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trate, that his prima divinitas did not "in nning create" the world, but built it up1 re-existing matter.2 Impelled by no exterses, He ungrudgingly shaped it after His own image, and taught it to carry out the scheme fection in accordance with which it had been

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d. Mutual love, alternus amor, is the bond keeps the whole together, while every being, er the impulse of a certain self-love implanted it by Providence, seeks to maintain its own indendent entity. Over all God sits enthroned, surveying the work with serene, all - comprehending eye, and fulfilling the promptings of His divine intelligence through the agency of Fate. For the time-relations between the Creator and the creation Boethius goes back to the Platonic distinction between perpetuity and eternity, from which Proclus and his followers had strayed through a misconception of Timæus,' 41c. They imagined that Plato assigned to the world a co-eternity with God, whereis he had only predicated of it a life of endless duraion and not at all that simultaneous and complete mprehension of all time which is the characteristic

1 Cf. "Conditor et artifex rerum," i. m. 5. Cf. also iv. pr. 6; iv.

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Pepulerunt fingere causæ materiæ fluitantis opus"
s"-iii. m. 9.
he qxia, c., of Empedocles and of the Timæus.

predecessor's Fate as the intermediary, dependent divinity, and his Providence as the primary Essence. In considering this point the reader must be careful to bear in mind the grand difference between the Neoplatonic and the Stoic doctrine of Fate. The disciples of the Porch looked upon ɛiμapμɛvý simply as one of the names of the all-pervading Principle, and identified it with Providence, povóια, while the Neoplatonists held it to be distinctly inferior to, and dependent on, Providence. Boethius, here as everywhere else, takes his stand somewhere between the two extremes of opinion. Proclus arranged his divinity in three grades—(1) Пpovóia, the pure Essence; (2) Nous, the divine creative Intelligence; and (3) Eiμapμɛvý, which has the ordering of corporate and sensible things. Our philosopher identifies Пlpovóia with Nous, and assigns to Eiμapuavý a higher place than that which it held in the Neoplatonic system: for him it is the expression of the divine Reason in its connection with the created world. The Stoics, as I have pointed out, regarded all three as immanent in nature, and as nothing but various titles of the Cosmic Soul. This naturally brings us to a closer consideration of God in His relation to nature. We have seen that Boethius does not exclude from his system a cer

tain substrate, that his prima divinitas did not "in the beginning create " the world, but built it up from pre-existing matter.2 Impelled by no external causes, He ungrudgingly shaped it after His own divine image, and taught it to carry out the scheme of perfection in accordance with which it had been formed. Mutual love, alternus amor,3 is the bond that keeps the whole together, while every being, under the impulse of a certain self-love implanted in it by Providence, seeks to maintain its own independent entity. Over all God sits enthroned, surveying the work with serene, all - comprehending eye, and fulfilling the promptings of His divine intelligence through the agency of Fate. For the time-relations between the Creator and the creation Boethius goes back to the Platonic distinction between perpetuity and eternity, from which Proclus and his followers had strayed through a misconception of ‘Timæus,' 41c. They imagined that Plato assigned to the world a co-eternity with God, whereas he had only predicated of it a life of endless duration and not at all that simultaneous and complete comprehension of all time which is the characteristic.

1 Cf. "Conditor et artifex rerum," i. m. 5. Cf. also iv. pr. 6; iv. m. 6.

2 "Pepulerunt fingere causæ materiæ fluitantis opus”—iii. m. 9. 3 The pixía, i.e., of Empedocles and of the Timæus.

of eternity. Boethius lays great stress on the incompleteness of the world, which can only afford to mortals a semblance of the true Good (imagines veri boni), inasmuch as having once become, it cannot last for ever (iii. pr. 9). Over and above these limitations to the completeness of the physical world, he mentions three agencies-Fortune, Chance, and Evil —which appear to restrict the sovereign rule of God in nature.

SECTION III.—FORTUNE.

I say intentionally "appear to restrict," because he loses little time in stripping these forces of all reality. For instance, Fortune, which he distinguishes from Fate, is merely an instrument in God's hand for the correction and education of man, and however harmful and capricious she may appear to his limited intelligence, she is really good in whatever guise she comes.

SECTION IV.-CHANCE.

Again, Chance, he tells us, far from being something that wilfully violates the divine order, is rather the fulfilment of one side of that order.

If it were

in no wise bound by a chain or sequence of causes,

it could have no existence at all, for "ex nihilo nihil." Chance is, according to Aristotle's definition," the unexpected event of an action brought about by a confluence of causes foreign to the object proposed." Now these concurrent and confluent causes are the effect of that order which proceeds by a necessary sequence, and, taking its rise in Providence, assigns to each and all their proper time and place.

SECTION V.-EVIL.

To the mind of Boethius evil is what it was to the mind of Plato, nothing but a shadow and a semblance; for God, who can do all things, cannot do evil. How, then, can evil exist? Certainly experience teaches us that something that we call physical evil is present with us, but, far from being evil in reality, it is an instrument for good, and its infliction is the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon the wicked.1 Moral evil, however, presents a difficulty different in kind and in degree from physical evil, and the arguments advanced by Boethius to disprove its reality are somewhat feeble and commonplace. Thus, he speaks of the victims of moral evil as non-existent, as mere moral corpses, not seeing

1 Cf. Prot., 323, 4; Gorg., 472, 3; 477; 479; 508; 523; 525.

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