims of Faith the support which it does not really lack.[4]
Reason, however, has still a right to be heard. The distinction between
_fides_ and _ratio_ is proclaimed in the first two _Tractates_. In the
second especially it is drawn with a clearness worthy of St. Thomas
himself; and there is, of course, the implication that the higher authority
resides with _fides_. But the treatment is philosophical and extremely
bold. Boethius comes back to the question of the substantiality of the
divine Persons which he has discussed in Tr. I. from a fresh point of view.
Once more he decides that the Persons are predicated relatively; even
Trinity, he concludes, is not predicated substantially of deity. Does this
square with catholic doctrine? It is possible to hear a note of challenge
in his words to John the Deacon, _fidem si poterit rationemque coniunge_.
Philosophy states the problem in unequivocal terms. Theology is required to
say whether they commend themselves.
One object of the scholastics, anterior to the final co-ordination of the
two sciences, was to harmonize and codify all the answers to all the
questions that philosophy raises. The ambition of Boethius was not so
soaring, but it was sufficiently bold. He set out, first to translate, and
then to reconcile, Plato and Aristotle; to go behind all the other systems,
even the latest and the most in vogue, back to the two great masters, and
to show that they have the truth, and are in substantial accord. So St.
Thomas himself, if he cannot reconcile the teaching of Plato and Aristotle,
at least desires to correct the one by the other, to discover what truth is
common to both, and to show its correspondence with Christian doctrine. It
is reasonable to conjecture that Boethius, if he had lived, might have
attempted something of the kind. Were he alive to-day, he might feel more
in tune with the best of the pagans than with most contemporary philosophic
thought.
In yet one more respect Boethius belongs to the company of the schoolmen.
He not only put into circulation many precious philosophical notions,
served as channel through which various works of Aristotle passed into the
schools, and handed down to them a definite Aristotelian method for
approaching the problem of faith; he also supplied material for that
classification of the various sciences which is an essential accompaniment
of every philosophical movement, and of which the Middle Ages felt the
value.[5] The uniform distribution into natural sciences, mathematics and
theology which he recommends may be traced in the work of various teachers
up to the thirteenth century, when it is finally accepted and defended by
St. Thomas in his commentary on the _De Trinitate_.
A seventeenth-century translation of the _Consolatio Philosophiae_ is here
presented with such alterations as are demanded by a better text, and the
requirements of modern scholarship. There was, indeed, not much to do, for
the rendering is most exact. This in a translation of that date is not a
little remarkable. We look for fine English and poetry in an Elizabethan;
but we do not often get from him such loyalty to the original as is here
displayed.
Of the author "I.T." nothing is known. He may have been John Thorie, a
Fleming born in London in 1568, and a B.A. of Christ Church, 1586. Thorie
"was a person well skilled in certain tongues, and a noted poet of his
times" (Wood, _Athenae Oxon._ ed. Bliss, i. 624), but his known
translations are apparently all from the Spanish.[6]
Our translator dedicates his "Five books of Philosophical Comfort" to the
Dowager Countess of Dorset, widow of Thomas Sackville, who was part author
of _A Mirror for Magistrates_ and _Gorboduc_, and who, we learn from I.T.'s
preface, meditated a similar work. I.T. does not unduly flatter his
patroness, and he tells her plainly that she will not understand the
philosophy of the book, though the theological and practical parts may be
within her scope.
The _Opuscula Sacra_ have never before, to our knowledge, been translated.
In reading and rendering them we have been greatly helped by two mediaeval
commentaries: one by John the Scot (edited by E.K. Rand in Traube's
_Quellen und Untersuchungen_, vol. i. pt. 2, Munich, 1906); the other by
Gilbert de la Porrée (printed in Migne, _P.L._ lxiv.). We also desire to
record our indebtedness in many points of scholarship and philosophy to Mr.
E.J. Thomas of Emmanuel College.
Finally, thanks are due to Mr. Dolson for the suggestion in the footnote on
the preceding page, and also to Professor Lane Cooper of Cornell University
for many valuable corrections as this reprint was passing through the
Press.
H.F.S.
E.K.R.
_October, 1926._
[1] _Anecdoton Holderi_, Leipzig, 1877.
[2] _Scripsit librum de sancta trinitate et capita quaedam dogmatica et
librum contra Nestorium._ On the question of the genuineness of Tr. IV. _De
fide catholica_ see note _ad loc_.
[3] Cp. H. de Wulf, _Histoire de la Philosophie médiévale_ (Louvain and
Paris 1915), p. 332.
[4] See below, _De Trin_. vi. _ad fin_.
[5] Cp. L. Baur, _Gundissalinus: de divisione_, Münster, 1905.
[6] Mr. G. Bayley Dolson suggests with greater probability that I.T. was
John Thorpe (fl. 1570-1610), architect to Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset.
Cf. _American Journal of Philology_, vol. xlii. (1921), p. 266.