606 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
in prison),1 Cassiodorus by his encyclopaedic " Institutes of Divine Letters" a brief introduction to the profitable study of the Holy Scriptures.2 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.
Boethius has had the singular fortune of enjoying the reputa tion 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."8
1 De Consolatione Philosophies Libri V., first printed, Venice, 1497 ; best ed. by Theod. Obbarins, Jense, 1843, in Migne's ed., I. 578-862. Boethius trans lated also works of Aristotle, and wrote books on arithmetic, geometry, rheto ric, and music; but the theological works which bear his name, De sancta Trinitate, De duabus naturis et una persona Christi, Fidei Confessio sen Brevis Institutio religionis Christianas, based upon the Aristotelian categories and drawn in great part from St. Augustin, are not mentioned before Alcuin and Hino mar, three centuries after his death, and are probably the production of an other Boethius, or of the martyr St. Severinus, with whom he was confounded. The most complete edition of his works is that of Migne in two vole, (in the " Patrol. Lat.," Tom. 63 and 64). Comp. Fr. Nitzsch, Das System des Boethius und die ihm zugeschriebenen theol Schriften (Berlin, 1860); Dean Stanley's arti cle in Smith's " Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography," I. 496; and Jourdain, De l"origine des traditions sur le christianisme de Boece, Paris, 1861.
2 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, g 153.
8 Paradiso, X. 125-129. Cieldauro or Cieldoro is the church San Pietro in
2 139. EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS OF THE CHURCH. 607
And yet it is doubtful whether Boethius 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 philo sophy. But, if we except a few Christian phrases,1 his " Con solation" might almost have been written by a noble heathen of the school of Plato or Seneca. It is an echo of Greek philo sophy; it takes an optimistic view of life; it breathes a beauti ful 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.2 It is a dia logue partly in prose and partly in verse between the author and philosophy in the garb of a dignified woman (who acts 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 Ger man (by Notker of St. Gall), Anglo-Saxon (by King Alfred), Norman English (by Chaucer), French (by Meun), and He brew (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 illu mine his dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour into his wounds her salutary balm. . . . From the earth Boethius ascended to heaven in search of the SUPREME GOOD ; explored the meta physical labyrinth of chance and destiny, of prescience and free will, of time and eternity; and generously attempted to recon-
Ciel d'oro at Pavia, where Lintprand, King of the Lombards, erected a monu ment to Boethius, about 726. So says Karl Witte, in Dante AUighierfs Gottliche Komodie (1865), p. 676.
1 As angelica virtus, cocetermis, pitrgaforia dementia.
* Some suppose that he reserved this for a sixth book which he was pre vented from writing; others read Christianity into the work by allegorical interpretation, or supplement it by theological works falsely ascribed to him.