<div1
title="Title Page">
<pb
n="i"/>
THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY
EDITED BY
E. CAPPS, PH.D., LL.D. T. E. PAGE,
LITT.D. W. H. D. ROUSE, LITT.D.
BOETHIUS
<pb
n="iii"/>
BOETHIUS
THE THEOLOGICAL TRACTATES
WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY
H. F. STEWART, D.D.
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
AND
E. K. RAND, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
THE
CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY
WITH THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF
"I. T." (1609)
REVISED By H. F. STEWART
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
<div1
title="Contents">
<pb
n="v"/>
THE TRINITY IS
ONE GOD NOT THREE GODS
WHETHER
FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT MAY BE SUBSTANTIALLY PREDICATED OF THE DIVINITY
HOW SUBSTANCES
CAN BE GOOD IN VIRTUE OF THEIR EXISTENCE WITHOUT BEING ABSOLUTE GOODS
ON THE
CATHOLIC FAITH
A TREATISE
AGAINST EUTYCHES AND NESTORIUS
<pb
n="vii"/>
</div1><div1
title="Note on the Text">
IN preparing
the text of the Consolatio I have used the apparatus in Peiper's
edition (Teubner, 1871), since his reports, as I know in the case of the
Tegernseensis, are generally accurate and complete; I have depended also on my
own collations or excerpts from various of the important manuscripts, nearly
all of which I have at least examined, and I have also followed, not always but
usually, the opinions of Engelbrecht in his admirable article, Die
Consolatio Philosophiae des Boethius in the Sitzungsberichte of the
Vienna Academy, cxliv. (1902) 1-60. The present text, then, has been
constructed from only part of the material with which an editor should reckon,
though the reader may at least assume that every reading in the text has,
unless otherwise stated, the authority of some manuscript of the ninth or tenth
century; in certain orthographical details, evidence from the text of the Opuscula
Sacra has been used without special mention of this fact. We look to August
Engelbrecht for the first critical edition of the Consolatio at, we
hope, no distant date.
<pb
n="viii"/>The text of the 0puscula Sacra is based on
my own collations of all the important manuscripts of these works. An edition
with complete apparatus criticus will be ready before long for the
Vienna Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. The history of the
text of the Opuscula Sacra, as I shall attempt to show elsewhere, is
intimately connected with that of the Consolatio.
E. K. R.
<pb
n="ix"/>
</div1><div1
title="INTRODUCTION">
ANICIUS
MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS, of the famous Praenestine family of the Anicii, was
born about 480 A.D. in Rome. His father was an ex-consul; he himself was consul
under Theodoric the Ostrogoth in 510, and his two sons, children of a great
granddaughter of the renowned Q. Aurelius Symmachus, were joint consuls in 522.
His public career was splendid and honourable, as befitted a man of his race,
attainments, and character. But he fell under the displeasure of Theodoric, and
was charged with conspiring to deliver Rome from his rule, and with
corresponding treasonably to this end with Justin, Emperor of the East. He was
thrown into prison at Pavia, where he wrote the Consolation of Philosophy, and
he was brutally put to death in 524. His brief and busy life was marked by
great literary achievement. His learning was vast, his industry untiring, his
object unattainable - nothing less than the transmission to his countrymen of
all the works of Plato and Aristotle, and the reconciliation of their apparently divergent views. To form
the idea was a silent judgment on the learning of his day; to realize it was
more than one man could accomplish; but Boethius accomplished much. He
translated the E¸sagwgÐ of Porphyry, and the whole of
Aristotle's Organon. He wrote a double commentary on the <pb
n="x"/>E¸sagwgÐ, and commentaries on the Categories
and the De Interpretatione of Aristotle, and on the Topica of
Cicero. He also composed original treatises on the categorical and hypothetical
syllogism, on Division and on Topical Differences. He adapted the arithmetic of
Nicomachus, and his textbook on music, founded on various Greek authorities,
was in use at Oxford and Cambridge until modern times. His five theological Tractates
are here, together with the Consolation of Philosophy, to
speak for themselves.
Boethius was
the last of the Roman philosophers, and the first of the scholastic
theologians. The present volume serves to prove the truth of both these
assertions.
The Consolation
of Philosophy is indeed, as Gibbon called it, "a golden volume, not
unworthy of the leisure of Plato or of Tully." To belittle its originality
and sincerity, as is sometimes done, with a view to saving the Christianity of
the writer, is to misunderstand his mind and his method. The Consolatio is
not, as has been maintained, a mere patchwork of translations from
Aristotle and the Neoplatonists. Rather it is the supreme essay of one who
throughout his life had found his highest solace in the dry light of reason.
His chief source of refreshment, in the dungeon to which his beloved library
had not accompanied him, was a memory well stocked with the poetry and thought
of former days. The development of the argument is anything but Neoplatonic; it
is all his own.
And if the Consolation
of Philosophy admits Boethius to the company of Cicero or even of Plato,
the theological Tractates mark him as the forerunner of St. Thomas. It
was the habit of a former generation <pb
n="xi"/>to regard Boethius as an eclectic, the transmitter
of a distorted Aristotelianism, a pagan, or at best a luke-warm Christian, who
at the end cast off the faith which he had worn in times of peace, and wrapped
himself in the philosophic cloak which properly belonged to him. The
authenticity of the Tractates was freely denied. We know better now. The
discovery by Alfred Holder, and the illuminating discussion by Hermann Usener,[1]
of a fragment of Cassiodorus are sufficient confirmation of the manuscript
tradition, apart from the work of scholars who have sought to justify that
tradition from internal evidence. In that fragment Cassiodorus definitely
ascribes to his friend Boethius “a book on the Trinity, some dogmatic chapters,
and a book against Nestorius."[2]
Boethius was without doubt a Christian, a Doctor and perhaps a martyr. Nor is
it necessary to think that, when in prison, he put away his faith. If it is
asked why the Consolation of Philosophy contains no conscious or direct
reference to the doctrines which are traced in the Tractates with so
sure a hand, and is, at most, not out of harmony with Christianity, the answer
is simple. In the Consolation he is writing philosophy; in the Tractates
he is writing theology. He observes what Pascal calls the orders of things.
Philosophy belongs to one order, theology to another. They have different
objects. The object of philosophy is to understand and explain the nature of
the world around us; the object of theology is to understand <pb
n="xii"/>and explain doctrines delivered by divine
revelation. The scholastics recognized the distinction, and the corresponding
difference in the function of Faith and Reason. Their final aim was to
co-ordinate the two, but this was not possible before the thirteenth century.
Meanwhile Boethius helps to prepare the way. In the Consolation he gives
Reason her range and suffers her, unaided, to vindicate the way of Providence.
In the Tractates Reason is called in to give to the claims of Faith the
support which it does not really lack. Reason, however, has still a right to be
heard. The distinction between fides and ratio is proclaimed in
the first two Tractates. In the second especially it is drawn with a
clearness worthy of St. Thomas himself; and there is, of course the implication
that the higher authority resides with fides. But the treatment
is philosophical and extremely bold. Boethius comes back to the question of the
substantiality of the divine Persons which he has discussed in Tr. I. from a
fresh point of view. Once more he decides that the Persons are predicated
relatively; even Trinity, he concludes, is not predicated substantially of
deity. Does this square with catholic doctrine? It is possible to hear a note
of challenge in his words to John the Deacon, fidem si poterit rationemque
coniunge. Philosophy states the problem in unequivocal terms. Theology is
required to say whether they commend themselves.
One object of
the scholastics, anterior to the final co-ordination of the two sciences, was
to harmonize and codify all the answers to all the questions that philosophy
raises. The ambition of Boethius <pb
n="xiii"/>was not so soaring, but it was sufficiently bold.
He set out, first to translate, and then to reconcile, Plato and Aristotle; to
go behind all the other systems, even the latest and the most in vogue, back to
the two great masters, and to show that they have the truth, and are in
substantial accord. So St. Thomas himself, if he cannot reconcile the teaching
of Plato and Aristotle, at least desires to correct the one by the other, to
discover what truth is common to both, and to show its correspondence with
Christian doctrine. It is reasonable to conjecture that Boethius, if he had
lived, might have attempted something of the kind. Were he alive to-day, he
might feel more in tune with the best of the pagans than with most contemporary
philosophic thought.
In yet one
more respect Boethius belongs to the company of the schoolmen. He not only put
into circulation many precious philosophical notions, served as channel through
which various works of Aristotle passed into the schools, and handed down to
them a definite Aristotelian method for approaching the problem of faith; he
also supplied material for that classification of the various sciences which is
an essential accompaniment of every philosophical movement, and of which the
Middle Ages felt the value.[3] The uniform distribution into natural
sciences, mathematics and theology which he recommends may be traced in the
work of various teachers up to the thirteenth century, when it is finally
accepted and defended by St Thomas in his commentary on the De Trinitate.
A
seventeenth-century translation of the Consolatio Philosophiae is
here presented with such alterations as are demanded by a better text, and the
require<pb n="xiv"/>ments of
modern scholarship. There was, indeed not much to do, for the rendering is most
exact. This in a translation of that date is not a little remarkable. We look
for fine English and poetry in an Elizabethan; but we do not often get from him
such loyalty to the original as is here displayed
Of the author
“I. T." nothing is known. He may have been John Thorie, a Fleming born in
London in 1568, and a B.A. of Christ Church, 1586. Thorie “was a person well
skilled in certain tongues, and a noted poet of his times" (Wood, Athenae
Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 624), but his known translations are apparently all
from the Spanish.
Our translator
dedicates his " Five books of Philosophical Comfort” to the Dowager
Countess of Dorset, widow of Thomas Sackville, who was part author of A
Mirror for Magistrates and Gorbodu and who, we learn from I. T.'s
preface, meditated similar work. I. T. does not unduly flatter his patroness,
and he tells her plainly that she will not understand the philosophy of the
book, though the theological and practical parts may be within her scope.
The Opuscula
Sacra have never before, to our knowledge, been translated. In reading and
rendering them we have been greatly helped by two mediaeval commentaries: one
by John the Scot (edited by E. K. Rand in Traube's Quellen und Unterschungen,
vol. i. pt. 2, Munich, 1906); the other by Gilbert de la Porrée (printed in
Migne, P.L. lxiv. We also desire to record our indebtedness in many
points of scholarship and philosophy to Mr. E. J. Thomas of Emmanuel College.
H.F.S.
E.K.R.
<div1
title="The Theological Tractates">
<pb
n="1"/>
BOETHIUS
THE THEOLOGICAL TRACTATES
AND
THE CONSOLATION
OF PHILOSOPHY
<pb
n="3"/>
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p1"/>
<div2
title="The Trinity is One God Not Three Gods">
THE TRINITY IS ONE GOD
NOT THREE GODS
A TREATISE BY
ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS
BOETHIUS
MOST HONOURABLE, OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS
ORDER OF
EX-CONSULS, PATRICIAN
TO HIS FATHER-IN-LAW, QUINTUS AURELIUS
MEMMIUS SYMMACHUS
MOST HONOURABLE, OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS
ORDER OF
EX-CONSULS, PATRICIAN
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p2/">I HAVE long
pondered this problem with such mind as I have and all the light that God has
lent me. Now, having set it forth in logical order and cast it into literary
form, I venture to submit it to your judgment, for which I care as much as for
the results of my own research. You will readily understand what I feel
whenever I try to write down what I think if you consider the difficulty of the
topic and the fact that I discuss it only with the few - I may say with no one
but yourself. It is indeed no desire for fame or empty popular applause that
prompts my <pb n="5"/>pen; if
there be any external reward, we may not look for more warmth in the verdict
than the subject itself arouses. For, apart from yourself, wherever I turn my
eyes, they fall on either the apathy of the dullard or the jealousy of the
shrewd, and a man who casts his thoughts before the common herd - I will not
say to consider but to trample under foot, would seem to bring discredit on the
study of divinity. So I purposely use brevity and wrap up the ideas I draw from
the deep questionings of philosophy in new and unaccustomed words which speak
only to you and to myself, that is, if you deign to look at them. The rest of
the world I simply disregard: they cannot understand, and therefore do not
deserve to read. We should not of course press our inquiry further than man's
wit and reason are allowed to climb the height of heavenly knowledge.[4]
In all the liberal arts some limit is set beyond which reason may not reach.
