Boethius

Introduction

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius is the late-antique Roman philosopher, statesman, and translator whose work bridges classical antiquity and the medieval Latin West. The Consolation of Philosophy (De Consolatione Philosophiae), written in 523–24 CE while Boethius awaited execution under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, became one of the most-read texts in the medieval West and one of the most translated single books in European literary history. The parallel project of translating and commenting on the works of Aristotle (and intended translation of Plato) gave the Latin scholastic tradition its principal source for Aristotelian logic for the seven centuries before the twelfth- and thirteenth-century translations recovered the broader Aristotelian corpus from the Arabic.

Boethius is the last major figure of classical Roman philosophy and the first major figure of medieval Latin philosophy. His position at the bridge between the two epochs gave his work an institutional importance disproportionate to its size: in a period when Greek was no longer routinely available to Western readers, Boethius's Latin Aristotle was Aristotle for the medieval West; his Latin theological treatises gave the medieval scholastic tradition the technical vocabulary in which trinitarian and Christological doctrines were formulated; his Consolation gave medieval readers their canonical example of philosophical wisdom under conditions of catastrophic personal misfortune.

Life

Boethius was born around 480 CE in Rome to a distinguished senatorial family. His father Manlius Boethius had been consul in 487; after the father's early death, Anicius Manlius was raised by Symmachus, the leading senator of the period, whose daughter Rusticiana he eventually married. The early education was both in Latin and in Greek (an unusual accomplishment by the late fifth century, when Greek had largely faded from Western Roman education); the Greek competence gave Boethius the equipment for the translation projects that would define his philosophical work.

Boethius's public career was substantial. He held the consulship in 510; his two sons held the consulship together in 522, an unusual honor that marked the family's political prominence. He served as magister officiorum (master of offices) under Theodoric the Ostrogoth, who ruled Italy from Ravenna; the position made him one of the senior administrators of the Ostrogothic kingdom and gave him political influence.

The political career ended catastrophically in 523. Boethius defended the Roman senator Albinus against charges of treasonous correspondence with the Byzantine emperor Justin; the defense led to Boethius himself being accused of treason and of conspiring with the Byzantines against Theodoric. The charges may have reflected genuine political tensions (the Catholic Roman senate was uncomfortable with the Arian Ostrogothic rule) or may have been pretexts for removing a senator whose Roman loyalties Theodoric had come to mistrust. Boethius was imprisoned at Pavia and executed in 524 (or possibly 525), probably by torture; his father-in-law Symmachus was executed shortly after.

The Consolation of Philosophy was written during the imprisonment. The book is the philosophical work of a man under sentence of death; the dialectic between Boethius and the figure of Lady Philosophy who appears to him is conducted with the awareness that the philosophical questions are not academic but immediately practical for the author. The completion of the book before execution is itself substantial: Boethius produced one of the canonical works of Western literature while awaiting his death.

Contributions

The Consolation of Philosophy

The Consolation of Philosophy is Boethius's most-read single work and one of the most-read books in medieval European history. The book is organized in five books of alternating prose and verse (the prosimetrum form). The opening shows Boethius in his prison cell, weeping at his fall from fortune; the figure of Lady Philosophy appears and dismisses the Muses of poetry who have been comforting him with sentimental verses; Philosophy then conducts a dialectical engagement that addresses, in sequence, the unreliability of Fortune (Book II), the nature of true happiness (Book III), the problem of evil and the apparent prosperity of the wicked (Book IV), and the reconciliation of divine foreknowledge with human freedom (Book V).

The framework of the Consolation is Neoplatonist with Stoic and Aristotelian elements. The argument that true happiness consists in the contemplation of the highest good (which is identified with God) is Neoplatonic; the dismissal of external goods as unreliable is Stoic; the framework of the relation between necessity and freedom is Aristotelian. The integration of these traditions in the Consolation is one of the achievements of late ancient philosophy.

The absence of any explicitly Christian doctrine in the Consolation has been continuously discussed. Boethius was a Christian (the theological tracts on the Trinity and the Incarnation are unmistakably orthodox), and the Consolation draws on Christian themes through Neoplatonic mediation; but the book contains no explicit reference to Christ, to the church, or to specifically Christian sacraments or scripture. The absence has been interpreted variously: as evidence that Boethius was not in fact Christian (a minority position); as evidence that he wished to write a philosophical work that could speak to non-Christian readers; as evidence that under the conditions of imminent execution he turned to the philosophical resources that classical antiquity provided without invoking the religious framework that might have seemed too immediate.

The Book V engagement with divine foreknowledge and human freedom is one of the most-discussed passages in medieval philosophy. Boethius's framework distinguishes between necessity in the mode of conditional reference (necessity in relation to God's knowledge) and necessity in the mode of absolute reference (necessity in the nature of the thing itself); God's foreknowledge does not make events necessary in the second sense even though they are necessary in the first. The framework shaped subsequent medieval engagement with the problem of foreknowledge and freedom through Anselm, Aquinas, and the broader scholastic tradition.

