The Consolation of Philosophy

Boethius

• Editore: Dover Publications
• Anno: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486113166
• Argomento: Philosophy
• Categoria: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

One of the most influential books in the history of Western thought, The Consolation of Philosophy was written in a prison cell by a condemned man. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (c. 480–524) was a Roman scholar, theologian, philosopher, and statesman. Imprisoned by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, probably on trumped-up subversion charges, he was thrown into a remote prison where he was eventually executed.
While awaiting his fate, he wrote this dialogue in alternating prose and poetry between himself and his spiritual guardian. Its subject is human happiness and the possibility of achieving it in the midst of the suffering and disappointment that characterize human existence. As Richard H. Green notes in the introduction, `For the reader of the Christian Middle Ages, The Consolation of Philosophy celebrated the life of the mind, or reason, and the possibility of its ultimate victory over the misfortunes and frustrations which attend fallen man's pursuit of transitory substitutes for the Supreme Good which alone can satisfy human desires.`
Mr. Green's translation is quite literal in order to remain as faithful as possible to Boethius's original meaning. He has also provided an informative introduction and notes. The result is a superbly accessible edition that still exercises a powerful influence on contemporary thinkers and theologians and represents a source of comfort and solace for the general reader.

INDEX

Academy, Plato’s

Achaemenian

Achelous

Act, action

Adversity

Aetna

Affections

Agamemnon

Age

Alan of Lille

Albinus

Alcibiades

Anaxagoras

Anaxarchus

Antaeus

Antoninus

Apollo

Arcturus

Aristotle

Art

Athens

Augustine, St.

Autumn

Avarice

Bacchus

Basil

Beauty

Blessedness

Blindness

Boccaccio

Body

Boeotia

Bondage

Boötes

Boreas

Brutus

Busirus

Cacus

Caligula

Campania

Canius

Carthage

Cato

Catullus

Caucasus

Cause

Centaurs

Cerberus

Chains

Chance

Change

Chaucer

Cicero

Circe

Clothes

Concept, conception

Conigastus

Corus

Country

Croesus

Cyprian

Cyrus

Damocles

Dante

Darkness

Death

Decoratus

Desire

Dialectic

Diogenes Laertius

Diomede of Thrace

Dionysius the Elder

Disease

Dream

Earth

Egypt

Eleatic

Epicurus, Epicurean

Eternity, eternal

Euboea

Euphrates

Euripides

Euripus

Eurus

Eurydice

Eurystheus

Evander

Evil

Exile

Existence

Fabricius

Fame

Fate

Feelings

Foreknowledge

Fortune

Freedom

Friend, friendship

Furies

Gaius Caesar

Gaudentius

Glory

God

Good

Greek

Happiness

Harmony

Health

Heaven

Hell

Hercules

Hermus

Hesperus

Homer

Honor

Horace

Humanism

Hydra

Imagination

Immortality

Indus

India

Intelligence

Ixion

Journey

Judgment

Jupiter

Knowledge

Lactantius

Liberty

Libyan

Light

Love

Lucan

Lucifer

Lynceus

Macrobius

Man

Marriage

Martianus Capella

Medicine

Menippean satire

Menippus, xviin

Mercury

Mind

Moon

Mortal

Muses

Music

Nature

Necessity

Nemean lion

Nero

Night

Nonius Struma

Notus

One

Opilio

Order

Orpheus

Ovid

Papinianus

Parmenides

Parthian

Passion

Paulinus

Paulus

Philosopher, philosophy

Physician

Piers Plowman

Phoebe

Phoebus

Plato

Pleasure

Plenty

Polyphemus

Poetry, poem

Porphyry

Power

Prayer

Predestination

Prison, prisoner

Prosperity

Providence

Ptolemy

Purpose

Pythagorus

Ravenna

Reason, rational

Regulus

Rhetoric

Riches

Road

Rome, Roman

Roman de la Rose

Rusticiana

Saturn

Seasons

Seneca

Senses

Sickness. See Disease

Sight

Sirius

Socrates

Song

Soranus

Soul

Spirit

Spring

Substance

Stars

Stoics

Storm

Stymphalian birds

Summer

Sun

Symmachus

Tacitus

Tagus

Tantalus

Theodoric

Thrace

Thule

Tibullus

Tigris

Time

Tiresias

Tityus

Tragedy

Treason

Triguilla

Troy

Truth

Tyrant

Universals

Universe

Ulysses

Venus

Verona

Virgil

Vision

Voyage

Wealth. See Riches

Wheel

Will

Winter

Wisdom

World

Youth

Zeno

Zephyrus

Zeus

1

The Arian Christians, followers of the doctrinal position of Arius (d. A.D. 336), held that Christ was neither truly God nor truly man: he did not exist coeter-nally with God but was a created being, therefore was only semidivine; and, though he took a human body through which he acted, he had divine essence rather than a human soul, therefore was not truly man. Thus they departed from the Catholic position of Christ as true God and true man, as pronounced at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. Theodoric’s subjects were chiefly Catholics, as was Justin, the Emperor of the East.

2

“Theodoric vs. Boethius: Vindication and Apology,” American Historical Review, XLIX (1944), 410–26; and see also Bark’s Origins of the Medieval World (New York, 1960).

3

St. Augustine, De civitate Dei XXII. 2.

4

De civitate Dei V. 9; cf. Cicero, De divinatione II. 8.

5

The term derives from Menippus, a Greek cynic and satirist of the third century B.C. whose works, none of which are extant, were written in a mixture of prose and verse.

6

Π and θ are the first letters of the Greek words for the two divisions of philosophy, theoretical and practical. Boethius wrote (In Porph. Dial. I. 3): “ . . . for philosophy is a...