Medicine, for instance, does not always bring health to the sick, though the
doctor will not be to blame if he has left nothing undone which he ought to do.
So with the other arts. In the present case the very difficulty of the quest
claims a lenient judgment. You must however examine whether the seeds sown in
my mind by St. Augustine's writings[5]
have borne fruit. And now let us begin our inquiry.
I.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p3/">There are many
who claim as theirs the dignity of the Christian religion; but that form of
faith is valid and only valid which, both on account of the universal character
of the rules and doctrines affirming its authority, and because the worship in
which <pb n="7"/>they are
expressed has spread throughout the world, is called catholic or universal. The
belief of this religion concerning the Unity of the Trinity is as follows: the
Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Therefore Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit are one God, not three Gods. The cause of this union is absence
of difference[6]: difference
cannot be avoided by those who add to or take from the Unity, as for instance
the Arians, who, by graduating the Trinity according to merit, break it up and
convert it to Plurality. For the essence of plurality is otherness; apart from
otherness plurality is unintelligible. In fact, the difference between three or
more things lies in genus or species or number. Difference is the necessary
correlative of sameness. Sameness is predicated in three ways: By genus; e.g.
a man and a horse, because of their common genus, animal. By species; e.g.
Cato and Cicero, because of their common species, man. By number; e.g. Tully
and Cicero, because they are one and the same man. Similarly difference is
expressed by genus, species, and number. Now numerical difference is caused by
variety of accidents; three men differ neither by genus nor species but by
their accidents, for if we mentally remove from them all other accidents,[7]
still each one occupies a different place which cannot possibly be regarded as
the same for each, since two bodies cannot occupy the same place, and place is
an accident. Wherefore it is because men are plural by their accidents that
they are plural in number.
<pb
n="9"/>II.
<sync type="boethius-tracts" value="p4/">We will now begin a careful consideration of each several point, as far as they can be grasped and understood; for it has been wisely said,[8] in my opinion, that it is a scholar's duty to study the real nature of anything before he formulates his belief about it.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p5/">Speculative
Science may be divided into three kinds[9]:
Physics, Mathematics, and Theology. Physics deals with motion and is not
abstract or separable (i.e. ‡nupexa³retov); for it is
concerned with the forms of bodies together with their constituent matter,
which forms cannot be separated in reality from their bodies.[10]
As the bodies are in motion - the earth, for instance, tending downwards, and
fire tending upwards, form takes on the movement of the particular thing to
which it is annexed.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p6/">Mathematics
does not deal with motion and is not abstract, for it investigates forms of
bodies apart from matter, and therefore apart from movement, which forms,
however, being connected with matter cannot really separated from bodies.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p7/">Theology does
not deal with motion and is abstract and separable, for the Divine Substance is
without either matter or motion. In Physics, then, we are bound to use
scientific, in Mathematics, systematical, in Theology, intellectual concepts;
and in Theology we will not let ourselves be diverted to play with imaginations
but will simply apprehend that Form which is pure form and no image, which is
very being and the source of Being. For everything <unclear>…</unclear>es its being
to Form. Thus a statue is not a statue on account of the brass which is its
matter, but on account of the form whereby the likeness of <pb
n="11"/>a living thing is impressed upon it: the brass
itself is not brass because of the earth which is its matter, but because of
its form. Likewise earth is not earth by reason of unqualified matter,[11]
but by reason of dryness and weight, which are forms. So nothing is said to be
because it has matter, but because it has a distinctive form. But the Divine
Substance is Form without matter, and is therefore One, and is its own essence.
But other things are not simply their own essences, for each thing has its
being from the things of which it is composed, that is, from its parts. It is
This and That, i.e. it is the totality of its parts in
conjunction; it is not This or That taken apart. Earthly man, for instance,
since he consists of soul and body, is soul and body, not soul or body,
separately; therefore he is not his own essence. That on the other hand which
does not consist of This and That, but only of This, is really its own essence,
and is altogether beautiful and stable because it is not grounded in any alien
element. Wherefore that is truly One in which is no number, in which nothing is
present except its own essence. Nor can it become the substrate of anything,
for it is pure Form, and pure Forms cannot be substrates.[12]
For if humanity, like other forms, is a substrate for accidents, it does not
receive accidents through the fact that it exists, but through the fact that
matter is subjected to it. Humanity appears indeed to appropriate the accident
which in reality belongs to <pb
n="13"/>the matter underlying the conception Humanity. But
Form which, is without matter cannot be a substrate, and cannot have its
essence in matter, else it would not be form but a reflexion. For from those
forms which are outside matter come the forms which are in matter and produce
bodies. We misname the entities that reside in bodies when we call them forms;
they are mere images; they only resemble those forms which are not incorporate
in matter. In Him, then, is no difference, no plurality arising out of
difference, no multiplicity arising out of accidents, and accordingly no
number.
III.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p8/">Now God
differs from God in no respect, for there cannot be divine essences
distinguished either by accidents or by substantial differences belonging to a
substrate. But where there is no difference, there is no sort of plurality and
accordingly no number; here, therefore, is unity alone. For whereas we say God
thrice when we name the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, these three unities do
not produce a plurality of number in their own essences, if we think of what we
count instead of what we count with. For in the case of abstract number a
repetition of single items does produce plurality; but in the case of concrete
number the repetition and plural use of single items does not by any means
produce numerical difference in the objects counted. There are as a fact two
kinds of number. There is the number with which we count (abstract) and the
number inherent in the things counted (concrete). "One" is a thing -
the thing counted. Unity is <pb
n="15"/>that by which oneness is denoted. Again
"two" belongs to the class of things as men or stones; but not so
duality; duality is merely that whereby two men or two stones are denoted; and
so on. Therefore a repetition of unities[13]
produces plurality when it is a question of abstract, but not when it is a
question of concrete things, as, for example, if I say of one and the same
thing, "one sword, one brand, one blade."[14]
It is easy to see that each of these names denotes a sword; I am not numbering
unities but simply repeating one thing, and in saying "sword, brand,
blade," I reiterate the one thing and do not enumerate several different
things any more than I produce three suns instead of merely mentioning one
thing thrice when I say " Sun, Sun, Sun."
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p9/">So then if God
be predicated thrice of Father, Sun, and Holy Spirit, the threefold predication
does not result in plural number. The risk of that, as has been said, attends
only on those who distinguish Them according to merit. But Catholic Christians,
allowing no difference of merit in God, assuming Him to be Pure Form and
believing Him to be nothing else than His own essence, rightly regard the
statement "the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and
this Trinity is one God," not as an enumeration of different things but as
a reiteration of one and the same thing, like the statement, "blade and
brand are one sword" or "sun, sun, and sun are one sun."
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p10/">Let this be
enough for the present to establish my meaning and to show that not every
repetition of units produces number and plurality. Still in saying
"Father, Son, and Holy Spirit," we are not using synonymous terms.
"Brand and blade " are the <pb
n="17"/>same and identical, but "Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit,"
though the same, are not identical. This point deserves a moment's consideration,
When they ask, "Is the Father the same as the Son?" Catholics answer
"No." "Is the One the same as the Other?" The answer is in
the negative. There is not, therefore, complete indifference between Them; and
so number does come in - number which we explained was the result of diversity
of substrates. We will briefly debate this point when we have done examining
how particular predicates can be applied to God.
IV.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p11/">There are in
all ten categories which can be universally predicated of things, namely,
Substance, Quality, Quantity, Relation, Place, Time, Condition, Situation,
Activity, Passivity. Their meaning is determined by the contingent subject; for
some of them denote real substantive attributes of created things, others
belong to the class of accidental attributes. But when these categories are
applied to God they change their meaning entirely. Relation, for instance,
cannot be predicated at all of God; for substance in Him is not really
substantial but supersubstantial. So with quality and the other possible
tributes, of which we must add examples for the sake of clearness.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p12/">When we say
God, we seem to denote a substance; but it is a substance that is supersubstantial.
When we say of Him, "He is just," we mention a quality, not an
accidental quality - rather a substantial and, <pb
n="19"/>in fact, a supersubstantial quality.[15]
For God is not one thing because He is, and another thing because He is just;
with Him to be just and to be God are one and the same. So when we say,
"He is great or the greatest," we seem to predicate quantity, but it
is a quantity similar to this substance which we have declared to be
supersubstantial; for with Him to be great and to be God are all one. Again,
concerning His Form, we have already shown that He is Form, and truly One
without Plurality. The categories we have mentioned are such that they give to
the thing to which they are applied the character which they express; in
created things they express divided being, in God, conjoined and united being -
in the following manner. When we name a substance, as man or God, it seems as
though that of which the predication is made were itself substance, as man or
God is substance. But there is a difference: since man is not simply and
entirely man, and therefore is not substance after all. For what man is he owes
to other things which are not man. But God is simply and entirely God, for He
is nothing else than what He is, and therefore is, through simple existence,
God. Again we apply just, a quality, as though it were that of which it is
predicated; that is, if we say "a just man or just God," we assert
that man or God is just. But there is a difference, for man is one thing, and a
just man is another thing. But God is justice itself. So a man or God is said
to be great, and it would appear that man is substantially great or that God is
substantially great. But man is merely great; God is greatness.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p13/">The remaining
categories are not predicable of God nor yet of created things.[16]
For place is predicated <pb
n="21"/>of man or of God - a man is in the market-place;
God is everywhere - but in neither case is the predicate identical with the
object of predication. To say "A man is in the market " is quite a
different thing from saying "he is white or long," or, so to speak,
encompassed and determined by some property which enables him to be described
in terms of his substance; this predicate of place simply declares how far his
substance is given a particular setting amid other things.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p14/">It is
otherwise, of course, with God. "He is everywhere" does not mean that
He is in every place, for He cannot be in any place at all - but that every
place is present to Him for Him to occupy, although He Himself can be received
by no place, and therefore He cannot anywhere be in a place, since He is
everywhere but in no place. It is the same with the category of time, as,
"A man came yesterday; God is ever." Here again the predicate of
"coming yesterday" denotes not something substantial, but something
happening in terms of time. But the expression "God is ever" denotes
a single Present, summing up His continual presence in all the past, in all the
present - however that term be used - and in all the future. Philosophers say
that "ever" may be applied to the life of the heavens and other
immortal bodies. But as applied to God it has a different meaning. He is ever,
because "ever" is with Him a term of present time, and there is this
great difference between "now," which is our present, and the divine
present. Our present connotes changing time and sempiternity; God's present,
abiding, unmoved, and immoveable, connotes eternity. Add semper to eternity
and you get the constant, incessant and <pb
n="23"/>thereby perpetual course of our present time, that
is to say, sempiternity.[17]
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p15/">It is just the
same with the categories of condition and activity. For example, we say "A
man runs, clothed," "God rules, possessing all things." Here
again nothing substantial is asserted of either subject; in fact all the
categories we have hitherto named arise from what lies outside substance, and
all of them, so to speak, refer to something other than substance. The
difference between the categories is easily seen by an example. Thus, the terms
"man" and "God" refer to the substance in virtue of which
the subject is - man or God. The term "just" refers to the quality in
virtue of which the subject is something, viz. just; the term "great"
to the quantity in virtue of which He is something, viz. great. No other
category save substance, quality, and quantity refer to the substance of the
subject. If I say of one "he is in the market" or
"everywhere," I am applying the category of place, which is not a
category of the substance, like "just" in virtue of justice. So if I
say, "he runs, He rules, he is now, He is ever," I make reference to
activity or time - if indeed God's "ever" can be described as time -
but not to a category of substance, like "great" in virtue of
greatness.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p16/">Finally, we
must not look for the categories of situation and passivity in God, for they
simply are not to be found in Him.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p17/">Have I now
made clear the difference between the categories? Some denote the reality of a
thing; others its accidental circumstances; the former declare that a thing is
something, the latter say <pb n="25"/>nothing about
its being anything, but simply attach to it, so to speak, something external.
