The Consolation of Philosophy - Part II

A Medieval Source Review (MSR)

In my previous post I introduced you to Boethius and his Consolation of Philosophy, a beautifully profound work he wrote while imprisoned awaiting his execution. In this post I will briefly summarize each book (chapter) and highlight some of my favorite quotes and excerpts. It became one of the most popular works of the Middle Ages. After reading it, I can see why. I thoroughly enjoyed it and continue to chew on it. I hope this inspires you to read it too. It is well worth your time! It forces you to ask yourself what you think and believe, making you define what is important and how you view your place in humanity and the world around you. It’s essential reading, in my humble novice opinion!

I appreciated how Edward Gibbon summed it up.

“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, Boethius ascended to heaven in search of the SUPREME GOOD; explored the metaphysical labyrinth of chance and destiny, of prescience and free will, of time and eternity; and generously attempted to reconcile the perfect attributes of the Deity with the apparent disorders of his moral and physical government. ”¹

BOOK ONE:

Boethius is lamenting his circumstances, allowing the “Muses of Poetry” to tend to his sad and agitated emotional state. But then Lady Philosophy appears in his cell. At first, he doesn’t recognize her. But she reminds him of who she is and his vision is repaired, she is his…“nurse in whose house I had been cared for since my youth - Philosophy,” (7). The way he goes on to describe her as she first appears to him is wonderful. She is timeless but personal, demands awe and respect, but is obviously worn down from the battles she has endured against the follies of men. Lady Philosophy calls out the Muses and casts them away from him.

“Who has allowed these hysterical sluts to approach this sick man’s bedside? They have no medicine to ease his pains, only sweetened poisons to make them worse. These are the very creatures who slay the rich and fruitful harvest of Reason with the barren thorns of Passion.” (1.1; p 4)²

They converse on his wrongful imprisonment and discuss whether our lives are governed by haphazard chance or held together by a rational principle. Lady Philosophy tells him he has forgotten his true nature, but says there is still hope, they just need to wipe the fog of despair from his eyes.

"If you desire
To look on truth
And follow the path
With unswerving course,
Rid yourself
Of joy and fear,
Put hope to flight,
And banish grief.
The mind is clouded
And bound in chains
Where these hold sway." (1.7; p 21)

BOOK TWO:

Lady Philosophy admonishes Boethius for succumbing to the treacherous temptations of the Goddess of Fortune and her Rota Fortuna (Wheel of Fortune). She is a fickle, unreliable bed fellow who plays dangerous games. Lady Philosophy tells him that if you desire the good of Fortune, you must also submit and take the bad she will inevitably deal you also. While the Rota Fortuna isn’t attributed to Boethius—it actually came from Cicero—it was Boethius who made it a famous symbol in the Middle Ages. You can see it everywhere in medieval art and literature. You can see one example on the cover of this book at the top of this post.

Lady Philosophy then argues that true happiness cannot be found outside yourself—because it is subject to be lost—but must be found within. Then they move on to discuss fame and how “puny and insubstantial” it is because it fades and gets lost over time. I found this part interesting in light of studying Beowulf who argues that fame and glory is the only thing a man can take beyond the grave. Thoughts??

"But leveller Death despising glory’s pride, 
In scorn of rank abases all alike, 
The mighty to the humble equal made.” (2.7; p 43)

Book Two wraps up with Lady Philosophy resolving that bad fortune is actually the best, because it is truthful and enlightens men to the recognition of how fragile happiness truly is. It is this wrongful accusation and unjust imprisonment that is actually the best gift Boethius could receive because it is giving him these lessons. This enlightenment wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

BOOK THREE:

Lady Philosophy walks through all the different ways man tries to achieve happiness—wealth, position, power, fame, and pleasure—showing how they all are futile attempts. Her arguments suggest to Boethius he must elevate himself by seeking the immaterial, not the baser things of man and the world. He must shift his downtrodden gaze upward to the heavens, to the medieval cosmos (which you will see in more detail in Book Four).

Lady Philosophy says mortal man is incapable of attaining true happiness because it can only be found in the perfect good, which can only be found in the supreme God.

“Both happiness and God are supreme goodness, so that it follows that supreme happiness is identical with supreme divinity…Since it is through the possession of happiness that people become happy, and since happiness is in fact divinity, it is clear that it is through the possession of divinity that they become happy…each happy individual is therefore divine.” (3.10; p 71)

Chew on that for a while and see whatcha think about it! The next few chapters discuss how the supreme God (aka supreme good) divinely orchestrates and orders all things to work in harmony. The book is wrapped up with a beautiful poem about Orpheus, the mythic man who descends to the underworld to rescue his lost beloved, Eurydice. It’s one of my favorite poems in the Consolation. It actually led me to write an essay on it for grad school!

BOOK FOUR:

Boethius asks the age old question of how evil can exist if there is a God who is good. Lady Philosophy responds with another beautiful poem about the soul’s ascent to God which illumines the medieval cosmos, the way medievals viewed the heavens, aka space. For them, God was at the center of everything. Earth was a dark place that hung out on the edge of the universe (Side Note: For a fascinating and detailed discussion on the medieval cosmos, I’d recommend The Discarded Image by C.S. Lewis and (of course) read Dante’s Divine Comedy).

Lady Philosophy then goes into detail about how the wicked are so burdened by their wickedness that retribution is unnecessary.

“…by its own nature badness makes men wretched, it is clear that when someone is done an injury, the misery belongs not to the victim but to the perpetrator.” (4.4; p 100)

I found this part strange and didn’t agree with her. However, I did see her point on saying wickedness is like a sickness and needs to be cut out like a malignant growth, the goal being the person healed rather than simply brutally punished. What do you think?

Then there’s a brilliantly beautiful and eloquent section on Providence and Fate. I love the way he so simply distinguishes between them…whether you agree or disagree with him, he describes them so effortlessly. Essentially, Providence is divine reason itself; it is fixed, planned, and unchanging. Whereas, Fate is the planned order in things subject to change because Providence decrees it so. Existence is a wheel where Providence is the unmoving center piece and everything else is Fate. The further from the center the more beholden to Fate.

BOOK FIVE:

The Consolation is wrapped up with Boethius asking Lady Philosophy if chance exists. She argues there is no such thing and it is a meaningless word. She says all things are planned and orchestrated by Providence.

"Thus chance which seems to flit with reins all loose 
Endures the bit and heeds the rule of law." (5.1; p 118) 

Boethius doubles down and asks about freedom of the will and how that fits into her argument, saying, “Well, the two seem clean contrary and opposite, God’s universal foreknowledge and freedom of the will.” (5.3; p 119)

What do you think? How do you think Lady Philosophy answered? I hope you will read it and find out! If you have already, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. To know how influential this work was—how widely read, copied, and translated it was—allows us a glimpse into the medieval mind: what they thought, valued, wrestled with, and believed, how they viewed themselves in relation to others and to God, where they placed themselves in the hierarchy of the heavens. So different and yet so familiar, don’t you think?

I find it beautiful that I can read a work written over fifteen hundred years ago, in a strange and unfamiliar world, by a man very different than myself, in circumstances in which I will never find myself, but discover we’ve had similar thoughts and pondered similar questions. To connect over such a great chasm of time by seeing that he wrestled with familiar issues and held concerns I can easily identify with. That’s one of the things I love about the early Middle Ages…it was a time so very different than anything I’ve experienced, yet they too were human and familiar in a sense. I’ve found a kindred friend in Boethius.

1. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, Ch 39.

2. All remaining quotes are from the Penguin Classics edition, translated by Victor Watts.