Prison Narratives from Boethius to Zana

P. Phillips

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781137428677
• eBook ISBN: 9781137428684
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: Literature

Prison Narratives from Boethius to Zana critically examines selected works of writers, from the sixth century to the twenty-first century, who were imprisoned for their beliefs. Chapters explore figures' lives, provide close analyses of their works, and offer contextualization of their prison writings.

Chapter 1

Boethius, the Prisoner, and The Consolation of Philosophy

Philip Edward Phillips

The Consolation of Philosophy (ca. 524) holds a prominent position in a long line of literary, political, and religious works produced by writers who were imprisoned and executed for their beliefs and whose words inspired later writers and thinkers to seek a higher and more lasting sense of truth and justice.1 Although Boethius was not the first person to write an account of unjust incarceration, his Consolation participates in a rich tradition of literary works, both autobiographical and fictional, dealing with the experience of imprisonment and the quest for human freedom. Boethius’s life and career reveal a Christian educated according to the classical tradition and dedicated to public service whose fortunes were reversed in a moment. He fell from the highest civilian office to the depths of prison, where he awaited the king’s order of execution. Boethius’s fall precipitated intense reflection—manifested in a dream-vision dialogue between the narrator and a personified Lady Philosophy—on such perennial human questions as the nature of good and evil, providence and free will, and time and eternity. In the Consolation, the narrator, with Lady Philosophy’s guidance, must come to terms with his sudden physical and spiritual imprisonment, “remember” the nature of being, and ultimately affirm the providence of God, who is the Highest Good (summum bonum).2

Boethius and Ostrogothic Italy

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (ca. 480–524/5) was born during the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, a period known as Late Antiquity or the early Middle Ages. His date of birth corresponds with the deposition and forced retirement of Romulus Augustulus, the last Western Roman emperor, in 476 by the Hurulian leader Odoacer, who governed Italy as patrician (patricius) in the eastern emperor Zeno’s name but was recognized by his followers as king (rex).3 Odoacer ruled Italy until Theodoric and his Ostrogothic army invaded and subdued Italy, at the request of Zeno, in 489–493.4 Having offered his rival joint rule of Italy, Theodoric invited Odoacer to a banquet in Ravenna, at which Theodoric murdered his astonished guest with a sword and subsequently ordered the execution of Odoacer’s soldiers and family.5 Despite the brutality of the beginning and the paranoia and cruelty at the end of Theodoric’s long rule (489–526), most historians regard the Ostrogothic period as one of relative peace and stability.

Educated in Constantinople, Theodoric valued the administrative talents of the Roman aristocracy and employed them in governmental offices while reserving military posts for his Ostrogothic followers. Theodoric desired to retain the social infrastructure of the Roman government and to preserve many of Rome’s social institutions. He employed members of the senatorial elite, including Boethius, for their ability to goven and attend to the needs of the people. Theodoric also valued Rome’s past military and cultural achievements, and he wanted to preserve remnants of its grandeur and civilized way of life for his Ostrogothic and Italian subjects. Theodoric, therefore, sought to preserve what he considered the best of traditional Roman institutions.

The Arian Christianity of the Ostrogoths, which maintained that the Son is not coeternal with the Father, set them apart from the Orthodox Christian Romans but did not prevent their mutual coexistence. Theodoric was tolerant of Orthodox Christians, though not of pagans. Thus religious differences were not a significant problem in Italy during this time until the death of Pope Hormisdas and the ascension of pro-Byzantine Pope John I in 523, which offered the possibility of reconciliation between the western and eastern churches.

It was not long until the intellectual talents6 of Boethius, who received the title of patrician in ca. 507, came to the attention of Theodoric. In three different letters preserved in Cassiodorus’s Variae, Theodoric elaborately praises Boethius’s abilities and makes special requests of him because of his great learning, especially in the sciences and music. In one letter (ca. 506), Theodoric asks Boethius to create a water clock and a sundial for presentation to Gundobad to convince the Burgundian king that his own “noblemen [the patrician elite in Theodoric’s service] are famous authorities” and that the Burgundians should “not dare to think themselves the equals of us.”7 In another letter (ca. 506), Theodoric asks Boethius to select a trained lyre player to perform for Clovis, the king of the Franks, in order, like Orpheus, “to tame the savage hearts of the barbarians.”8 In a third letter (ca. 507–512), Theodoric calls on Boethius’s skills in the “unchanging science” of “arithmetic” to settle a dispute concerning the fraudulent debasement of currency given by the “Prefect’s treasurer” as pay to his personal “horse and foot guards.”9 In 510, Boethius became sole consul of Rome, the highest honor for a member of the senatorial class.

As a patrician and a consul, Boethius was following in the footsteps of his late father, Narius Manlius Boethius (consul in 487). Although the Roman Senate had long ceased to exercise any governing power, its ceremonial and cultural significance survived, and consuls were expected to fund important civic events, such as games in the Colosseum and public work projects. Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (consul in 485), a distinguished senatorial colleague of his father, took in Boethius after Boethius’s father died in 487. Descended from the gens Symmachi, who had been Christian since the fifth century, Symmachus was well educated in the Roman tradition, fluent in Greek, and devoted to the study of Greek philosophy. Symmachus was also interested in history and has been credited with having written a seven-volume history of Rome that is no longer extant. Symmachus ensured that Boethius received an education of the highest order, which included the intensive study of rhetoric followed by Greek and Roman literature and philosophy. He also gave his daughter, Rusticiana, in marriage to Boethius in 495, and the couple named their two sons after Boethius and his father-in-law.

