and this annoyed Theodoric. He had reason for fear, since Italy was Catholic, and was led by
theological sympathy to side with the Emperor. He believed, rightly or wrongly, that there was a
plot involving men in his own government. This led him to imprison and execute his minister, the
senator Boethius, whose Consolations of Philosophy was written while he was in prison.
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
Consolations of Philosophy, written in 524 while he was awaiting execution, is purely Platonic; it
does not prove that he was not a Christian, but it does show that pagan philosophy had a much
stronger hold on him then Christian theology. Some theological works, especially one on the
Trinity, which are attributed to him, are by many authorities considered to be spurious; but it was
probably owing to them that the Middle Ages were able to regard him as orthodox, and to imbibe
from him much Platonism which would otherwise have been viewed with suspicion.
The work is an alternation of verse and prose: Boethius, in his own person, speaks in prose, while
Philosophy answers in verse. There is at certain resemblance to Dante, who was no doubt
influenced by him in the Vita Nuova.
The Consolations, which Gibbon rightly calls a "golden volume," begins by the statement that
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are the true philosophers; Stoics, Epicureans, and the rest are
usurpers, whom the profane multitude mistook for the friends of philosophy. Boethius says he
obeyed the Pythagorean command to "follow God" (not the Christian command). Happiness,
which is the same thing as blessedness, is the good, not pleasure. Friendship is a "most sacred
thing." There is much morality that agrees closely with Stoic doctrine, and is in fact largely taken
from Seneca. There is a summary, in verse, of the beginning of the Timaeus. This is followed by a
great deal 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 the
obtaining of divinity." "They who obtain divinity become gods. Wherefore every one that is happy