and philosophy in the garb of a dignified woman (who sets as his celestial guide, like Dante’s
Beatrice). The work enjoyed an extraordinary popularity throughout the middle ages, and was
translated into several languages, Greek, Old High German (by Notker of St. Gall), Anglo-Saxon
(by King Alfred), Norman English (by Chaucer), French (by Meun), and Hebrew (by Ben Banshet).
Gibbon admires it all the more for its ignoring Christianity, and calls it "a golden volume not
unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism
of the times and the situation of the author. The celestial guide whom he had so long invoked at
Rome and Athens, now condescended to illumine his dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour
into his wounds her salutary balm .... From the earth Boëthius ascended to heaven in search of the
Supreme Good; explored the metaphysical labyrinth of chance and destiny, of prescience and
freewill, of time and eternity; and generously attempted to reconcile the perfect attributes of Deity
with the apparent disorders of his moral and physical government."^811
Greek And Hebrew Learning.
The original languages of the Scriptures were little understood in the West. The Latin took
the place of the Greek as a literary and sacred language, and formed a bond of union among scholars
of different nationalities. As a spoken language it rapidly degenerated under the influx of barbaric
dialects, but gave birth in the course of time to the musical Romanic languages of Southern Europe.
The Hebrew, which very few of the fathers (Origen and Jerome) had understood, continued
to live in the Synagogue, and among eminent Jewish grammarians and commentators of the Old
Testament; but it was not revived in the Christian Church till shortly before the Reformation. Very
few of the divines of our period (Isidore, and, perhaps, Scotus Erigena), show any trace of Hebrew
learning.
The Greek, which had been used almost exclusively, even by writers of the Western church,
till the time of Tertullian and Cyprian, gave way to the Latin. Hence the great majority of Western
divines could not read even the New Testament in the original. Pope Gregory did not know Greek,
although he lived several years as papal ambassador in Constantinople. The same is true of most
of the schoolmen down to the sixteenth century.
But there were not a few honorable exceptions.^812 The Monotheletic and Iconoclastic
controversies brought the Greek and the Latin churches into lively contact. The conflict between
Photius and Nicolas stimulated Latin divines to self-defence.
(^811) Decline and Fall, Ch. 39 (vol. IV. 138). Ebert (Gesch. der christl. lat. Lit. I. 472) assumes a partial influence of
Christianity upon this work. "Boëtius," he says, "war nur ein Namenchrist, aber doch immerhin ein solcher; die erste christliche
Erziehung war keineswegs spurlos an ihm voruebergegangen. Sein Werk ruht zwar seinem ganzen Gehalt nach auf der
heidnisch-antiken Philosophie, hauptsächlich dem Platonismus, und zwar in der neuplatonischen Form, wie schon eine sehr
fluechtige Kenntniss desselben alsbald zeigt, und in allen Einzelheiten, freilich nicht ohne einige Uebertreibung, von Nitzsch
nach gewiessen worden Werk erhält nicht bloss durch das starke Hervortreten stoischroemischer Ethik einen christlichen
Anschein, sondern diesenimmt hier auch mitunter in der That eine specifisch christliche Färbung an, wie es denn selbst auch
an Reminiscenzen aus der Bibel nicht ganz fehlt. Hoechst merkwuerdig ist, wie in diesem Werke des letzten der roemischen
Philosophen, wie Zeller ihn mit Recht nennt, diese verschiedenen, zum Theil ganz heterogenen Elemente sich durchdringen zu
einer doch einigen Gesammtwirkung in Folge des sittlichen Moments, worin seine, wie ueberhaupt des römischen Eklekticismus
Stärke beruht."
(^812) Comp. Cramer, De Graecis medii aevi studiis, and the pamphlet of Lumby quoted on p. 584.