Boethius: Theological Tractates. The Consolation of Philosophy 9780674990838, 0674990838

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LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY

IUS TRACTATES, DE

CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIAE

Translated hv II

WART

and

1

.

K.

RAM)

I

\$4.oo \ \

titles

list

can be

ofLoeb found at the end of each volume Complete

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X

BOETHIUS Severinus

(Boetius) -,

Anicius

c. 480-524

Manlius

A.D.,

Roman

and philosopher, was son of Flavius Manlius Boetius, after whose death he was looked after by several statesman

men,

He

especially

married

Memmius Symmachus. Symmachus's

daughter,

whom

he had two sons. Rusticiana, by All three men rose to high honours under Theodoric the Ostrogoth, but Boethius fell from favour, was tried for treason, wrongly condemned and imprisoned at Ticinum (Pavia), where he wrote his

renowned

De Consolatione Philosophiae, until he was put to death in 524, to the Boethius great remorse of Theodoric. was revered as if he were a Saint and his bones were removed in 996 to the Church of S. Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, and later to the Cathedral. The tower in Pavia where he was imprisoned is still venerated. Boethius was author of Latin translations of Aristotle, of commentaries on various philosophical works, of original

works on

logic,

of

five

books on music

text-book in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge), and other (for long a

works. the

last

His De Consolatione Philosophiae is example of purely literary Latin

of ancient times

a

dialogue and poems.

mingling of alternate

We

include also the

Theological Tractates in this

volume.

X

NY PUBL C

L

BRARY THE BRANCH LIBRARIES

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THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY FOUNDED BY JAMES LOEB,

LL.D.

EDITED BY E. H.

WARMINGTON,

M.A., F.R.HIST.SOC.

PREVIOUS EDITORS fT. E.

fW. H.

PAGE, D.

|E. CAPPS,

C.H., LITT.D.

ROUSE,

L. A.

LITT.D.

BOETHIUS

74

PH.D., LL.D.

POST,

L.H.D.

BOETHIUS THE THEOLOGICAL TRACTATES WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY H. F.

STEWART,

D.D.

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

AND

E. K.

RAND,

PH.D.

PROFESSOR OP LATIN IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

THE

CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY WITH THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF REVISED BY H. F.

"I. T." (1609)

STEWART

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON

WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD MCMLXVIII

First printed 1918 Reprinted 1926, 1936, 1938, 1946, 1953, 1962, 1968

Printed in Great Britain

CONTENTS

..... ...... ..,..,

NOTE ON THE TEXT INTRODUCTION BIBLIOGRAPHY

.... ....

THE THEOLOGICAL TRACTATES

THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY SYMMACHI VERSUS INDEX

,

.

*

o

.

vli

ix

XV 2

,128 .

9

PAGE

412

NOTE ON THE TEXT IN preparing the text of the Consolatio I have used the apparatus in Peiper's edition (Teubner, 1871), since

his

reports, as

I

know

in

the case of the

Tegernseensis, are generally accurate and complete I have depended also on my own collations or ;

excerpts from various of the important manuscripts, nearly all of which I have at least examined, and

have also followed, not always but usually, the opinions of Engelbrecht in his admirable article, Die I

Consolatio Philosophiae des Boethius in the Sitzungsberichte

The (1902) 1-60. present text, then, has been constructed from only part of the material with which an editor should of the Vienna

Academy,

cxliv.

reckon, though the reader may at least assume that every reading in the text has, unless otherwise

the authority of some manuscript of the ninth or tenth century ; in certain orthographical details, evidence from the text of the Opuscula Sacra stated,

has been used without special mention of this fact. We look to August Engelbrecht for the first critical edition of the

Consolatio

at,

we

hope, no distant

date. vii

NOTE ON THE TEXT The

text of the Opiiscula Sacra is based on my own collations of all the important manuscripts of these

An

edition with complete apparatus cnticus will be ready before long for the Vienna Corpus

works.

The history Scriptonun Ecclesiasticorum Latinonnn. of the text of the Opuscula Sacra, as I shall attempt to show elsewhere, is intimately connected with that of the Consolatio. S. K. R.

ili

INTRODUCTION ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS, of the famous Praenestine family of the Anicii, was born about 4-80 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 granddaughter of the renowned Q. Aurelius Symmachus, were joint consuls in 522. His public career was splendid and honourable, as befitted a man of his ;

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 it was realize more than one man could accomplish but Boethius accomplished much. He translated the of and the whole of Aristotle's Eiars eorurn in I

pati.

C stint qualia snbiars in

aeeidentium nurnero

diuinarn

10

uerterit

est.

At

pracdical ioncm,

euncta

(jiiis

in

mul.antur

Ad alifjuid uero ornnino quae pracdirari possunt. non potest praedieari, narn substanl.ia in illo non est uere substantia sed ultra subsl.antiam et cetera fiat

quae uenire

LntellectUB exernpla

Nam eum ^>

cmn

liaee

si^nificare

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ui