Symmachus and Boethius were among the last Romans to possess a mastery of the Greek language, and they were among a small number of people to be bilingual in Latin and Greek. Interested in the idea of unity and the preservation of knowledge, Boethius translated the works of Plato and Aristotle from Greek into Latin and wrote commentaries on those works to demonstrate their essential agreement.10 While Boethius’s contemporaries may not have shared his academic interests, later thinkers and theologians throughout the Middle Ages profited from the works that Boethius translated during a scholarly life that was tragically cut short.

Boethius was also dedicated to public service, which grew out of his aristocratic heritage—attested by his four-part name, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius—and his philosophical training. In addition, he acquired a belief in the Platonic idea of the philosopher-king. Plato had thought that one who has studied philosophy and sought to understand the nature of things, one who has left the dark world of the cave and has ascended into the world of light, has a moral responsibility to return to the world and to lead others to the truth. Boethius agreed with Plato that one knows justice by comparing it to the eternal form of justice and that “[u]nless philosophers become kings in their countries or those who are now called kings and rulers come to be sufficiently inspired with a genuine desire for wisdom . . . there can be no rest from troubles.”11 Following the teachings of Plato, Boethius dedicated himself to the pursuit of knowledge and service to the state.

Boethius’s maternal lineage can be traced to the gens Anicia, which had been Christian since the fourth century. One of Boethius’s closest friends was John the Deacon, later Pope John I (August 13, 523–May 18, 526),12 with whom he had many conversations about the Bible and contemporary theological issues. Boethius’s first theological tractate, On the Catholic Faith (De fide catholica), a concise restatement of orthodox Christian teachings spanning from the Old to the New Testament, was likely the result of catechetical lectures that John imparted to Boethius. Later in his career, John approached Boethius and asked him to apply his philosophical mind to explain difficult theological matters for the benefit of the clergy and the church. Three such works, which Boethius dedicated to John the Deacon, include Whether Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are Substantially Predicated on the Divinity [Utrum pater et filius et spiritus sanctus de divinitate substantialiter praedicentur] on the nature of the divine, Quomodo Substantiae (also known as De Hebdomadibus) on the manner in which substances are good,13 and A Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius [Contra Eutychen et Nestorius] on refuting theological heresies. Another work, The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods (Trinitas unus deus ac non tres dii), which Boethius dedicated to his father-in-law Symmachus, applies logic to explain the concept of God in three persons. Boethius applied logical rigor to Christian teachings and doctrines, much as Augustine of Hippo had done in his writings, thus laying the foundations for medieval scholasticism.

Boethius’s service as an official in the Ostrogothic government took him away from his academic pursuits. Under Theodoric, Boethius ascended to the highest position available to either Ostrogoths or Romans in Italy. As Master of Offices (magister officiorum), Boethius served as an ambassador to other kingdoms, functioned as Theodoric’s gatekeeper, and supervised the royal treasury. His role, therefore, would be similar to that of a combined modern-day secretary of state and secretary of the treasury. By Boethius’s own account, he did not seek this office for himself, but when called on to serve, he felt bound by duty and, more practically, by an obligation to a king whose orders one could not refuse. Boethius served Theodoric well, as attested most notably by the elevation of his sons to joint consuls in 522, a moment that Boethius recalled in prison as being the happiest moment of his life.

Boethius’s happiness, however, was not meant to last. At the height of his political life, while admirably balancing the demands of his scholarly endeavors with his governmental service, Theodoric accused Boethius of conspiracy and treason for having defended Albinus, a fellow senator charged with collusion with the Eastern Roman Empire. Summarily stripped of his office, Boethius was exiled from Rome and imprisoned without trial in Pavia. Boethius was denied the opportunity to refute the charges leveled against him by men of questionable reputations, and his property was confiscated, his...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Boethius, the Prisoner, and The Consolation of Philosophy
• Chapter 2: “For This Was Drawyn by a Knyght Presoner”: Sir Thomas Malory and Le Morte Darthur
• Chapter 3: The Self-Incriminator: John Lilburne, the Star Chamber, and the English Origins of American Liberty
• Chapter 4: John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, and Nonconformist Prison Literature
• Chapter 5: Henry David Thoreau and the Principle of Passive Resistance
• Chapter 6: The Radicalization of Louise Michel
• Chapter 7: “From Prison to People”: How Women Jailed for Suffrage Inscribed Their Prison Experience on the American Public
• Chapter 8: Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An Exemplar of Costly Discipleship in Action
• Chapter 9: “The Jail House Is Full of Blues”: Lead Belly’s Prison Pleas
• Chapter 10: The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the African American Quest for Freedom and Literacy
• Chapter 11: Mehdi Zana and the Struggle for Kurdish Ethnic Identity in Turkey
• Notes on the Contributors