Those categories which describe a thing in terms of its substance may be called
substantial categories; when they apply to things as subjects they are called accidents.
In reference to God, who is not a subject at all it is only possible to employ
the category of substance.
V.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p18/">Let us now
consider the category of relation, to which all the foregoing remarks have been
preliminary; for qualities which obviously arise from the association of
another term do not appear to predicate anything concerning the substance of a
subject. For instance, master and slave[18]
are relative terms; let us see whether either of them are predicates of
substance. If you supress the term slave,[19]
you simultaneously suppress the term master. On the other hand, though you
suppress the term whiteness, you do not suppress some white thing,[20]
though, of course, if the particular whiteness inheres as an accident in the
thing, the thing disappears as soon as you suppress the accidental quality
whiteness. But in the case of master, if you suppress the term slave, the term
disappears. But slave is not an accidental quality of master, as whiteness is
of a white thing; it denotes the power which the master has over the slave. Now
since the power goes when the slave is removed, it is plain that power is no
accident to the substance of master, but is an adventitious augmentation
arising from the possession of slaves.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p19/">It cannot
therefore be affirmed that a category of relation increases, decreases, or
alters in any way the substance of the thing to which it is applied. The <pb
n="27"/>category of relation, then, has nothing to
do with the substance of the subject; it simply denotes a condition of
relativity, and that not necessarily to something else, but sometimes to the
subject itself. For suppose a man standing. If I go up to him on my right and
stand beside him, he will be left, in relation to me, not because he is left in
himself, but because I have come up to him on my right. Again if I come up to
him on my left, he becomes right in relation to me, not because he is right in
himself, as he may be white or long, but because he is right in virtue of my
approach. What he is depends entirely on me, and not in the least on the
essence of his being.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p20/">Accordingly
those predicates which do not denote the essential property of a thing cannot
alter, change, or disturb its nature in any way. Wherefore if Father and Son
are predicates of relation and, as we have said, have no other difference but
that of relation, and if relation is not asserted of its subject as though it
were the subject itself and its substantial quality, it will effect no real
difference in its subject, but, in a phrase which aims at interpreting what we
can hardly understand. a difference of persons. For it is a canon of absolute
truth that distinctions in incorporeal things are established by differences
and not by spatial separation. It cannot be said that God became Father by the
addition to His substance of some accident; for he never began to be Father
since the begetting of the Son belongs to His very substance; however, the
predicate father, as such, is relative. And if we bear in mind all the
propositions made concerning God in the previous discussion, we shall admit
that God the Son proceeded from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost from both,
and that They cannot possibly be spatially different, since <pb
n="29"/>They are incorporeal. But since the Father is God,
the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and since there are in God no
points of difference distinguishing Him from God, He differs from none of the
Others. But where there are no differences there is no plurality; where is no
plurality there is Unity. Again, nothing but God can be begotten of God, and
lastly, in concrete enumerations the repetition of units does not produce
plurality. Thus the Unity of the Three is suitably established.
VI.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p21/">But since no
relation can be affirmed of one subject alone, inasmuch as a predicate wanting
relation is a predicate of substance, the manifoldness of the Trinity is
secured through the category of relation, and the Unity is maintained through
the fact that there is no difference of substance, or operation, or generally
of any substantial predicate. So then, the divine Substance preserves the
Unity, the divine relations bring about the Trinity. Hence only terms belonging
to relation may be applied singly to Each. For the Father is not the same as
the Son, nor is either of Them the same as the Holy Spirit. Yet Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit are each the same God, the same in justice, in goodness, in
greatness, and in everything that can be predicated of substance. One must not
forget that predicates of relativity do not always involve relation to
something other than the subject, as slave involves master, where the two terms
are different. For equals are equal, like are like, identicals are identical,
each with other, and the relation of Father to Son, and of both to Holy Spirit
is a relation of identicals. <pb
n="31"/>A relation of this kind is not to be found in
created things, but that is because of the difference which we know attaches to
transient objects. We must not in speaking of God let imagination lead us
astray; we must let the Faculty of pure Knowledge lift us up and teach us to
know all things as far as they may be known.[21]
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p22/">I have now
finished the investigation which I proposed. The exactness of my reasoning
awaits the standard of your judgment; your authority will pronounce whether I
have seen a straight path to the goal. If, God helping me, I have furnished
some support in argument to an article which stands by itself on the firm
foundation of Faith, I shall render joyous praise for the finished work to Him
from whom the invitation comes. But if human nature has failed to reach beyond
its limits, whatever is lost through my infirmity must be made good by my
intention.
<pb
n="33"/><sync type="boethius-tracts"
value="p23/">
</div2><div2
title="Whether Father, Son, and Holy Spirit may be Substantially
Predicated of the Divinity">
ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS
BOETHIUS
MOST HONOURABLE, OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS
ORDER OF
EX-CONSULS, PATRICIAN
TO JOHN THE DEACON
WHETHER FATHER, SON, AND HOLY
SPIRIT MAY BE SUBSTANTIALLY PREDICATED OF THE DIVINITY
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p24/">THE question
before us is whether Father, Son, and Holy Spirit may be predicated of the
Divinity substantially or otherwise. And I think that the method of our inquiry
must be borrowed from what is admittedly the surest source of all truth,
namely, the fundamental doctrines of the catholic faith. If, then, I ask
whether He who is called Father is a substance, the answer will be yes. If I
ask whether the Son is a substance, the reply will be the same. So, too, no one
will hesitate to affirm that the Holy Spirit is also a substance. But when, on
the other I hand, I take together all three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the
result is not three substances but one substance. The one substance of the
Three, then, cannot be separated or divided, nor is it made <pb
n="35"/>up of various parts combined into one: it is
simply one. Everything, therefore, that is affirmed of the divine substance
must be common to the Three, and we can recognize what predicates may be
affirmed of the substance of the godhead by this sign, that all those which are
affirmed of it may also be affirmed severally of each of the Three combined
into one. For instance if we say "the Father is God, the Son is God, and
the Holy Spirit is God," then Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God. If
then their one godhead is one substance, the name of God may with right be
predicated substantially of the Divinity.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p25/">Similarly the
Father is truth, the Son is truth, and the Holy Spirit is truth; Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit are not three truths, but one truth. If, then, they are one
substance and one truth, truth must of necessity be a substantial predicate. So
Goodness, Immutability, Justice, Omnipotence and all the other predicates which
we apply to the Persons singly and collectively are plainly substantial
predicates. Hence it appears that what may be predicated of each single One but
not of all Three is not a substantial predicate, but of another kind - of what
kind I will examine presently. For He who is Father does not transmit this name
to the Son nor to the Holy Spirit. Hence it follows that this name is not
attached to Him as something substantial; for if it were a substantial
predicate, as God, truth, justice, or substance itself, it would be affirmed of
the other Persons.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p26/">Similarly the
Son alone receives this name - nor does He associate it with the other Persons,
as in the case of the titles God, truth, and the other predicates which I have
already mentioned. The <pb n="37"/>Spirit too
is not the same as the Father and the Son. Hence we gather that Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit are not predicated of the Divinity in a substantial manner, but
otherwise.[22] For if each
term were predicated substantially it would be affirmed of the three Persons
both separately and collectively. It is evident that these terms are relative,
for the Father is some one's Father, the Son is some one's Son, the Spirit is
some one's Spirit. Hence not even Trinity may be substantially[23]
predicated of God; for the Father is not Trinity - since He who is Father
is not Son and Holy Spirit - nor yet, by parity of reasoning, is the Son
Trinity nor the Holy Spirit Trinity, but the Trinity consists in diversity of
Persons, the Unity in simplicity of substance.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p27/">Now if the
Persons are separate, while the Substance is undivided, it must needs be that
that term which is derived from Persons does not belong to Substance. But the
Trinity is effected by diversity of Persons, wherefore Trinity does not belong
to Substance. Hence neither Father, nor Son, nor Holy Spirit, nor Trinity can
be substantially predicated of God, but only relatively, as we have said. But
God, Truth, Justice, Goodness, Omnipotence, Substance, Immutability, Virtue,
Wisdom and all other conceivable predicates of the kind are applicable
substantially to divinity.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p28/">If I am right
and speak in accordance with the Faith , I pray you confirm me. But if you are
in any point of another opinion, examine carefully what I have said, and if
possible, reconcile faith and reason.[24]
<pb
n="39"/><sync type="boethius-tracts"
value="p29/">
</div2><div2
title="How Substances can be Good in Virtue of their Existence Without
Being Absolute Goods">
TO THE SAME
HOW SUBSTANCES CAN BE GOOD IN
VIRTUE OF THEIR EXISTENCE
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p30/">You ask me to
state and explain somewhat more clearly that obscure question in my Hebdomads[25]
concerning the manner in which substances can be good in virtue of
existence without being absolute goods.[26]
You urge that this demonstration is necessary because the method of this kind
of treatise is not clear to all. I can bear witness with what eagerness you
have already attacked the subject. But I confess I like to expound my Hebdomads
to myself, and would rather bury my speculations in my own memory than
share them with any of those pert and frivolous persons who will not tolerate
an argument unless it is made amusing. Wherefore do not you take objection to
the obscurity that waits on brevity; for obscurity is the sure treasure-house
of secret doctrine and has the further advantage that it speaks <pb
n="41"/>a language understood only of those who
deserve to understand. I have therefore followed the example of the
mathematical[27] and cognate
sciences and laid down bounds and rules according to which I shall develop all
that follows.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p31/">I. A common
conception is a statement generally accepted as soon as it is made. Of these
there are two kinds. One is universally intelligible; as, for instance,
"if equals be taken from equals the remainders are equal." Nobody who
grasps that proposition will deny it. The other kind is intelligible only to
the learned, but it is derived from the same class of common conceptions; as
" Incorporeals cannot occupy space," and the like. This is obvious to
the learned but not to the common herd.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p32/">II. Being and
the thing that is[28]
are different. Simple Being awaits manifestation, but a thing is and exists[29]
as soon as it has received the form which gives it Being.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p33/">III. A thing
that exists can participate in something else; but absolute Being can in no
wise participate in anything. For participation is effected when a thing
already is; but it is something after it has acquired Being.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p34/">IV. That which
exists can possess, something besides itself. But absolute Being has no
admixture of aught besides Itself
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p35/">V. Merely to
be something and to be something absolutely are different; the former implies
accidents, the latter connotes a substance.
<pb n="43"/><sync type="boethius-tracts" value="p36/">VI. Everything that is participates in absolute Being[30] through the fact that it exists. In order to be something it participates in something else. Hence that which exists participates in absolute Being through the fact that it exists, but it exists in order to participate in something else.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p37/">VII. Every
simple thing possesses as a unity its absolute and its particular Being.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p38/">VIII. In every
composite thing absolute and individual Being are not one and the same.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p39/">IX. Diversity
repels; likeness attracts. That which seeks something outside itself is
demonstrably of the same nature as that which it seeks.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p40/">These
preliminaries are enough then for our purpose. The intelligent interpreter of
the discussion will supply the arguments appropriate to each point.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p41/">Now the problem is this. Things which are, are good.
