The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy

«But if Christ did not put on that manhood which had endured death in punishment for sin, it will result that of no man's seed could ever one have been born who should be, like Him, without punishment for original sin. Therefore flesh like His was taken from no man, whence it would appear to have been new-formed for the purpose. But did this flesh then either so appear to human eyes that the body was deemed human which was not really human, because it was not subject to any primal penalty, or was some new true human flesh formed as a makeshift, not subject to the penalty for original sin?»

Plot-architecture in the Tractates is the canonical late-antique scholastic-debate cycle: a definition is set, an objection is raised (Eutyches / Nestorius), the objection is countered with a citation of authority (Scripture + Fathers + Cassiodorus's Holder-Usener attestation), and the formula is restated. The Eutyches-chapter (where Boethius shows that to deny true human flesh is to deny redemption) is the climactic scholastic move. The plot-architecture of the Consolatio is the canonical 5-book prosimetric dialogue. Together the dual-text gives Boethius's plot-shape of "school-then-prison-then-consolation". 故 88。

«Haec dum me necessitate quadam … nunc ab ingenio quidem Philosophiae uberem, sed pro tempore inopem, lacrimis oppletis quiat Philosophia cuncta dicentibus»

The cast in this opening-prose is micro-typical: Boethius (the prisoner-philosopher weeping over his Muses' trivial songs), the Muses (Poetriae / Musae — the woman-of-verse-form expostulating Philosophia as if the imprisoned-narrator were a spoiled child), and Philosophia herself (deified as the Lady who wipes the prisoner's eyes, applies the elenchus, sings the high songs). The Prosopopoeia is the canonical late-antique authorial-female-figure-construction, and Boethius's cast is the formula-set for 1500 years of similar personifications (Cicero's later Timaeus, Augustine's later Philosophia/Sapientia). Boethius is the late-antique-early-medieval philosophical-narrator; Philosophia is the textbook author. So cast scores 84. 故 84。

«consider the difficulty of communication by land and sea, the diversity of speech, and the scarcity of traffic, not only the Fame of particular men but even of cities can hardly come. Finally, in the age of Marcus Tullius, as he himself writeth, the fame of the Roman Commonwealth had not passed the mountain Caucasus, and yet it was then in the most flourishing estate, fearful even to the Parthians and to the rest of the nations about. Seest thou therefore how strait and narrow that glory is which you labour to enlarge and increase?»

Pace in the Consolatio-Book-II-mid-passage is the canonical Boethian-philosophical-prose pace: imperium-staccato (definition + objection + counter-proof + objection + elaboration + counter) interrupted by the carmina (lyric-metre monodies on Fortune, on Happiness, on the Remnant of Being). Stewart/Rand's English-side maintains the alternation of "philosophical-prose / high lyric-monody" through the 5 books. The 5-book scaffold (I: complaints; II: Fortune; III: the summum bonum; IV: Providence; V: Free Will / Foreknowledge) is the canonical late-antique consolation-pace. So pace scores 82. 故 82。

«proinde quoniam, uti dialecticis probatur argumentis, in omni genere id quod primum acdimitatis dignitate notissimum est, id maxime sui generis sit, et in eo quod intueamur id quod potissimum intellegatur, in reliquis vero unicuam esse post haec necesse est: profecto id quod est omni malo carens, in se bonorum omnium summam continet, quodque bonorum omnium summam tenet, omnibus anteponatur necesse est.»

Boethius's Latin is the canonical late-antique philosophical-Latin: clean clausulae, high Ciceronian cadence in the prose sections (Consolatio Books I-IV prose), mixed with the high-sublime lyric metres in the carmina. The 1918 Stewart/Rand English-side carries the rhetorical register. The opuscula sacra are heavy scholastic, the consolatio is high-literary; both registers cohere. So prose scores 95. 故 95。

«Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, of the famous Praenestine family of the Anicii, was born about 480 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 grand-daughter of the renowned Q. Aurelius Symmachus, were joint consuls in 522. His public career was splendid and honourable, as befitted a man of his race, attainments, 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.»

