Brian Keeley

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Boethiuss Consolation of Philosophy, Book I-III

• Brian Keeley
• Philosophy, Pitzer College
• Office Broad Hall 107

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Schedule

• Read Books IV V for next time

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Boethius, the person

• Born Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
  (482-524/5).
• Born in Rome to a powerful aristocratic family
  his father had been a powerful political leader
  and had become Consul of the Roman Senate before
  his death when Boethius was only 8 yrs old.

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Boethius, the person

• Boethius adopted by Symmachus, the head of the
  most powerful Roman family, who would also become
  Consul.
• Symmachus and Boethius were devoted to one
  another, and Boethius goes on to marry
  Symmachuss daughter.

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Boethius, the person

• Boethius was very intelligent, and said by
  historians to be perhaps the most educated person
  in Italy for a hundred years before and after his
  life. (!)

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Boethius, the person

• An avid follower of Plato the other classic
  philosophers of Greece Rome, he entered
  political life. Following in the footsteps of
  his families, he too became Consul, as did both
  of his sons.
• He also had an influential intellectual life,
  authoring a number of treatises, commentaries,
  and translations of the classic works then
  available.

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Consolation of PhilosophyThe Back-Story

• First, we have to realize that Boethiuss
  fathers generation saw the end of the Roman
  Empire, at least the Roman Empire as ruled by the
  Romans. The barbarians had finally defeated Rome.

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Consolation of PhilosophyThe Back-Story

• In Boethiuss time, the Roman Empire was ruled by
  the Ostrogoths, led by Theodoric (who was put up
  to the invasion by the leader of the Eastern
  Empire based in Constanti-nople, now Instanbul).
• Theodoric was Emperor, but was content to let the
  locals carry on more or less as before, but with
  him as Emperor.

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Consolation of PhilosophyThe Back-Story

• By the time Boethius became Consul, Theodorics
  relationship with Constantinople had soured.
• The next piece of the puzzle is that not only was
  the Empire split, the Church was split as well.
  The Pope led a not-very-powerful Roman Catholic
  Church. The Patriarch led a slightly more
  powerful Eastern Orthodox Church.
• Based where?

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Consolation of PhilosophyThe Back-Story

• And, Boethius was a Christian.

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• Christianity in Boethiuss day was different
• It wasn't nearly as powerful as it would
  eventually become
• It was beset by divisions. Not just between the
  two Churches, but between groups with very
  different religious ideologies. First of all,
  there were fights over the appropriate books of
  the Bible. There were also many fights over
  interpretations There were the Monophysites who
  thought that Jesus was purely divine, and not
  also human. There were also the Nestorians, who
  thought that Jesus was of two different and
  independent natures, both divine and human but
  not simultaneously. Boethius was on the side of
  the eventual winners of this debate who argued
  that Christ is simultaneously fully divine and
  fully human. (The Doctrine of One God in Three
  Persons)

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Back to the Back-Story

• Boethius had been promoted from Consul to Master
  of Offices to Theodoric, which is sort of like
  our White House Chief of Staff.
• In other words, if you were Roman and wanted an
  audience with the Emperor, you had to go through
  Boethius.

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Back to the Back-Story

• He had been office only a year when a member of
  the Senate was accused of crimes against the
  Empire due to his attempts to negotiate a
  reconciliation between the two Churches.
• Theodoric believed the charge, but Boethius did
  not and said, If he is guilty then the whole
  Senate is guilty! Theodoric saw this as a
  confession of Boethiuss own treason.

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Back to the Back-Story

• Boethius is then imprisoned on charges of
  treason, and the use of black arts.
• Theodoric calls a session of a senatorial court
  that sentences Boethius to death (although he is
  not allowed to testify in his own defense).
• At this point, Boethius writes his Consolation
  under house arrest, awaiting execution.

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The Consolation of Philosophy

• Facing all of this, Boethius still intends to
  argue that his philosophical life is the superior
  life
• that nonetheless he is better off than his unjust
  accusers.

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Boethius, His Unique Historical Position

• Boethius is also a unique character in that he
  has feet in two different worlds and stands at
  the beginning of a third.
• First, he is immersed in the classical worlds of
  Roman Greek philosophy. He is a great admirer
  of the ancients and their wisdom. He is, perhaps,
  the last Ancient Philosopher.

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Boethius, His Unique Historical Position

• Second, he is a Christian.
• However, he is a Christian at a time before the
  Church comes into conflict with the educated and
  learned. He sees no necessary conflict between
  the two.

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Boethius, His Unique Historical Position

• And he stands at the beginning of the Dark ages
  and the Medieval period. Rome is about to
  collapse, and with it European civilization.
• The Church gains ascendancy, in part, because it
  is the only institution thats able to hold
  itself together amidst the chaos.

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Boethius, His Unique Historical Position

• So, Boethius is the 1st Medieval philosopher.
• The Consolation not an obviously Christian text
  because Christ appears nowhere in it he never
  quotes the Bible.
• Believes faith reason work hand-in-hand. This
  book argues that the principles of reason logic
  inevitably lead to the Christian picture of the
  world.

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Boethius, His Unique Historical Position

• So in many ways, Boethius stands at the beginning
  of a tradition that would only come to an end
  with the Reformation and the birth of the
  Protestant Church
• (Although, truth be told, Roman Catholicism still
  has strong roots in this tradition, via St.
  Thomas Aquinass Two Paths).

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Finishing the story

• For 1000 years, the most widely copied work of
  secular literature in Europe.
• Major influence on both Dante (compare the
  character of Philosophy here to Dante's Beatrice)
  and C.S. Lewis.
• Translated into Old English by King Alfred,
• into Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer
• into Elizabethan English by Queen Elizabeth
  herself.

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Lets look at the book itself

• Its form a dialogue between the imprisoned
  Boethius and Lady Philosophy.
• (So once again, the main character isnt exactly
  what you might think.)
• Alternates between poetry prose. (This is
  called a Menippean satire.)

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Book I Setting the Stage

• In the beginning, we find an ailing, imprisoned
  Boethius being tended by the muses of poetry who
  are then run off by Lady Philosophy.
• This raises our first question
• What are we to make of Philosophy's condemnation
  of poetry, when Boethius himself writes poetry?

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Book I

• At this point, Philosophy asks Boethius what the
  heck happened to him, and he spills out his sad
  story of injustice at the hands of corrupt men.
• Philosophy is unimpressed by his self-pity and
  responds with the prose passage in Ch. 5.

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Diagnosing Boethiuss Illness

• With the questions in the prose section of
  Chapter 6, she then diagnoses Boethius problem
• He has forgotten who he is.

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Bks II III FortuneIt aint all that

• Things people usually look for to find happiness
  Wealth, Positions of honor and power, Glory and
  reputation (Fame), Health and bodily pleasures