For all the learned are agreed that every existing thing tends to good and
everything tends to its like. Therefore things which tend to good are good. We
must, however, inquire how they are good - by participation or by substance. If
by participation, they are in no wise good in themselves; for a thing which is
white by participation in whiteness is not white in itself by virtue of
absolute Being. So with all other qualities. If then they are good by
participation, they are not good in themselves; therefore they do not tend to
good. But we have agreed that they do. Therefore they are good not by
participation but by substance. <pb
n="45"/>But those
things whose substance is good are substantially good. But they owe their
actual Being to absolute Being. Their absolute Being therefore is good;
therefore the absolute Being of all things is good. But if their Being is good,
things which exist are good through the fact that they exist and their absolute
Being is the same as that of the Good. Therefore they are substantial goods,
since they do not merely participate in goodness. But if their absolute Being
is good, there is no doubt but that, since they are substantial goods, they are
like the First Good and therefore they will have to be that Good. For nothing
is like It save Itself Hence all things that are, are God - an impious
assertion. Wherefore things are not substantial goods, and so the essence of
the Good does not reside in them. Therefore they are not good through the fact
that they exist. But neither do they receive good by participation, for they would in no
wise tend to good. Therefore they are in no wise good.[31]
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p42/">This problem admits of the
following solution.[32]
There are many things which can be separated by a mental process, though they
cannot be separated in fact. No one, for instance, can actually separate a
triangle or other mathematical figure from the underlying matter; but mentally
one can consider a triangle and its properties apart from matter. Let us,
therefore, abstract mentally for a moment the presence of the Prime Good, whose
Being is admitted by the universal consensus of learned and unlearned opinion
and can be deduced from the religious beliefs of savage races. The Prime Good
having been thus for a moment abstracted, let us postulate as good all things
that are, and let us consider how they could possibly be good if they did not
derive <pb n="47"/>from the Prime Good. This
process leads me to perceive that their Goodness and their existence are two
different things. For let me suppose that one and the same substance is good,
white, heavy, and round. Then it must be admitted that its substance,
roundness, colour, and goodness are all different things. For if each of these
qualities were the same as its substance, weight would be the same thing as
colour or goodness, and goodness would be the same as colour; which is contrary
to nature. Their Being then in that case would be one thing, their quality
another, and they would be good, but they would not have their absolute Being
good. Therefore if they really existed at all, they would not be from good nor
good, they would not be the same as good, but Being and Goodness would be for
them two different things. But if they were nothing else but good substances,
and were neither heavy, nor coloured, and possessed neither spatial dimension
nor quality, beyond that of goodness, they (or rather it) would seem to be not
things but the principle of things. For there is one thing alone that is by
nature good to the exclusion of every other quality. But since they are not
simple, they could not even exist at all unless that which is the one sole Good
willed them to be. They are called good simply because their Being is derived front
the Will of the Good. For the Prime Good is essentially good in virtue of
Being; the secondary good is in its turn good because it derives from the good
whose absolute Being is good. But the absolute Being of all things derives from
the Prime Good which is such that of It Being and Goodness are rightly
predicated as identical. Their absolute Being therefore is good; for thereby it
resides in Him.
<pb
n="49"/><sync type="boethius-tracts"
value="p43/">Thereby the problem is solved. For though things be good
through the fact that they exist they are not like the Prime Good, for the
simple reason that their absolute Being is not good under all circumstances,
but that things can have no absolute Being unless it derive from the Prime
Being, that is, the Prime Good; their substance, therefore, is good, and yet it
is not like that from which it comes. For the Prime Good is good through the
fact that it exists, irrespective of all conditions, for it is nothing else
than good; but the second good if it derived from any other source might be
good, but could not be good through the fact that it exists. For in that case
it might possibly participate in good, but their substantial Being, not
deriving from the Prime Good, could not have the element of good. Therefore when
we have mentally abstracted the Prime Good, these things, though they might be
good, would not be good through the fact that they exist, and since they could
not actually exist unless the true good had produced them, therefore their
Being is good, and yet that which springs from the substantial Good is not like
its source which produces it. And unless they had derived from it, though they were good yet they could not be good
through the fact that they exist because they were apart from good and not derived
from good, since that very good is the Prime Good and is substantial Being and
substantial Good and essential Goodness. But we need not say that white things
are white through the fact that they exist; for they drew their existence from
the will of God but not their whiteness. For to be is one thing; to be white is
another; and that because He who gave them Being is good, but not white. It is
therefore in accord<pb n="51"/>ance with the
will of the Good that they should be good through the fact that they exist; but
it is not in accordance with the will of one who is not white that a thing have
a certain property making it white in virtue of its Being; for it was not the
will of One who is white that gave them Being. And so they are white simply
because One who was not white willed them to be white; but they are good
through the fact that they exist because One who was good willed them to be
good. Ought, then, by parity of reason, all things to be just because He is
just who willed them to be? That is not so either. For to be good involves
Being, to be just involves an act. For Him being and action are identical; to
be good and to be just are one and the same for Him. But being and action are
not identical for us, for we are not simple. For us, then, goodness is not the
same thing as justice, but we all have the same sort of Being in virtue of our
existence. Therefore all things are good, but all things are not just. Finally,
good is a general, but just is a species, and this species does not apply to
all. Wherefore some things are just, others are something else, but all things
are good.
<pb
n="53"/><sync type="boethius-tracts"
value="p44/">
</div2><div2
title="On the Catholic Faith">
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p45/">THE Christian
Faith is proclaimed by the authority of the New Testament and of the Old; but
although the Old scripture[34]
contains within its pages the name of Christ and constantly gives token that He
will come who we believe has already come by the birth of the Virgin, yet the
diffusion of that faith throughout the world dates from the actual miraculous
coming of our Saviour.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p46/">Now this our
religion which is called Christian and Catholic is founded chiefly on the
following assertions. From all eternity, that is, before the world was
established, and so before all that is meant by time began, there has existed
one divine substance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in such wise that we
confess the Father God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and yet not three
Gods but one God. Thus the Father hath the Son, begotten of His substance and
coeternal with Himself after a manner that He alone knoweth, Him we confess to
be Son in the sense that He is not the same as the Father. Nor has the Father
ever been Son, for the human mind must not <pb
n="55"/>imagine a divine lineage stretching back into
infinity; nor can the Son, being of the same nature in virtue of which He is
coeternal with the Father, ever become Father, for the divine lineage must not
stretch forward into infinity. But the Holy Spirit is neither Father nor Son,
and therefore, albeit of the same divine nature, neither begotten, nor
begetting, but proceeding as well from the Father as the Son.[35]
Yet what the manner of that Procession is we are no more able to state clearly
than is the human mind able to understand the generation of the Son from the
substance of the Father. But these articles are laid down for our belief by Old
and New Testament. Concerning which fortress and citadel[36]
of our religion many men have spoken otherwise and have even impugned it,
being moved by human, nay rather by carnal feeling. Arius, for instance, who,
while calling the Son God, declares Him to be vastly inferior to the Father and
of another substance. The Sabellians also have dared to affirm that there are
not three separate Persons but only One, saying that the Father is the same as
the Son and the Son the same as the Father and the Holy Spirit the same as the
Father and the Son; and so declaring that there is but one divine Person
expressed by different names.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p47/">The Manichaeans, too, who allow
two coeternal and contrary principles, do not believe in the Only begotten Son
of God. For they consider it a thought unworthy of God that He should have a
Son, since they entertain the very carnal reflection that inasmuch as[37]
human generation arises from the mingling of two <pb
n="57"/>bodies, it is unworthy to hold a notion of this sort in respect of the
divine nature; whereas such a view finds no sanction in the Old Testament and
absolutely[38] none in the
New. Yea, their error which refuses this notion also refuses the Virgin birth
of the Son, because they would not have the God's nature defiled by the man's
body. But enough of this for the present; the points will be presented in the
proper place as the proper arrangement demands.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p48/">The divine nature then, abiding
from all eternity and unto all eternity without any change, by the exercise of
a will known only to Himself, determined of Himself to form the world, and
brought it into being when it was absolutely naught, nor did He produce it from
His own substance, lest it should be thought divine by nature, nor did He form
it after any model, lest it should be thought that anything had already come
into being which helped His will by the existence of an independent nature, and
that there should exist something that had not been made by Him and yet
existed; but by His Word He brought forth the heavens, and created the earth[39]
that so He might make natures worthy of a place in heaven, and also fit earthly
things to earth. But although in heaven all things are beautiful and arranged
in due order, yet one part of the heavenly creation which is universally termed
angelic,[40] seeking
more than nature and the Author of Nature had granted them, was cast forth from
its heavenly habitation; and because the Creator did not wish the roll of the
angels, that is of the heavenly city whose citizens the angels are, to be
diminished, He formed man out of the earth and breathed into him the breath of
life; He endowed him with reason, He adorned him with freedom of choice and
established <pb n="59"/>him in the joys of Paradise,
making covenant aforehand that if he would remain without sin He would add him
and his offspring to the angelic hosts; so that as the higher nature had fallen
low through the curse of pride, the lower substance might ascend on high
through the blessing of humility. But the father of envy, loath that man should
climb to the place where he himself deserved not to remain, put temptation
before him and the consort whom the Creator had brought forth out of his side
for the continuance of the race, and laid them open to punishment for disobedience,
promising man also the gift of Godhead, the arrogant attempt to seize which had
caused his own fall. All this was revealed by God to His servant Moses, whom He
vouchsafed to teach the creation and origin of man, as the books written by him
declare. For the divine authority is always conveyed in one of the following
ways - the historical, which simply announces facts; the allegorical, whence
historical matter is excluded; or else the two combined, history and allegory
conspiring to establish it. All this is abundantly evident to pious hearers and
steadfast believers.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p49/">But to return
to the order of our discourse; the first man, before sin came, dwelt with his
consort in the Garden. But when he hearkened to the voice of his wife and
failed to keep the commandment of his Creator, he was banished, bidden to till
the ground, and being shut out from the sheltering garden he carried abroad
into unknown regions the children of his loins; by begetting whom he transmitted
to those that came after, the punishment which he, the first man, had incurred
by the sin of disobedience. Hence it came to pass that corruption both of body
and soul ensued, and death; and <pb
n="61"/>this he was to taste first in his own son Abel, in
order that he might learn through his child the greatness of the punishment
that was laid upon him. For if he had died first he would in some sense not
have known, and if one may so say not have felt, his punishment; but he tasted
it in another in order that he might perceive the due reward of his contempt,
and, doomed to death himself, might be the more sensibly touched by the
apprehension of it. But this curse that came of transgression which the first
man had by natural propagation transmitted to posterity, was denied by one
Pelagius who so set up the heresy which goes by his name and which the Catholic
faith, as is known, at once banished from its bosom. So the human race that
sprang from the first man and mightily increased and multiplied, broke into
strife, stirred up wars, and became the heir of earthly misery, because it had
lost the joys of Paradise in its first parent. Yet were there not a few of
mankind whom the Giver of Grace set apart for Himself and who were obedient to
His will; and though by desert of nature they were condemned, yet God by making
them partakers in the hidden mystery, long afterwards to be revealed,
vouchsafed to recover fallen nature. So the earth was filled by the human race
and man who by his own wanton wilfulness had despised his Creator began to walk
in his own ways. Hence God willing rather to recover mankind through one just
man than that it should remain for ever contumacious, suffered all the guilty
multitude to perish by the wide waters of a flood, save only Noah, the just
one, with his children and all that he had brought with him into the ark. The
reason why He wished to save the just by an ark of wood is known <pb
n="63"/>to all hearts learned in the Holy Scriptures. Thus
what we may call the first age of the world was ended by the avenging flood.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p50/">Thus the human
race was restored, and yet it hastened to make its own the vice of nature with
which the first author of transgression had infected it. And the wickedness
increased which had once been punished by the waters of the flood, and man who
had been suffered to live for a long series of years was reduced to the brief
span of ordinary human life. Yet would not God again visit the race by a flood,
but rather, letting it continue, He chose from it men of whose line a