The world of 524-Pavia-prison + 510-consul-throne + 6th-c Gothic-Ostrogothic-Italy + Theodoric's political frame + Boethius's vast library (Plato-Aristotle translation project) + the Cassiodorus friendship at the Vivarium. The 5 Tractates are products of the late-antique Christian-Thomana consolidation; the Consolatio is the philosophical-prison-text par excellence. The world is the canonical late-antique Christian-pagan-synthesis of the early-6th-c Western Roman senescent ruling-class. Stewart/Rand's INTRODUCTION (open anchor) lays this out in 11 paragraphs. So world scores 96. 故 96。

«Haec dum me necessitate quadam … nunc ab ingenio quidem Philosophiae uberem, sed pro tempore inopem, lacrimis oppletis quiat Philosophia cuncta dicentibus»

The Consolatio's hook is the famous first prose passage: Boethius weeping, the Muses coming to comfort with trivial songs, Philosophia chasing them away — this is the canonical late-antique Western literary hook (one of the most-copied openings in Western literature, after Don Quixote's). The 5 Tractates' hook is the scholastic opening of De Trinitate with the proof that God is one substance in three persons. Stewart/Rand's English introduction further pre-faces the whole volume with the Holder-Usener-Cassiodorus authentication of the Tractates. So hook scores 92. 故 92。

«felix qui potuit bonae / noscere causae / quique haec profunda satagit / percurrere cura, / qui despicit inpexa / seclane fidemque pallentem caesis- / que lacessens crimina nostra: / nec non ille quondam memoratus in orbe / doctor Etruscum sparsum / verat moribus orbem / … / non ille, non ille meas ingeminat iras / quos secuta est aspera / poena exilio»

Boethius's Consolatio is one of the founding-texts of Western philosophical prose: (a) invents the prosimetric philosophical consolation-form (prose + lyric metres alternating); (b) introduces the figure-of-Lady-Philosophia (deified philosophical-risque); (c) creates the canonical Latin-Victorian-Scholastic synthesis (Stoic-Christian + Ciceronian + Augustinian); (d) the 5 Tractates are the forerunners of St. Thomas's Summa Theologiae (Boethius = "the last of the Romans and the first of the Scholastics"). The Consolatio alone is one of the most-copied single Western text in the manuscript tradition (800+ mss.). Stewart/Rand's apparatus further notes that "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". So innov scores 100. 故 100。

«manet intemerata mortalibus arbitrii libertas nec iniquae leges solutis omni necessitate uoluntatibus praemia poenasque proponunt. Manet etiam spectator desuper cunctorum praescius deus uisionisque eius praesens semper aeternitas cum nostrorum actuum futura qualitate concurrit bonis praemia malis supplicia dispensans. Nec frustra sunt in deo positae spes precesque; quae cum rectae sunt, inefficaces esse non possunt. Auersamini igitur uitia, colite uirtutes, ad rectas spes animum subleuate, humiles preces in excelsa porrigite. Magna uobis est, si dissimulare non uultis, necessitas indicta probitatis, cum ante oculos agitis iudicis cuncta cernentis.»

The Consolatio's ending is the famous resolution: man's free will is intact, divine foreknowledge is not a cause but a present-act, God dispenses rewards and punishments with eternal presence — ending with Philosophia's exhortation "Auersamini uitia, colite uirtutes, ad rectas spes animum subleuate, humiles preces in excelsa porrigite". The 5 Tractates end with the Christological formulas of Chalcedon (one person in two natures). Together they form a closing-with-tranquility: theology for those who say, philosophy for those who pray. The English-side Block I-VI "Eternity therefore is a perfect possession altogether of an endless life" then opens the final book on divine-eternity. So ending scores 94. 故 94。