BOETHIUS, ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS (c. A.D. 480-524), philosopher and statesman, has been described as the last of the Romans and the first of the Scholastics. On the death of his father, who had been consul in 487, the young Boethius passed into the charge of the senator Q. Aur. Memmius Symmachus, whose daughter Rusticiana he married. Through his intimacy with Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, ruler in Rome from Soo, Boethius was made consul in 51o, and his sons, while still young, held the same honour together (522). But his good fortune did not last, and he attributes the calamities that came upon him to the ill-will roused by his bold maintenance of justice and his op position to every oppressive measure. Towards the end of the reign of Theodoric he was accused of treason, the charges being that he had conspired against the king, that he was anxious to maintain the integrity of the senate, and to restore Rome to lib erty, and that for this purpose he had written to the emperor Justin. Justin had, no doubt, special reasons for wishing an end to the reign of Theodoric. Justin was orthodox, Theodoric was an Arian. The orthodox subjects of Theodoric were suspicious of their ruler; and many would gladly have joined in a plot to dis place him. The knowledge of this fact may have rendered The odoric suspicious. But Boethius denied the accusation in un equivocal terms. He did indeed wish the integrity of the senate. He would fain have desired liberty, but all hope of it was gone. The letters addressed by him to Justin were forgeries, and he had not been guilty of any conspiracy. Notwithstanding his innocence he was condemned and sent to the prison at Ticinum (Pavia) . It was during his confinement there that he wrote the famous De Consolatione Philosophiae. He was put to death in 524, and in Otho III. ordered his remains to be removed from Pavia to the church of S. Pietro in Ciel d'Oro.
The contemporaries of Boethius regarded him as a man of pro found learning. Priscian the grammarian speaks of him as having attained the summit of honesty and of all sciences. Cassiodorus, magister officiorum under Theodoric and the intimate acquaint ance of the philosopher, employs language equally strong, and Ennodius, the bishop of Pavia, knows no bounds for his admira tion. During the middle ages, the influence of Boethius was ex ceedingly powerful, and rightly, for he had preserved for them the learned treatises of expiring antiquity. Although he had planned to translate all the works of Plato and of Aristotle and to reconcile their systems of philosophy, he did not fully accomplish this; but his work on Aristotle entitles him to the credit of having introduced that philosopher into the West. He translated into Latin Aristotle's Categories and his Perihermenias, and wrote a commentary on the first and a double commentary on the second. The translations of the Analytica Priora et Posteriora, the Topica, and Elenchi Sophistici ascribed to him in the Basle (1546) edition of his works (this was utilized by Migne, Patrol. lat. 64), are now regarded as spurious (cf. Ueberweg and Grabmann, works quoted below). He also produced commentaries on the Isagoge of Porphyry and the Topica of Cicero, as well as independent works on logic :—Introductio ad Categoricos Syllogismos, in one book; De Syllogismis Categoricis, in two books; De Syllogismis Hypo theticis, in two books; De Divisione, in one book; De Differentiis Topicis, in four books—all of which had great influence on the development of the terminology of logic in the West. His elemen tary treatises on arithmetic and music furnished manuals for the quadrivium of the schools, and that on music long remained a text-book in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The Ars Geometriae is regarded as spurious by many critics, though some incline to accept the Interpretatio Euclidis. But by far the most important and the most famous of the works of Boethius is his De Consolatione Philosophiae, its high reputation in mediaeval times being attested by the numerous translations, commentaries, and imitations which then appeared. Among others, Asser, the instruc tor of Alfred the Great, and Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lin coln, commented on it. Alfred translated it into Anglo-Saxon and Chaucer into English. Versions of it appeared in German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Greek before the end of the 15th century.
