A TREATISE BY ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS MOST HONOURABLE, OF THE
ILLUSTRIOUS ORDER OF EX-CONSULS, PATRICIAN
TO HIS FATHER-IN-LAW, QUINTUS AURELIUS MEMMIUS SYMMACHUS
MOST HONOURABLE, OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS ORDER OF EX-CONSULS, PATRICIAN
I have long pondered this problem with such mind as I have and all the
light that God has lent me. Now, having set it forth in logical order
and cast it into literary form, I venture to submit it to your judgment,
for which I care as much as for the results of my own research. You will
readily understand what I feel whenever I try to write down what I think
if you consider the difficulty of the topic and the fact that I discuss
it only with the few--I may say with no one but yourself. It is indeed
no desire for fame or empty popular applause that prompts my pen; if
there be any external reward, we may not look for more warmth in the
verdict than the subject itself arouses. For, apart from yourself,
wherever I turn my eyes, they fall on either the apathy of the dullard
or the jealousy of the shrewd, and a man who casts his thoughts before
the common herd--I will not say to consider but to trample under foot,
would seem to bring discredit on the study of divinity. So I purposely
use brevity and wrap up the ideas I draw from the deep questionings of
philosophy in new and unaccustomed words which speak only to you and to
myself, that is, if you deign to look at them. The rest of the world I
simply disregard: they cannot understand, and therefore do not deserve
to read. We should not of course press our inquiry further than man's
wit and reason are allowed to climb the height of heavenly knowledge.[8]
In all the liberal arts we see the same limit set beyond which reason
may not reach. Medicine, for instance, does not always bring health to
the sick, though the doctor will not be to blame if he has left nothing
undone which he ought to do. So with the other arts. In the present case
the very difficulty of the quest claims a lenient judgment. You must
however examine whether the seeds sown in my mind by St. Augustine's
writings[9] have borne fruit. And now let us begin our inquiry.
[8] Cf. the discussion of human _ratio_ and divine _intellegentia_ in
_Cons. v._ pr. 4 and 5.
[9] e.g. Aug. _De Trin._