generation should arise out of which He might in the last days grant us His own
Son to come to us, clothed in human form. Of these men Abraham is the first,
and although he was stricken in years and his wife past bearing, they had in
their old age the reward of a son in fulfilment of promise unconditional. This
son was named Isaac and he begat Jacob, who in his turn begat the twelve
Patriarchs, God not reckoning in their number those whom nature in its ordinary
course produced.[41] This Jacob,
then, together with his sons and his household determined to dwell in Egypt for
the purpose of trafficking; and the multitude of them increasing there in the
course of many years began to be a cause of suspicion to the Egyptian rulers,
and Pharaoh ordered them to be oppressed by exceeding heavy tasks[42]
and afflicted them with grievous burdens. At length God, minded to set at
naught the tyranny of the king of Egypt, divided the Red Sea - a marvel such as
nature had never known before - and brought forth His host by the hands of
Moses and Aaron. Thereafter on account of their departure Egypt was vexed with
sore plagues, because they would not let <pb
n="65"/>the people go. So, after crossing the Red Sea, as
I have told, they passed through the desert of the wilderness and came to the
mount which is called Sinai, where God the Creator of all, wishing to prepare
the nations for the knowledge of the sacrament to come, laid down by a law
given through Moses how both the rites of sacrifices and the national customs
should be ordered. And after fighting down many tribes in many years amidst
their journeyings they came at last to the river called Jordan, with Joshua the
son of Nun now as their captain, and, for their crossing, the streams of Jordan
were dried up as the waters of the Red Sea had been; so they finished their
course to that city which is now called Jerusalem. And while the people of God
abode there we read that there were set up first judges and prophets and then
kings, of whom we read that after Saul, David of the tribe of Judah ascended
the throne. So from him the royal race descended from father to son and lasted
till the days of Herod who, we read, was the first taken out of the peoples
called Gentile to bear sway. In whose days rose up the blessed Virgin Mary,
sprung from the stock of David, she who bore the Maker of the human race. But
it was just because the whole world lay dead, stained with its many sins, that
God chose out one race in which His commands might shine clear; sending it
prophets and other holy men, to the end that by their warnings that people at
least might be cured of their swollen pride. But they slew these holy men and
chose rather to abide in their wanton wickedness.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p51/">And now at the
last days of time, in place of prophets and other men well-pleasing to Him, God
willed that His only-begotten Son should be born <pb
n="67"/>of a Virgin that so the salvation of
mankind which had been lost through the disobedience of the first man might be
recovered by the God-man, and that inasmuch as it was a woman who had first
persuaded man to that which wrought death there should be this second woman who
should bring forth from a human womb Him who gives Life. Nor let it be deemed a
thing unworthy that the Son of God was born of a Virgin, for it was out of the
course of nature that He was conceived and brought to birth. Virgin then she
conceived, by the Holy Spirit, the Son of God made flesh, Virgin she bore Him,
Virgin she continued after His birth; and He became the Son of Man and likewise
the Son of God that in Him the glory of the divine nature might shine forth and
at the same time the human weakness be declared which He took upon Him. Yet
against this article of Faith so wholesome and altogether true there rose up
many who babbled other doctrine, and especially Nestorius and Eutyches,
inventors of heresy, of whom the one thought fit to say that He was man alone,
the other that He was God alone and that the human body put on by Christ had
not come by participation in human substance. But enough on this point.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p52/">So Christ grew after the flesh,
and was baptized in order that He who was to give the form of baptism to others
should first Himself receive what He taught. But after His baptism He chose
twelve disciples, one of whom betrayed Him. And because the people of the Jews
would not bear sound doctrine they laid hands upon Him and slew and crucified
Him. Christ, then, was slain; He lay three days and three nights in the tomb;
He rose again from the dead as He had predetermined with His Father before the
founda<pb n="69"/>tion of the world; He ascended
into heaven whence we know that He was never absent, because He is Son of God,
in order that as Son of God He might raise together with Him to the heavenly
habitation man whose flesh He had assumed, whom the devil had hindered from
ascending to the places on high. Therefore He bestowed on His disciples the
form of baptizing, the saving truth of the teaching, and the mighty power of
miracles, and bade them go throughout the whole world to give it life, in order
that the message of salvation might be preached no longer in one nation only
but among all the dwellers upon earth. And because the human race was wounded
by the weapon of eternal punishment by reason of the nature which they had
inherited from the first transgressor and could not win a full meed of
salvation because they had lost it in its first parent, God instituted certain
health-giving sacraments to teach the difference between what grace bestowed
and human nature deserved, nature simply subjecting to punishment, but grace,
which is won by no merit, since it would not be grace if it were due to merit,
conferring all that belongs to salvation.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p53/">Therefore is
that heavenly instruction spread throughout the world, the peoples are knit
together, churches are founded, and, filling the broad earth, one body formed,
whose head, even Christ, ascended into heaven in order that the members might
of necessity follow where the Head was gone. Thus this teaching both inspires
this present life unto good works, and promises that in the end of the age our
bodies shall rise incorruptible to the kingdom of heaven, to the end that he
who has lived well on earth by God's gift should be altogether blessed in that
resurrection, but he who has lived amiss should, <pb
n="71"/>with the gift of resurrection, enter upon misery.
And this is a first principle of our religion, to believe not only that men's
souls do not perish, but that their very bodies, which the coming of death had
destroyed, recover their first state by the bliss that is to be. This Catholic
church, then, spread throughout the world, is known by three particular marks:
whatever is believed and taught in it has the authority of the Scriptures, or
of universal tradition, or at least of its own and proper usage. And this
authority is binding on the whole Church as is also the universal tradition of
the Fathers, while each separate church exists and is governed by its private
constitution and its proper rites according to difference of locality and the
good judgment of each. All, therefore, that the faithful now expect is that the
end of the world will come, that all corruptible things shall pass away, that
men shall rise for future judgement, that each shall receive reward according
to his deserts and abide in the lot assigned to him for ever and for aye; and
the sole reward of bliss will be the contemplation of the Almighty, so far,
that is, as the creature may look on the Creator, to the end that the number of
the angels may be made up from these and the heavenly city filled where the
Virgin's Son is King and where will be everlasting joy, delight, food, labour,
and unending praise of the Creator.
<pb
n="73"/><sync type="boethius-tracts"
value="p54/">
</div2><div2
title="A Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius">
A TREATISE AGAINST
EUTYCHES AND NESTORIUS
By
ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS
BOETHIUS
MOST
HONOURABLE, OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS ORDER OF
EX-CONSULS,
PATRICIAN
TO HIS SAINTLY MASTER AND REVEREND
FATHER
JOHN THE DEACON HIS SON BOETHIUS
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p55/">I HAVE been
long and anxiously waiting for you to discuss with me the problem which was
raised at the meeting. But since your duties have prevented your coming and I
shall be for some time involved in my business engagements, I am setting down
in writing what I had been keeping to say by word of mouth.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p56/">YOU no doubt
remember how, when the letter[43]
was read in the assembly, it was asserted that the Eutychians confess that
Christ is formed from two natures but does not consist of them - whereas
Catholics admit both propositions, for among followers of the true Faith He is
equally believed to be of two natures and in two natures. Struck by the novelty
of <pb n="75"/>this assertion
I began to inquire what difference there can be between unions formed from two
natures and unions which consist in two natures, for the point which the bishop
who wrote the letter refused to pass over because of its gravity, seemed to me
of importance and not one to be idly and carelessly slurred over. On that
occasion all loudly protested that the difference was evident, that there was no
obscurity, confusion or perplexity, and in the general storm and tumult there
was no one who really touched the edge of the problem, much less anyone who
solved it.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p57/">I was sitting
a long way from the man whom I especially wished to watch,[44]
and if you recall the arrangement of the seats, I was turned away from him,
with so many between us, that however much I desired it I could not see his
face and expression and glean therefrom any sign of his opinion. Personally,
indeed, I had nothing more to contribute than the rest, in fact rather less
than more. I, no more than the others, had any view about the question at
issue, while my possible contribution was less by one thing, namely, the false
assumption of a knowledge that I had not got. I was, I admit, much put out, and
being overwhelmed by the mob of ignorant speakers, I held my peace, fearing
lest I should be rightly set down as insane if I held out for being sane among
those madmen.[45] So I
continued to ponder all the questions in my mind, not swallowing what I had
heard, but rather chewing the cud of constant meditation. At last the door
opened to my insistent, knocking, and the truth which I found cleared out of my
way all the clouds of the Eutychian error. And with this discovery a great
wonder came upon me at the vast temerity of unlearned men who use the cloak of
impudent presumption to cover up the <pb
n="77"/>vice of ignorance, for not only do they often fail
to grasp the point at issue, but in a debate of this kind they do not even
understand their own statements, forgetting that the case of ignorance is all
the worse if it is not honestly admitted.[46]
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p58/">I turn from
them to you, and to you I submit this little essay for your first judgment and
consideration. If you pronounce it to be sound I beg you to place it among the
other writings of mine which you possess; but if there is anything to be struck
out or added or changed in any way, I would ask you to let me have your suggestions,
in order that I may enter them in my copies just as they leave your hands. When
this revision has been duly accomplished, then I will send the work on to be
judged by the man to whom I always submit everything.[47]
But since the pen is now to take the place of the living voice, let me first
clear away the extreme and self-contradictory errors of Nestorius and Eutyches;
after that, by God's help, I will temperately set forth the middle way of the
Christian Faith. But since in this whole question of self-contradictory
heresies the matter of debate is Persons and Natures, these terms most first be
defined and distinguished by their proper differences.
I.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p59/">Nature, then,
may be affirmed either of bodies alone or of substances alone, that is, of
corporeals or incorporeals, or of everything that is in any way capable of
affirmation. Since, then, nature can be affirmed in three ways, it must
obviously be defined in three ways. For if you choose to affirm nature of the totality
of things, the definition will be of such <pb
n="79"/>kind as to include all things that are. It will
accordingly be something of this kind: "Nature belongs to those things
which, since they exist, can in some measure be apprehended by the mind." This
definition, then, includes both accidents and substances, for they all can be
apprehended by the mind. But I add "in some measure" because God and
matter cannot be apprehended by mind, be it never so whole and perfect, but
still they are apprehended in a measure through the removal of accidents. The
reason for adding the words, "since they exist," is that the mere
word "nothing" denotes something, though it does not denote nature.
For it denotes, indeed, not that anything is, but rather non-existence; but
every nature exists. And if we choose to affirm "nature" of the
totality of things, the definition will be as we have given it above.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p60/">But if
"nature" is affirmed of substances alone, we shall, since all substances
are either corporeal or incorporeal, give to nature denoting substances a
definition of the following kind: "Nature is either that which can act or
that which can be acted upon." Now the power to act and to suffer belongs
to all corporeals and the soul of corporeals; for it both acts in the body and
suffers by the body. But only to act belongs to God and other divine
substances.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p61/">Here, then, you have a further
definition of what nature is as applied to substances alone. This definition
comprises also the definition of substance. For if the word nature signifies
substance, when once we have defined nature we have also settled the definition
of substance. But if we neglect incorporeal substances and confine the name
nature to corporeal substances so that they alone appear to possess the nature
of substance - which is the view of Aristotle <pb
n="81"/>and the adherents both of his and various other schools - we shall define
nature as those do who have only allowed the word to be applied to bodies. Now,
in accordance with this view, the definition is as follows: "Nature is the
principle of movement properly inherent in and not accidentally attached to
bodies. I say "principle of movement" because every body has its proper
movement, fire moving upwards, the earth moving downwards. And what I mean by
"movement properly inherent and not accidentally attached" is seen by
the example of a wooden bed which is necessarily borne downward and is not
carried downward by accident. For it is drawn downward by weight and heaviness
because it is of wood, i.e. an earthly material. For it falls down not
because it is a bed, but because it is earth, that is, because it is an
accident of earth that it is a bed; hence we call it wood in virtue of its
nature, but bed in virtue of the art that shaped it.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p62/">Nature has,
further, another meaning according to which we speak of the different nature of
gold and silver, wishing thereby to point the special property of things; this
meaning of nature will be defined as follows: "Nature is the specific
difference that gives form to anything." Thus, although nature is
described or defined in all these different ways, both Catholics and Nestorians
firmly hold that there are in Christ two natures of the kind laid down in our
last definition, for the same specific differences cannot apply to God and man.
