570), both statesmen under Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king of Italy, form the connecting links
between ancient and mediaeval learning. They were the last of the old Romans; they dipped the
pen of Cicero and Seneca in barbaric ink,^805 and stimulated the rising energies of the Romanic and
Germanic nations: Boëthius by his "Consolation of Philosophy" (written in prison),^806 Cassiodorus
by his encyclopedic "Institutes of Divine Letters," a brief introduction to the profitable study of the
Holy Scriptures.^807 The former looked back to Greek philosophy; the latter looked forward to
Christian theology. The influence of their writings was enhanced by the scarcity of books beyond
their intrinsic merits.
Boëthius has had the singular fortune of enjoying the reputation of a saint and martyr who
was put to death, not for alleged political treason, but for defending orthodoxy against the Arianism
of Theodoric. He is assigned by Dante to the fourth heaven in company with Albertus Magnus,
Thomas Aquinas, Gratian, Peter the Lombard, Dionysius the Areopagite, and other great teachers
of the church:
"The saintly soul that maketh manifest
The world’s deceitfulness to all who hear well,
Is feasting on the sight of every good.
The body, whence it was expelled, is lying
Down in Cieldauro, and from martyrdom
And exile rose the soul to such a peace."^808
And yet it is doubtful whether Boëthius was a Christian at all. He was indeed intimate with
Cassiodorus and lived in a Christian atmosphere, which accounts for the moral elevation of his
philosophy. But, if we except a few Christian phrases,^809 his "Consolation" might almost have been
written by a noble heathen of the school of Plato or Seneca. It is an echo of Greek philosophy; it
takes an optimistic view of life; it breathes a beautiful spirit of resignation and hope, and derives
comfort from a firm belief in God; in an all-ruling providence, and in prayer, but is totally silent
about Christ and his gospel.^810 It is a dialogue partly in prose and partly in verse between the author(^805) "Boëtius barbara verba miscuit Latinis." Opera ed. Migne, II. 578.
(^806) De Consolatione Philosophiae Libri V., first printed, Venice, 1497; best ed. by Theod. Obbarius, Jenae, 1843, in
Migne’s ed., I. 578-862. Boëthius translated also works of Aristotle, and wrote books on arithmetic, geometry, rhetoric, and
music; but the theological works which bear his name, De sancta Trinitate, De duabus naturis et una persona Christi, Fidei
Confessio seu Brevis Institutio religionis Christianae, based upon the Aristotelian categories and drawn in great part from St.
Augustin, are not mentioned before Alcuin and Hincmar, three centuries after his death, and are probably the production of
another Boëthius, or of the martyr St. Severinus, with whom he was confounded. The most complete edition of his works is
that of Migne in two vols. (in the "Patrol. Lat.," Tom. 63 and 64). Comp. Fr. Nitzsch,Das System des Boëthius und die ihm
zugeschriebenen Theol. Schriften(Berlin, 1860); Dean Stanley’s article in Smith’s "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography,"
I. 496; and Jourdain,De l’origine des traditions sur le christianisme de Boèce, Paris, 1861.
(^807) De Institutione Divinarum Literarum, in 33 chps., in Migne, Tom. 70, col. 1106-1150. Cassiodorus wrote also a work
on the Liberal Arts, twelve books of Varieties (letters, edicts, and rescripts), a Tripartite Church-History from Constantine to
his time (an epitome of Sozomen, Socrates, Theodoret), and commentaries. Best edition is that of Migne, "Patrol. Lat." in 2
vols. (vols. 69 and 70.) He will be more fully discussed in the next chapter, 153.
(^808) Paradiso, X. 125-129. Cieldauro or Cieldoro is the church San Pietro in Ciel d’oro at Pavia, where Liutprand, King
of the Lombards, erected a monument to Boëthius, about 726. So says Karl Witte, inDante Allighieri’s Goettliche
Komoedie(1865), p. 676.
(^809) As angelica virtus, coaeternus, purgatoria clementia.
(^810) Some suppose that he reserved this for a sixth book which he was prevented from writing; others read Christianity
into the work by allegorical interpretation, or supplement it by theological works falsely ascribed to him.