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does him more harm than good, leaving him exhausted and unstrung; his present excited mood is not the one for theology; a philosophical dialogue with occasional interludes of song shall be his diversion, and help him to bear the ghastly companionship of his own thoughts. Whenever his bitterness overmasters him and he is giving way to the sense of his wrongs, he can call in a physician who will enable him to pause and look dispassionately on the uncertainty of human wishes and his miserable state; who will brace his faculties, and perhaps recover for him something of his ancient skill in reasoning. This consummation is certainly reached towards the end of the dialogue, where the pupil proves himself by no means unequal to the severe catechetical discipline to which his mistress subjects him. But the passages where the writer lets his heart speak and gives his brain a rest, of which the fine peroration to the fifth book is a notable example, show that Boethius, had he chosen, might have touched a chord within us which no amount of logical thrust and parry can set vibrating.

Whatever the motive of the 'Consolation' may have been, it remains a very noble book, and is, for me at least, by far the most interesting example of prison literature the world has ever seen.

108

CHAPTER V.

THE THEOLOGICAL TRACTS.

Authorities.-Hildebrand and Nitzsch, as before. The analysis of each treatise has been made straight from the Latin text in Peiper's edition.

We now come to the religious writings of Boethius -that side of his versatile genius which will, I fear, prove the least attractive to the general reader. But although their intrinsic value may not be of the very highest, although they betray many faults of youth and inexperience (I have heard them described as so many Hulsean essays!), still they have a distinct interest attaching to them as coming, if we believe the Anecdoton Holderi' and the almost unbroken tradition of the middle ages, from the same. hand that wrote the Consolation of Philosophy,' and as forming one more link in the chain that connects Boethius with the Schoolmen.

The best way of bringing out this interest will be, I think, to give a careful analysis of them, in order as they come, preserving just so much of their original form and style as will illustrate the author's method, and keeping back all detailed criticism of their respective merits and shortcomings until the survey of each one is finished.

There are five tracts generally ascribed to Boethius, and this is the order in which they almost invariably appear in the MSS. :—

I. De Trinitate.

II. Utrum Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus de Divinitate substantialiter prædicentur.

III. Quomodo Substantiæ bonæ sint.

IV. De Fide Catholica.

V. Liber contra Eutychen et Nestorium.

This list corresponds very well with that of the 'Anecdoton Holderi' and with the testimony of Alcuin (735-804) and Hincmar of Rheims (ninth century), the former of whom makes mention of I. and quotes from it, while the latter was evidently familiar with I., II., and V. Bruno of Corvey (tenth century) ascribes I. and V. to Boethius. Notker of St Gall (†1022) translated passages from I. Haimo (tenth century) couples I. with the 1 Vide supra, p. 2.

'Consolation'; and Abelard (+1142) gives praise to Boethius's books on the Trinity and against Nestorius. The evidence of the succeeding ages is of secondary importance, as it is simply a reiteration of the above. Suffice it to say that until the beginning of the last century the authenticity of the dogmatic treatises remained practically unchallenged.

Having said so much, I will proceed to the analysis of

I. DE TRINITATE.

It opens with a preface addressed, according to the consensus of MSS. titles, to his dear friend and father Symmachus, in which the writer confesses the interest he has for some time past taken in certain difficult questions of doctrine. Their truth, indeed, has already been established by Augustine, but he hopes to throw some further light on them by means of his logical training. These few pages are intended for his critic's eye alone, and not for the crude, unappreciative judgment of the general public. He begs him to read them in the same spirit as that in which they have been written. No man may hope to attain perfection. He has done his best, and can

do no more.

Chapter i.-The Catholic faith on the Holy Trinity

in Unity is this. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. Therefore Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, and not three Gods.

Now the Arians, who usurp the name of the Catholic religion, ascribe grades to the Persons, and so introduce plurality into the divine Substance. For the essence of plurality is difference.. Three or more things can differ (1) by race (genus), (2) by kind (species), (3) by number (numerus). Diversity of accidents is the cause of the difference by number. Thus three men do not differ by race or by kind, but only by their accidents; and in the absence of all other accidents there will always remain the accident of place. Therefore accidents are the cause of plurality.

Chapter ii.—The speculative sciences are three in number-viz., Physics, which employ rational methods, and comprise those things which have motion and whose form is separated from their matter neither by abstraction (as in mathematics) nor in reality; Mathematics, which employ systematic methods (disciplinaliter), and comprise things which have no matter and therefore no motion; and Theology, which employs intellectual methods (intellectualiter), and deals with the absolute pure form at once immaterial and motionless-in other words, with the divine

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