II.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p63/">But the proper
definition of Person is a matter of very great perplexity. For if every nature
has <pb n="83"/>person, the
difference between nature and person is a hard knot to unravel; or if person is
not taken as the equivalent of nature but is a term of less scope and range, it
is difficult to say to what natures it may be extended, that is, to what
natures the term person may be applied and what natures are dissociate from it.
For one thing is clear, namely that nature is a substrate of Person, and that
Person cannot be predicated apart from nature.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p64/">We must,
therefore, conduct our inquiry into these points as follows.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p65/">Since Person
cannot exist apart from nature and since natures are either substances or
accidents and we see that a person cannot come into being among accidents (for
who can say there is any person of white or black or size?), it therefore
remains that Person is properly applied to substances. But of substances, some
are corporeal and others incorporeal. And of corporeals, some are living and
others the reverse; of living substances, some are sensitive and others
insensitive; of sensitive substances, some are rational and others irrational.[48]
Similarly of incorporeal substances, some are rational, others the reverse (for
instance the animating spirits of beasts); but of rational substances there is
one which is immutable and impassible by nature, namely God, another which in
virtue of its creation is mutable and passible except in that case where the
Grace of the impassible substance has transformed it to the unshaken
impassibility which belongs to angels and to the soul.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p66/">Now from all
the definitions we have given it is clear that Person cannot be affirmed of
bodies which have no life (for no one ever said that a stone had a person), nor
yet of living things which lack sense (for <pb
n="85"/>neither is there any person of a tree), nor
finally of that which is bereft of mind and reason (for there is no person of a
horse or ox or any other of the animals which dumb and unreasoning live a life
of sense alone), but we say there is a person of a man, of God, of all angel.
Again, some substances are universal, others are particular. Universal terms
are those which are predicated of individuals, as man, animal, stone, stock and
other things of this kind which are either genera or species; for the term man
is applied to individual men just as animal is to animals, and stone and stock
to individual stones and stocks. But particulars are terms which are never
predicated of other things, as Cicero, Plato, this stone from which this statue
of Achilles was hewn, this piece of wood out of which this table was made. But
in all these things person cannot in any case be applied to universals, but
only to particulars and individuals; for there is no person of a man if animal
or general, only the single persons of Cicero, Plato, or other single
individuals are termed persons.
III.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p67/">Wherefore if Person belongs to substances alone, and
these rational, and if every nature is a substance, existing not in universals
but in individuals, we have found the definition of Person, viz.: "The
individual substance of a rational creature."[49]
Now by this definition we Latins have described what the Greeks call Ãpéstwiv. For the word person seems to be borrowed from a
different source, namely from the masks which in comedies and tragedies used to
signify the <pb n="87"/>different subjects of representation. Now persona "mask"
is derived from personare, with a circumflex on the penultimate. But if
the accent is put on the antepenultimate[50]
the word will clearly be seen to come from sonus "sound," and
for this reason, that the hollow mask necessarily produces a larger sound. The
Greeks, too, call these masks prìswpa from the fact that they are placed over the face and
conceal the countenance from the spectator: par
toÂ
prèv
toÁv
úpav
t°qetqai. But since, as we have said, it was by the masks they
put on that actors played the different characters represented in a tragedy or
comedy - Hecuba or Medea or Simon or Chremes, so also all other men who could
be recognized by their several characteristics were designated by the Latins
with the term persona and by the Greeks with prìswpa. But the Greeks far more clearly gave to the
individual subsistence of a rational nature the name Ãpçstasiv, while we through want of appropriate words have kept
a borrowed term, calling that persona which they call Ãpçstasv, but Greece with its richer vocabulary gives the name
Ãpçstasiv to the individual subsistence. And, if I may use
Greek in dealing with matters which were first mooted by Greeks before they
came to be interpreted in Latin: a³
oÇs°ai
n
mšn
to²v
kuqçlou
eºnai
dÀnantai
n
dš
to²v
‡tçmoiv
ka±
kat
m™rov
mçnoiv
Ãf°stantai, that is:
essences indeed can have a general existence in universals, but they have
particular substantial existence in particulars alone. For it is from
particulars that all our comprehension of universals is taken. Wherefore since
subsistences are present in universals but acquire substance in particulars
they rightly gave the name Ãpéstasiv to
subsistences which acquired substance through the medium of particulars. For <pb
n="89"/>to no one using his eyes with any care or
penetration will subsistence and substance appear identical.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p68/">For our equivalents
of the Greek terms oÇs°wsiv
oÇsiòsqai are
respectively subsistentia and subsistere, while their Ãpçstasiv Ãf°stasqai are
represented by our substantia and substare. For a thing has
subsistence when it does not require accidents in order to be, but that thing
has substance which supplies to other things, accidents to wit, a substrate
enabling them to be; for it "substands" those things so long as it is
subjected to accidents. Thus genera and species have only subsistence, for
accidents do not attach to genera and species. But particulars have not only
subsistence but substance, for they, no more than generals, depend on accidents
for their Being; for they are already provided with their proper and specific
differences and they enable accidents to be by supplying them with a substrate.
Wherefore esse and subsistere represent eºnai and oÇsiòsqai, while, substare
represents Ãf°stasqai. For Greece
is not, as Marcus Tullius[51]
playfully says, short of words, but provides exact equivalents for essentia,
subsistentia, substantia and persona - oÇs°a for essentia,
oÇs°wsiv
for subsistentia,
Ãpçstasiv for substantia,
prìswpon for persona.
But the Greeks called individual substances Ãpost€seiv because they
underlie the rest and offer support and substrate to what are called accidents;
and we in our term call them substances as being substrate - Ãpost€seiv, and since
they also term the same substances prçswp€, we too may
call them persons. So oÇs°a is identical
with essence, oÇs°wsiv with
subsistence, Ãpçstasiv with
substance, prìswpon with person.
But the reason why the Greek does not use prìswpon of irrational
animals while we apply <pb n="91"/>the term
substance to them is this: This term was applied to things of higher value, in
order that what is more excellent might be distinguished, if not by a
definition of nature answering to the literal meaning of Ãf°stasqai = substare,
at any rate by the words Ãpçstasiv = substantia.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p69/">To begin with,
then, man is essence, i.e. oÇs°a, subsistence,
i.e. oÇs°wsiv, Ãpçstasiv, i.e. substance,
prìswpon, i.e. person:
oÇs°a or essentia
because he is, oÇs°wsiv or
subsistence because he is not accidental to any subject, Ãpçstasiv or substance
because be is subject to all the things which are not subsistences or oÇs°wseiv, while he is prìswpon or person
because he is a rational individual. Next, God is oÇs°a or essence,
for He is and is especially that from which proceeds the Being of all things.
To Him belong oÇs°wsiv, i.e. subsistence,
for He subsists in absolute independence, and Ãf°stasqai, for He is substantial Being. Whence we go on to say that
there is one oÇs°a or oÇs°wsiv, i.e. one
essence or subsistence of the Godhead, but three Ãpost€seiv or
substances. And indeed, following this use, men have spoken of One essence,
three substances and three persons of the Godhead. For did not the language of
the Church forbid us to say three substances in speaking of God,[52]
substance might seem a right term to apply to Him, not because He underlies all
other things like a substrate, but because, just as He excells above all
things, so He is the foundation and support of things, supplying them all with oÇsiòsqai or
subsistence.
IV.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p70/">You must
consider that all I have said so far has been for the purpose of marking the
difference <pb n="93"/>between Nature
and Person, that is, oÇs°a and Ãpçstasiv. The exact
terms which should be applied in each case must be left to the decision of
ecclesiastical usage. For the time being let that distinction between Nature
and Person hold which I have affirmed, viz. that Nature is the specific
property of any substance, and Person the individual substance of a rational
nature. Nestorius affirmed that in Christ Person was twofold, being led astray
by the false notion that Person may be applied to every nature. For on this
assumption, understanding that there were in Christ two natures, he declared
that there were likewise two persons. And although the definition which we have
already given is enough to prove Nestorius wrong, his error shall be further
declared by the following argument. If the Person of Christ is not single, and
if it is clear that there are in Him two natures, to wit, divine and human (and
no one will be so foolish as to fail to include either in the definition), it
follows that there must apparently be two persons; for Person, as has been
said, is the individual substance of a rational nature.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p71/">What kind of
union, then, between God and man has been effected? Is it as when two bodies
are laid the one against the other, so that they are only joined locally, and
no touch of the quality of the one reaches the other - the kind of union which
the Greeks term kat
par€qesin "by
juxtaposition"? But if humanity has been united to divinity in this way no
one thing has been formed out of the two, and hence Christ is nothing. The very
name of Christ, indeed, denotes by its singular number a unity. But if the two
persons continued and such a union of natures as we have above described took
place, there could be no unity formed from two things, for nothing could ever <pb
n="95"/>possibly be formed out of two persons. Therefore
Christ is, according to Nestorius, in no respect one, and therefore He is
absolutely nothing. For what is not one cannot exist either; because Being and
unity are convertible terms, and whatever is one is. Even things which are made
up of many items, such as a heap or chorus, are nevertheless a unity. Now we
openly and honestly confess that Christ is; therefore we say that Christ is a
Unity. And if this is so, then without controversy the Person of Christ is one
also. For if He had two Persons He could not be one; but to say that there are
two Christs is nothing else than the madness of a distraught brain. Could
Nestorius, I ask, dare to call the one man and the one God in Christ two
Christs? Or why does he call Him Christ who is God, if he is also going to call
Him Christ who is man, when his combination gives the two no common factor, no
coherence? Why does be wrongly use the same name for two utterly different
natures, when, if he is compelled to define Christ, he cannot, as he himself
admits, apply the substance of one definition to both his Christs? For if the
substance of God is different front that of man, and the one name of Christ
applies to both, and the combination of different substances is not believed to
have formed one Person, the name of Christ is equivocal[53]
and cannot be comprised in any definition. But in what Scriptures is the name
of Christ ever made double? Or what new thing has been wrought by the coming of
the Saviour? For the truth of the faith and the unwontedness of the miracle
alike remain, for Catholics, unshaken. For how great and unprecedented a thing
it is - unique and incapable of repetition in any other age - that the nature
of Him who is God alone should come together with human nature <pb
n="97"/>which was entirely different from God to form from
different natures by conjunction a single Person! But now, if we follow
Nestorius, what happens that is new? "Humanity and divinity," quoth
he, "keep their proper Persons." Well, when had not divinity and
humanity each its proper Person? And when, we answer, will this not be so? Or
wherein is the birth of Jesus more significant than that of any other child,
if, the two Persons remaining distinct the natures also were distinct? For
while the Persons remained so there could no more be a union of natures in
Christ than there could be in any other man with whose substance, be it never
so perfect, no divinity was ever united because of the subsistence of his
proper person. But for the sake of argument let him call Jesus, i.e. the
human person, Christ, because through that person God wrought certain wonders.