The translations of Aristotle

Boethius's parallel project was the translation of the Greek philosophical corpus into Latin. He intended to translate all of Aristotle and all of Plato and to demonstrate the agreement of the two; the project was interrupted by his execution but produced the Latin Aristotelian logic that would shape the medieval West.

The completed Aristotle translations cover the Categories and On Interpretation (which Boethius translated and on which he wrote commentaries) and the Prior Analytics, Topics, and Sophistical Refutations (which Boethius translated but on which his commentaries are either lost or were never completed). The Posterior Analytics and the broader non-logical Aristotelian corpus were not translated by Boethius and remained unavailable in Latin until the twelfth century.

The Aristotelian translations and commentaries gave the medieval West its principal Aristotle for the seven centuries between Boethius and the twelfth-century translations from the Arabic. The categories Boethius established in his commentaries (the distinction between universals and particulars, the framework of the predicables, the treatment of propositional structure) shaped medieval logical pedagogy through the trivium and beyond.

The theological treatises

Boethius produced five short theological treatises (the Opuscula Sacra) addressing questions of trinitarian and Christological doctrine. On the Trinity (De Trinitate) addresses the logical structure of the trinitarian doctrine. Whether the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are Substantially Predicated of the Divinity addresses the application of Aristotelian categories to trinitarian theology. How Substances Can Be Good in Virtue of their Existence Without Being Absolute Goods addresses the metaphysical relation between created and uncreated being. On the Catholic Faith (whose Boethian authorship has been contested) gives a creedal summary. Against Eutyches and Nestorius addresses the Christological controversy of the early sixth century.

The theological tracts gave the medieval scholastic tradition the Latin technical vocabulary in which Christian doctrines could be formulated philosophically. The framework of the distinction between natura and persona in Against Eutyches and Nestorius shaped subsequent Christological discussion through the scholastic period. The application of Aristotelian categories to theological questions established the methodological framework that Aquinas and the broader scholastic tradition would develop substantially.

Reception

Boethius's reception in the medieval West was and continuous. The Consolation of Philosophy was one of the most-read books in medieval Europe; Old English (King Alfred), Old High German (Notker the German), Old French, Old Provencal, Middle English (Chaucer), and other vernacular translations made it accessible across the medieval European cultures. The Boethian framework of Lady Philosophy, the wheel of Fortune, the contemplation of the highest good, and the reconciliation of foreknowledge and freedom shaped medieval literary and philosophical work.

The logical translations and commentaries provided the medieval West with its principal Aristotelian framework for seven centuries. The early scholastic logic (the logica vetus or old logic that organized pedagogy before the twelfth-century recovery of the broader Aristotelian corpus) was the Boethian Aristotle; the subsequent logica nova (the new logic recovered through Arabic intermediaries in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) developed work that the Boethian framework had introduced.

The Renaissance and early modern reception continued. The Renaissance recovery of Greek made direct access to Aristotle increasingly available, but the Boethian framework continued to shape European pedagogy through the early modern period. The Romantic and modern reception has been more occasional but continuous; the Consolation remains in print and continues to be assigned in courses on medieval philosophy, late ancient literature, and the broader engagement between philosophy and personal suffering.

Continuing engagement

Major recent scholarly work includes John Marenbon's Boethius (2003), Pierre Courcelle's work on the Consolation's sources (especially La Consolation de Philosophie dans la tradition littéraire, 1967), Henry Chadwick's Boethius: The Consonances of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy (1981), the Cambridge Companion to Boethius (Marenbon, ed., 2009), and the recent work of Rosalind Hursthouse, Antonio Donato, and Stephen Blackwood (whose The Consolation of Boethius as Poetic Liturgy, 2015, has produced recent engagement). Active scholarly debates concern the question of Boethius's Christianity in the Consolation, the relation between the Consolation and the theological tracts, the contemporary applicability of the Boethian framework on foreknowledge and freedom, and the broader historical question of the Boethian role in transmitting classical philosophy to the medieval West.

Further reading

• Aristotle — the philosopher whose works Boethius translated and commented on
• Plato — the philosopher Boethius intended to translate but did not complete
• Plotinus — the Neoplatonist whose framework shapes the Consolation
• Augustine — the Christian Neoplatonist whose framework Boethius inherited
• Aquinas — the major medieval scholastic whose engagement with Aristotelian logic developed from Boethian foundations
• Anselm — the medieval philosopher whose engagement with foreknowledge and freedom developed Boethian themes
• Christian Theology — the broader tradition Boethius's theological tracts shaped

The late-antique Roman philosopher whose Consolation of Philosophy and translations of Aristotle bridged classical antiquity and the medieval Latin West.