[A brief biographical outline.---
Boethius was born in Rome to an old noble family, distinguished in high public
service. His father was a consul. He himself became one as well, and so did his
two sons, both in his rather short lifetime. During the Arian heresy struggle,
Theodoric the Great, in whose service Boethius was, and being himself an Arian,
arrested Boethius on suspicion of plotting against him on the side of the Orthodox
(in this case, anti-Arian) Christian ruler of the Byzantine Empire Justin I. (Knowing Boethius, clearly,
theology had next to nothing to do with it: the matter was predominantly
political! Yet, subsequently the Catholic Church made Boethius into a Christian
martyr dying in defense of Christian Orthodoxy, granting him Sainthood.) The hapless
Boethius was summarily executed on Theodoric’s order, having just finished his
philosophical masterpiece Consolatio Philosophiae, written in prison.]
Anicius Manlius Severinus
Boethius (480-526) was not a major philosopher, but he was still a philosopher,
and, even more importantly, one who, for a variety of reasons, unquestionably
deserves our attention.
The very first sentence of this
entry (namely, the title) may sound somewhat strange, but it is not as strange
as it sounds. The era of the Christian Church’s intellectual dominance--- from
the fourth century AD up to the Renaissance--- was not very kind to philosophy,
suspecting every independent thinker of heresy and of relapse into pagan
practices and thinking patterns, and, therefore, only theological orthodoxy
(which in early times walked an awfully thin line bordering on heresy from all
sides) and Church-approved Christian apologetics were the order of the day. We
have already chronologically ignored several Church Fathers and Doctors
who cannot be called philosophers by any stretch of imagination, and at
best will perhaps be considered for inclusion in our Religion section
during the next round of major revisions.
But with Boethius everything is
clear: he is a bona fide philosopher, and for the following reasons,
among others:
(1) He is a passionate advocate
of Greek philosophy, who translated several works by Aristotle and Porphyry
(and pledged to translate many more) and wrote commentaries on Porphyry and
Cicero, which is already indicative of his contribution to philosophy, but is
by no means the full extent of that contribution.
(2) He wrote several important
treatises on logic, which were to influence the work of several generations of
schoolmen. Overall, most of the Aristotelian logic, and certain other elements
of his philosophy, became familiar to the schoolmen down to the beginning of
the twelfth century through the works of Boethius.
(3) His magnum opus Consolatio
Philosophiae is a purely philosophical work, which caused Bertrand Russell
to make the following glowing comment about him:
“Boethius
is a singular figure. Throughout the Middle Ages he was read and admired,
regarded always as a devout Christian, and treated almost as if he had been one
of the Fathers. Yet, his Consolatio Philosophiae written in 524 (526?),
while he was awaiting execution, is purely Platonic; it does not prove that he
was not a Christian” (although some critics have
alleged his devotion to paganism in this case, considering that the name of
Jesus Christ is never mentioned, nor is the Church. In the Catholic
Encyclopedia this fact is duly acknowledged, but it is argued that this is
to be expected, as such is the nature of the theme: Philosophy has come to
console the fallen Boethius), “but it does show
that pagan philosophy had a much stronger hold on him than Christian theology.
[Consolatio] is an alternation of verse and prose: Boethius in his own
person speaks in prose, while Philosophy answers in verse. There is a certain
resemblance to Dante, who was, no doubt, influenced by him in the Vita
Nuova.” (!)
“The Consolatio,
which Gibbon rightly calls a golden volume, begins by the statement
that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are the true philosophers; but Stoics,
Epicureans (miser Epicure!), and the rest, are usurpers, whom the profane multitude
mistook for friends of philosophy. Boethius says he obeyed the Pythagorean
command to “follow God” (not the Christian command!). Happiness,
which is the same as blessedness, is the good, not pleasure. Friendship is a “most
sacred thing.” (…Isn’t this one of the
things Epicurus said?) There is much morality,
which agrees closely with Stoic doctrine, and is in fact largely taken from
Seneca. (And yet earlier he pontificates against
the Stoics!) There is a summary, in verse, of
the beginning of the Timaeus. (Bearing in
mind that it is Philosophia who speaks in verse, she is thus
representing and validating Plato as the spirit of philosophy.) This is followed by a lot of purely Platonic metaphysics.
Imperfection, we are told, is a lack, implying the existence of a perfect
pattern. He adopts the privative theory of evil. He then passes on to a
pantheism, which should have shocked Christians, but for some reason did not.
Blessedness and God, he says, are both the chiefest good, and are therefore
identical. Men are made happy by obtaining divinity. They who obtain
divinity become gods. Wherefore every one that is happy is a god, but by nature
there is only one God, but there may be many by participation… The sum, origin
and cause of all which is sought after, is rightly thought to be goodness; the
substance of God consists in nothing else but goodness. Can God do evil?
No. Therefore evil is nothing, since God can do everything. (Can God sleep? No? Then, sleep is nothing, etc. A very poor
argument in a serious philosophical matter, one must say.) Virtuous men are always powerful, and bad men always weak;
for both desire the good, but only the virtuous get it… The wicked are more
unfortunate if they escape punishment than if they suffer it. (Note that this
cannot be said of punishment in hell.) “In wise men there is no place for
hatred.”
The tone
of the book is more like that of Plato than that of Plotinus. There is no trace
of the superstition or morbidness of the age, no obsession with sin, or excessive
straining after the unattainable. There is perfect philosophical calm, so much
that had the book been written in prosperity it might almost have been called
smug. Written when it was, in prison, under sentence of death, it is as
admirable as the last moments of the Platonic Socrates.”
Russell is clearly a great
admirer of Boethius, which he explicitly summarizes in the following passage:
“It may
be that [Boethius’] freedom from superstition was not so exceptional in Roman
aristocratic families as elsewhere; but its combination with great learning and
zeal for the public good was unique in that age... During the two centuries
before his time and the ten centuries after it, I cannot think of any European
man of learning so free from superstition and fanaticism. Nor are his merits
merely negative; his survey is lofty and disinterested and sublime. He would
have been remarkable in any age; in the age in which he lived he is utterly
amazing.”
The fact that Boethius was indeed
an authentic philosopher is proven by the controversy over his legacy. It is
argued by some, on the basis of his philosophical writings, that he was a
closet pagan, and not a genuine Christian. Only a true philosopher can raise in
others such an objection to his Christian credentials! But it is also argued
that he died a martyr for the Christian cause at the hands of the Arian heretic
Theodoric. It was the latter argument that led to his canonization by the
Catholic Church as Saint Severinus Boethius.
And finally the reader may
already be aware of my personal emotional partiality to Dante’s famous phrase “Nessun maggior dolore che ricordarsi del tempo felice
nella miseria.” It
is remarkable that this phrase has apparently been derivative in Dante from the
following phrase in Boethius:
“Nam in Omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum
genus est infortunii, fuisse felicem.” (Consolatio, ii, 4.)
Such a remarkable derivation may
not be much, in so far as the history of philosophy is concerned, but to me it
means a great deal and makes my choice of Boethius for writing a separate
entry, which is this one, both formally necessitated honoris causa, and
personally significant as well.
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