Agreed. But why should he call God Himself by the name of Christ? Why should he
not go on to call the very elements by that name? For through them in their
daily movements God works certain wonders. Is it because irrational substances
cannot possess a Person enabling them to receive the name of Christ? Is not the
operation of God seen plainly in men of holy life and notable piety? There will
surely be no reason not to call the saints also by that name, if Christ taking
humanity on Him is not one Person through conjunction. But perhaps he will say,
"I allow that such men are called Christs, but it is because they are in
the image of the true Christ." But if no one Person has been formed of the
union of God and man, we shall consider all of them just as true Christs as Him
who, we believe, was born of a Virgin. For no Person has been made one by the
union of God and man either in Him or in them who by the <pb
n="99"/>Spirit of God foretold the coming Christ, for
which cause they too were called Christs. So now it follows that so long as the
Persons remain, we cannot in any wise believe that humanity has been assumed by
divinity. For things which differ alike in persons and natures are certainly
separate, nay absolutely separate; man and oxen are not further separate than
are divinity and humanity in Christ, if the Persons have remained. Men indeed
and oxen are united in one animal nature, for by genus they have a common
substance and the same nature in the collection which forms the universal.[54]
But God and man will be at all points fundamentally different if we are to
believe that distinction of Persons continues under difference of nature. Then
the human race has not been saved, the birth of Christ has brought us no
salvation, the writings of all the prophets have but beguiled the people that
believed in them, contempt is poured upon the authority of the whole Old
Testament which promised to the world salvation by the birth of Christ. It is
plain that salvation has not been brought us, if there is the same difference
in Person that there is in Nature. No doubt He saved that humanity which we
believe He assumed; but no assumption can be conceived, if the separation
abides alike of Nature and of Person. Hence that human nature which could not be
assumed as long as the Person continued, will certainly and rightly appear
incapable of salvation by the birth of Christ. Wherefore man's nature has not
been saved by the birth of Christ - an impious conclusion.[55]
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p72/">But although
there are many weapons strong enough to wound and demolish the Nestorian view,
let us for the moment be content with this small selection from the store of
arguments available.
<pb n="101"/>V.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p73/">I must now
pass to Eutyches who, wandering from the path of primitive doctrine, has rushed
into the opposite error[56]
and asserts that so far from our having to believe in a twofold Person in
Christ, we must not even confess a double Nature; humanity, he maintains, was
so assumed that the union with Godhead involved the disappearance of the human
nature. His error springs from the same source as that of Nestorius. For just
as Nestorius deems there could not be a double Nature unless the Person were
doubled, and therefore, confessing the double Nature in Christ, has perforce
believed the Person to be double, so also Eutyches denied that the Nature was
not double unless the Person was double and since he did not confess a double
Person, he thought it a necessary consequence that the Nature should be
regarded as single. Thus Nestorius, rightly holding Christ's Nature to be
double, sacrilegiously professes the Persons to be two; whereas Eutyches,
rightly believing the Person to be single, impiously believes that the Nature
also is single. And being confuted by the plain evidence of facts, since it is
clear that the Nature of God is different from that of man, he declares his
belief to be: two Natures in Christ before the union and only one after the
union. Now this statement does not express clearly what he means. However, let
us scrutinize his extravagance. It is plain that this union took place either
at the moment of conception or at the moment of resurrection. But if it
happened at the moment of conception Eutyches seems to think that even before
conception He had human flesh, not taken from Mary but <pb
n="103"/>prepared in some other way, while the
Virgin Mary was brought in to give birth to flesh that was not taken from her;
that this flesh, which already existed, was apart and separate from the
substance of divinity, but that when He was born of the Virgin it was united to
God, so that the Nature seemed to be made
one. Or if this be not his opinion, since he says that there were two Natures
before the union and one after, supposing the union to be established by
conception, an alternative view may be that Christ indeed took a body from Mary
but that before He took it the Natures of Godhead and manhood were different:
but the Nature assumed became one with that of Godhead into which it passed.
But if he thinks that this union was effected not by conception but by
resurrection, we shall have to assume that this too happened in one of two
ways; either Christ was conceived and did not assume a body from Mary or He did
assume flesh from her, and there were (until indeed He rose) two Natures
which became one after the Resurrection. From these alternatives a dilemma
arises which we will examine as follows: Christ who was born of Mary either did
or did not take human flesh from her. If Eutyches does not admit that He took
it from her, then let him say what manhood He put on to come among us - that
which had fallen through sinful disobedience or another? If it was the manhood
of that man from whom all men descend, what manhood did divinity invest? For if
that flesh in which He was born came not of the seed of Abraham and of David
and finally of Mary, let Eutyches show from what man's flesh he descended,
since, after the first man, all human flesh is derived from human flesh. But if
he shall name any child of man beside <pb
n="105"/>Mary the Virgin as the cause of the conception of
the Saviour, he will both be confounded by his own error, and, himself a dupe,
will stand accused of stamping with falsehood the very Godhead for thus
transferring to others the promise of the sacred oracles made to Abraham and
David[57]
that of their seed salvation should arise for all the world, especially since
if human flesh was taken it could not be taken from any other but Him of whom
it was begotten. If, therefore, His human body was not taken from Mary but from
any other, yet that was engendered through Mary which had been corrupted by
disobedience, Eutyches is confuted by the argument already stated. But if
Christ did not put on that manhood which had endured death in punishment for
sin, it will result that of no man's seed could ever one have been born who
should be, like Him, without punishment for original sin. Therefore flesh like
His was taken from no man, whence it would appear to have been new-formed for
the purpose. But did this flesh then either so appear to human eyes that the
body was deemed human which was not really human, because it was not subject to
any primal penalty, or was some new true human flesh formed as a makeshift, not
subject to the penalty for original sin? If it was not a truly human body, the
Godhead is plainly convicted of falsehood for displaying to men a body which
was not real and thus deceived those who thought it real. But if flesh had been
formed new and real and not taken from man, to what purpose was the tremendous
tragedy of the conception? Where the value of His long Passion? I cannot but
consider foolish even a human action <pb
n="107"/>that is useless. And to what useful end shall we
say this great humiliation of Divinity was wrought if ruined man has not been
saved by the conception and the Passion of Christ - for they denied that he was
taken into Godhead? Once more then, just as the error of Eutyches took its rise
from the same source as that of Nestorius, so it hastens to the same goal
inasmuch as according to Eutyches also the human race has not been saved,[58]
since man who was sick and needed health and salvation was not taken into
Godhead. Yet this is the conclusion he seems to have drawn, if he erred so deeply
as to believe that Christ's body was not taken really from man but from a
source outside him and prepared for the purpose in heaven, for He is believed
to have ascended with it up into heaven. Which is the meaning of the text: none
hath ascended into heaven save Him who came down from heaven.
VI.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p74/">I think enough
has been said on the supposition that we should believe that the body which
Christ received was not taken from Mary. But if it was taken from Mary and the
human and divine natures did not continue, each in its perfection, this may
have happened in one of three ways. Either Godhead was translated into manhood,
or manhood into Godhead, or both were so modified and mingled that neither
substance kept its proper form. But if Godhead was translated into manhood,
that has happened which piety forbids us to believe, viz. while the manhood
continued in unchangeable substance Godhead was changed, and that which was by
nature passible and mutable remained immutable, while that which we believe to
be by nature immutable and impassible <pb
n="109"/>was changed into a mutable thing. This cannot
happen on any show of reasoning. But perchance the human nature may seem to be
changed into Godhead. Yet how can this be if Godhead in the conception of
Christ received both human soul and body? Things cannot be promiscuously
changed and interchanged. For since some substances are corporeal and others
incorporeal, neither can a corporeal substance be changed into all incorporeal,
nor call an incorporeal be changed into that which is body, nor yet
incorporeals interchange their proper forms; for only those things can be
interchanged and transformed which possess the common substrate of the same
matter, nor can all of these so behave, but only those which can act upon and
be acted on by each other. Now this is proved as follows: bronze can no more be
converted into stone than it can be into grass, and generally no body call be
transformed into any other body unless the things which pass into each other
have a common matter and can act upon and be acted on by each other, as when
wine and water are mingled both are of such a nature as to allow reciprocal
action and influence. For the quality of water can be influenced in some degree
by that of wine, similarly the quality of wine can be influenced by that of
water. And therefore if there be a great deal of water but very little wine,
they are not said to be mingled, but the one is ruined by the quality of the
other. For if you pour wine into the sea the wine is not mingled with the sea
but is lost in the sea, simply because the quality of the water owing to its
bulk has been in no way affected by the quality of the wine, but rather by its
own bulk has changed the quality of the wine into water. But if the natures
which are capable of reciprocal action and influence are in moderate <pb
n="111"/>proportion and equal or only slightly unequal,
they are really mingled and tempered by the qualities which are in moderate
relation to each other. This indeed takes place in bodies but not in all
bodies, but only in those, as has been said, which are capable of reciprocal
action and influence and have the same matter subject to their qualities. For
all bodies which subsist in conditions of birth and decay seem to possess a
common matter, but all bodies are not capable of reciprocal action and
influence. But corporeals cannot in any way be changed into incorporeals
because they do not share in any common underlying matter which can be changed
into this or that thing by taking on its qualities. For the nature of no
incorporeal substance rests upon a material basis; but there is no body that
has not matter as a substrate. Since this is so, and since not even those
things which naturally have a common matter can pass over into each other
unless they have the power of acting on each other and being acted upon by each
other, far more will those things not suffer interchange which not only have no
common matter but are different in substance, since one of them, being body,
rests on a basis of matter, while the other, being incorporeal, cannot possibly
stand in need of a material substrate.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p75/">It is
therefore impossible for a body to be changed into an incorporeal species, nor
will it ever be possible for incorporeals to be changed into each other by any
process of mingling. For things which have no common matter cannot be changed
and converted one into another. But incorporeal things have no matter; they can
never, therefore, be changed about among themselves. But the soul and God are
rightly believed to be incorporeal substances; therefore the human soul has not
been converted into the Godhead <pb
n="113"/>by which it was assumed. But if neither body nor
soul can be turned into Godhead, it could not possibly happen that manhood
should be transformed into God. But it is much less credible that the two
should be confounded together since neither can incorporality pass over to
body, nor again, contrariwise, can body pass over into incorporality when these
have no common matter underlying them which can be converted by the qualities
of one of two substances.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p76/">But the
Eutychians say that Christ consists indeed of two natures, but not in two
natures, meaning, no doubt, thereby, that a thing which consists of two
elements can so far become one, that the elements of which it is said to be
made up disappear; just as, for example, when honey is mixed with water neither
remains, but the one thing being spoilt by conjunction with the other produces
a certain third thing, so that third thing which is produced by the combination
of honey and water is said to consist of both, but not in both. For it can
never consist in both so long as the nature of both does not continue. For it
can consist of both even though each element of which it is compounded has been
spoiled by the quality of the other; but it can never consist in both natures
of this kind since the elements which have been transmuted into each other do
not continue, and both the elements in which it seems to consist cease to be,
since it consists of two things translated into each other by change of
qualities.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p77/">But Catholics
in accordance with reason confess both, for they say that Christ consists both
of and in two natures. How this can be affirmed I will explain a little later.
One thing is now clear; the opinion of Eutyches has been confuted on the ground
that, <pb n="115"/>although there
are three ways by which the one nature can subsist of the two, viz. either the
translation of divinity into humanity or of humanity into divinity or the
compounding of both together, the foregoing train of reasoning proves that no
one of the three ways is a possibility.