This famous work, which is alternately in prose and verse, ex hibits the neo-platonism and stoicism that Boethius had imbibed at Rome, and because it deals with natural theology only, ignores the possibility of finding consolation in any Christian belief. The first book opens with a few verses, in which Boethius describes how his sorrows had brought him to a premature old age. As he is thus lamenting, a majestic woman, whom he recognizes as his guardian Philosophy, appears. Resolving to apply the remedy for his grief, she questions him for that purpose. She finds that he believes that God rules the world, but does not know what he himself is; and this absence of self-knowledge is the cause of his weakness. In the second book Philosophy presents to Boethius Fortune, who enumerates the blessings he has enjoyed and then proceeds to discuss the unsatisfactory blessings that are bestowed by her. In the third book Philosophy promises to lead him to true happiness, which is to be found in God alone, for since God is the highest good, and the highest good is true happiness, God is true happiness. Nor can real evil exist, for God is all-powerful, and since He does not wish evil, evil must be non-existent. In the fourth book Boethius raises the question, Why, if the governor of the universe is good, do evils exist, and why is virtue often pun ished and vice rewarded? Philosophy proceeds to show that in fact vice is never unpunished nor virtue unrewarded. From this Philosophy passes on to a discussion of the nature of providence and fate, and shows that every fortune is good. The fifth and last book raises the question of man's free will and God's foreknowl edge, and, by an exposition of the nature of God, attempts to show that these doctrines are not inconsistent; the conclusion is that God remains a foreknowing spectator of all events, and that the ever-present eternity of his vision agrees with the future quality of our actions, dispensing rewards to the good and pun ishments to the wicked.
Of the five theological tractates ascribed to Boethius, it is now generally admitted that only the De Fide Catholica is spurious. This admission is based on a note in a Reichenau manuscript of the loth century in which Cassiodorus ascribes to his friend Boethius "a book on the Trinity, some dogmatic chapters, and a book against Nestorius." (See Anecdoton Holderi, ed. H. Usener, Leipzig, 1877.) E. K. Rand, who formerly adopted this position, is now inclined to accept even the De Fide Catholica. (See his edition in the Loeb Classical Series, p. 52, 1918.) The first trac tate, De Sancta Trinitate, is addressed to Symmachus, and the re sult of the short discussion, which is of an abstract nature, and deals partly with the ten categories, is that unity is predicated absolutely, or, in regard to the substance of the Deity, trinity is predicated relatively. The second treatise, Utrum Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus de divinitate substantialiter praedicentur, is addressed to John the deacon, and arrives at the same conclusion as the first. The third treatise bears the title, Quomodo substan tiae in eo quod sint bonae sint cum non sint substantialia bona, the fourth is the De Fide Catholica, and the fifth the Contra Eutychen et Nestorium, chapter iii. of which contains the famous definition of persona: Persona est naturae rationabilis individua substantia. B1BLIOGRAPHY.-( ) Editions. The first edition of the works of Boethius appeared at Venice in 1492, the last in Migne's Patrol, lxiii., lxiv. (1847) . Of the numerous editions of the De Consolatione' the best is that of R. Peiper (Leipzig, i871). In addition to an account of the mss. used,, it gives the Book of Lupus, "De Metris Boetii," the "Vita Boetii" contained in some mss., "Elogia Boetii," and a short list of the commentators, translators, and imitators of the Consolatio. The vol. also includes the five theological tractates. These, like the Consolatio, have been re-edited with an English translation by H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand in the Loeb Classical Library (1918). The De Institutione Arithmetica, De Institutione Musica, and the doubt ful Geometria were edited by G. Friedlein (Leipzig, 1867) ; the com mentary on Aristotle's Perihermenias, by C. Meiser (Leipzig, 1877-8o), and on Porphyry's Isagoge, by S. Brandt (Vienna, 1906). For further editions and translations see Ueberweg, Grundriss der Gesch. der Phil, Teil (1928).
(2) Authorities.—J. G. Sutterer, Der letzte Romer (Eichstadt, 1852) ; H. Usener, Anecdoton Holderi (Leipzig, 1877) ; M. Grab mann, Die Gesch. der scholast. Methode, vol. i. (Freiburg, i/B., 19o9) ; Manitius, Gesch. der lat. Lit d. Mittelalters, vol. i. (Munich, I9I I) ; Ueberweg, op. cit.; H. F. Stewart, Boethius: an Essay (1891) ; T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, iii. bk. iv. ch. xii. (1896). On the date and order of the works of Boethius see S. Brandt in Philologus, lxii. pp. 141-154, 234-279, and A. P. McKinlay, Harvard Classical Studies (1907).