VII.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p78/">It remains for
us to show how in accordance with the affirmation of Catholic belief Christ
consists at once in and of both natures.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p79/">The statement
that a thing consists of two natures bears two meanings; one, when we say that
anything is a union of two natures, as e.g. honey and water, where the
union is such that in the combination however the elements be confounded,
whether by one nature changing into the other, or by both mingling with each
other, the two entirely disappear. This is the way in which according to
Eutyches Christ consists of two natures.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p80/">The other way
in which a thing can consist of two natures is when it is so combined of two
that the elements of which it is said to be combined continue without changing
into each other, as when we say that a crown is composed of gold and gems. Here
neither is the gold converted into gems nor is the gem turned into gold, but
both continue without surrendering their proper form.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p81/">Things then
like this, composed of various elements, we say consist also in the elements of
which they are composed. For in this case we can say that a crown is composed
of gems and gold, for gems and gold are that in which the crown consists. For
in the former <pb n="117"/>mode of
composition honey and water is not that in which the resulting union of both
consists.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p82/">Since then the
Catholic Faith confesses that both natures continue in Christ and that they
both remain perfect, neither being transformed into the other, it says with
right that Christ consists both in and of the two natures; in the two
because both continue, of the two because the One Person of Christ is
formed by the union of the two continuing natures.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p83/">But the
Catholic Faith does not hold the union of Christ out of two natures according
to that sense which Eutyches puts upon it. For the interpretation of the
conjunction out of two natures which he adopts forbids him to confess
consistence in two or the continuance of the two either; but the Catholic
adopts an interpretation of the consistence out of two which comes near to that
of Eutyches, yet keeps the interpretation which confesses consistence in two.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p84/">"To
consist of two natures" is therefore an equivocal or rather a doubtful
term of double meaning denoting different things; according to one of its
interpretations the substances out of which the union is said to have been
composed do not continue, according to another the union effected of the two is
such that both natures continue.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p85/">When once this
knot of doubt or ambiguity has been untied, nothing further can be advanced to
shake the true and solid content of the Catholic Faith, which is that the same
Christ is perfect man and God, and that He who is perfect man and God is One God
and Son of Man, that, however, quaternity is not added to the Trinity by the
addition of human nature to perfect Godhead, but that one and the same Person
completes the number of the Trinity, <pb
n="119"/>so that, although it was the manhood which suffered,
yet God can be said to have suffered, not by manhood becoming Godhead but by
manhood being assumed by Godhead. Further, He who is man is called Son of God
not in virtue of divine but of human substance, which latter none the less was
conjoined to Godhead in a unity of natures. And although thought is able to
distinguish and combine the manhood and the Godhead, yet one and the same is
perfect man and God, God because He was begotten of the substance of the
Father, but man because He was engendered of the Virgin Mary. And further He
who is man is God in that manhood was assumed by God, and He who is God is man
in that God was clothed with manhood. And although in the same Person the
Godhead which took manhood is different from the manhood which It took, yet the
same is God and man. For if you think of man, the same is man and God, being
man by nature, God by assumption. But if you think of God, the same is God and
man, being God by nature, man by assumption. And in Him nature becomes double
and substance double because he is God-man, and One Person since the same is
man and God. This is the middle way between two heresies, just as virtues also
hold a middle place.[59]
For every virtue has a place of honour midway between extremes. For if it
stands beyond or below where it should it ceases to be virtue. And so virtue
holds a middle place.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p86/">Wherefore if
the following four assertions can be said to be neither beyond or below reason,
viz. that in Christ are either two Natures and two Persons as Nestorius says,
or one Person and one Nature as Eutyches says, or two Natures but one Person as
<pb n="121"/>the Catholic
Faith believes, or one Nature and two Persons, and inasmuch as we have refuted
the doctrine of two Natures and two Persons in our argument against Nestorius
and incidentally have shown that the one Person and one Nature suggested by
Eutyches is impossible - since there has never been anyone so mad as to believe
that His Nature was single but His Person double - it remains that the article
of belief must be true which the Catholic Faith affirms, viz. that the Nature
is double, but the Person one. But as I have just now remarked that Eutyches
confesses two Natures in Christ before the union, but only one after the union,
and since I proved that under this error lurked two opposite opinions, one,
that the union was brought about by conception although the human body was
certainly not taken from Mary; the other that the body taken from Mary formed
part of the union by means of the Resurrection, I have, it seems to me, argued
the twofold aspect of the case as completely as it deserves. What we have now
to inquire is how it came to pass that two Natures were combined into one
Substance.
VII.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p87/">Nevertheless
there remains yet another question which can be advanced by those who do not
believe that the human body was taken from Mary, but that the body was in some
other way set apart and prepared, which in the moment of union appeared to be
conceived and born of Mary's womb. For they say: if the body was taken from man
while every man was, from the time of the first disobedience, not only enslaved
by sin and death but also involved <pb
n="123"/>in sinful desires, and if his punishment for sin
was that, although he was held in chains of death, yet at the same time he
should be guilty because of the will to sin, why was there in Christ neither
sin nor any will to sin? And certainly such a question is attended by a
difficulty which deserves attention. For if the body of Christ was assumed from
human flesh, it is open to doubt of what kind we must consider that flesh to be
which was assumed.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p88/">In truth, the
manhood which He assumed He likewise saved; but if He assumed such manhood as
Adam had before sin, He appears to have assumed a human nature complete indeed,
but one which was in no need of healing. But how can it be that He assumed such
manhood as Adam had when there could be in Adam both the will and the desire to
sin, whence it came to pass that even after the divine commands had been
broken, he was still held captive to sins of disobedience? But we believe that
in Christ there was never any will to sin, because especially if He assumed
such a human body as Adam had before his sin, He could not be mortal, since
Adam, had he not sinned, would in no wise have suffered death. Since, then,
Christ never sinned, it must be asked why, He suffered death if He assumed the
body of Adam before sin. But if He accepted human conditions such as Adam's
were after sin, it seems that Christ could not avoid being subject to sin,
perplexed by passions, and, since the canons of judgment were obscured,
prevented from distinguishing with unclouded reason between good and evil,
since Adam by his disobedience incurred all these penalties of crime.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p89/">To whom we
must reply[60] that there
are three states of man to envisage: one, that of Adam before his <pb
n="125"/>sin, in which, though free from death and still
unstained by any sin, he could yet have within him the will to sin; the second,
that in which he might have suffered change had he chosen to abide steadfastly
in the commands of God, for then it could have been further granted him not only
not to sin or wish to sin, but to be incapable of sinning or of the will to
transgress. The third state is the state after sin, into which man needs must
be pursued by death and sin and the sinful will. Now the points of extreme
divergence between these states are the following: one state would have been
for Adam a reward if he had chosen to abide in God's laws; the other was his
punishment because he would not abide in them; for in the former state there
would have been no death nor sin nor sinful will, in the latter there was both
death and sin and every desire to transgress, and a general tendency to ruin
and a condition helpless to render possible a rise after the Fall. But that
middle state from which actual death or sin was absent, but the power for both
remained, is situate between the other two.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p90/">Each one,
then, of these three states somehow supplied to Christ a cause for his
corporeal nature; thus His assumption of a mortal body in order to drive death
far from the human race belongs properly to that state which was laid on man by
way of punishment after Adam's sin, whereas the fact that there was in Christ
no sinful will is borrowed from that state which might have been if Adam had
not surrendered his will to the frauds of the tempter. There remains, then, the
third or middle state, to wit, that which was before death had come and while
the will to sin might yet be present. In this state, therefore, Adam was able
to eat and drink, digest <pb n="127"/>the food be
took, fall asleep, and perform all the other functions which always belonged to
him as man, though they were allowed and brought with them no pain of death.
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p91/">There is no
doubt that Christ was in all points thus conditioned; for He ate and drank and
discharged the bodily function of the human body. For we must not think that
Adam was at the first subject to such need that unless he ate he could not have
lived, but rather that, if he had taken food from every tree, he could have
lived for ever, and by that food have escaped death; and so by the fruits of
the Garden he satisfied a need.[61]
And all know that in Christ the same need dwelt, but lying in His own power and
not laid upon Him. And this need was in Him before the Resurrection, but after
the Resurrection He became such that His human body was changed as Adam's might
have been but for the bands of disobedience. Which state, moreover, our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself taught us to desire in our prayers, asking that His Will
be done as in heaven so on earth, and that His Kingdom come, and that He may
deliver us from evil. For all these things are sought in prayer by those
members of the human family who rightly believe and who are destined to undergo
that most blessed change of all.[62]
<sync
type="boethius-tracts" value="p92/">So much have I
written to you concerning what I believe should be believed. In which matter if
I have said aught amiss, I am not so well pleased with myself as to try to
press my effusions in the face of wiser judgment. For if there is no good thing
in us there is nothing we should fancy in our opinions. But if all things are
good as coming from Him who alone is good, that rather must be thought good
which the Unchangeable Good and Cause of all Good indites.
</div2>
[1] Anecdoton Holderi, Leipzig, 1877.
[2] Scripsit librum de sancta trinitate et capita quaedam dogmatica et librum contra Nestorium. On the question of the genuineness of Tr. IV. De fide catholica see note ad loc.
[3] Cp. L. Baur, Gundissalinus: de divisione, Münster, 1905.
[4] Cf. the discussion of human ratio and divine intellegentia in Cons. v. pr. 4 and 5.
[5] e.g. Aug. De Trin.
[6] The terms differentia, numerus, species, are used expertly, as would be expected of the author of the In Isag. Porph. Commenta. See S. Brandt's edition of that work (in the Vienna Corpus, 1906), s.v. differentia, etc.
[7] This method of mental abstraction is employed more elaborately in Tr. iii. (vide infra, p. 44) and in Cons. v. pr. 4, where the notion of divine foreknowledge is abstracted in imagination.
[8] By Cicero (Tusc. v. 7. 19).
[9] Cf. the similar division of philosophy in Isag. Porph. ed. Brandt, pp. 7ff.
[10] Sb. though they may be separated in thought.
[11] ©Apoiov Älj=tè ˆmorfon, tè eid™v of Arisotle. Cf. o<unclear>…</unclear>gr Ålj eµdov (Ó mšn ‡poiov, tè dš poiétjv tiv) oÈte x Èl<unclear>…</unclear> (Alexander Aphrod. De Anima, 17. 17); e± dš toÂto, ‰po<unclear>…</unclear>dš Ó Ålj, …poion …n e¹j sòma (id. De anima libri mantiss<unclear>…</unclear>124. 7).
[12] This is Realism. Cf. 11 "Sed si rerum ueritatem atque integritatem perpendas, non est dubium quin uere si<unclear>…</unclear> Nam cum res onmes quae uere sunt sine his quinque (i.e. genus species differentia propria accidentia) esse n<unclear>…</unclear> possint, has ipsas quinque res uere intellectas esse n<unclear>…</unclear> dubites" Isag. in Porph. ed. pr. i. (M. P.L. 1xiv. col. <unclear>…</unclear> Brandt, pp. 26 ff.). The two passages show that Boethius is definitely committed to the Realistic position, although in his Comment. in. Porphyr. a se translatum he holds the scales between Plato and Aristotle, "quorum diiudicare sententias <unclear>…</unclear>ptum esse non duxi" (ep. Hauréau, Hist. de la philosophie scolastique, i. 120). As a fact in the Comment. in Porph. he merely postpones the question, which in the De Trin. he settles. Boethius was ridiculed in the Middle Ages for his caution.
[13] e.g. if I say "one, one, one," I enounce three unities.
[14] The same words are used to illustrate the same matter in the Comment. in Arist. per± šrmjne°av, 2nd ed. (Meise<unclear>…</unclear> 56. 12.
[15] Gilbert de la Porrée in his commentary on the De Trin. makes Boethius’s meaning clear. “Quod igitur in illo substantiam nominamus, non est subiectionis ratione quod dicitur, sed ultra omnem quae accidentibus est subiecta substantiam est essentia, absque omnibus quae possunt accidere solitaria omnino” (Migne, P.L. lxiv. 1283). Cf. Aug. De Trin. vii. 10.
[16] i.e. according to their substances.
[17] The doctrine is Augustine's, cf. De Ciu. Dei, xi. 6, xii. 16; but Boethius's use of sempiternitas, as well as his word‑building, seem to be peculiar to himself. Claudianus Mamertus, speaking of applying the categories to God, uses sempiternitas as Boethius uses aeternitas. Cf. De Stat<unclear>…</unclear> Animae i. 19. Apuleius seems to use both terms interchangeably, e.g. Asclep. 29‑31. On Boethius's distinction between time and eternity see Cons. v. pr. 6, and Rand, Der dem B. zugeschr. Trakt. de. fide, pp. 425 ff, and Brandt in Theol. Littzg., 1902, p. 147.
[18] Dominus and seruus are similarly used as illustration, In Cat. (Migne, P.L. lxiv. 217).
[19] i.e. which is external to the master.
[20] i.e. which is external to the whitened thing.
[21] Cf. Cons. v. pr. 4 and 5, especially in pr. 5 the passage "quare in illius summae intelligentiae acumen si possumus erigamur."
[22] i.e. personaliter (Ioh. Scotus ad loc.).
[23] i.e. sed personaliter (Ioh. Scotus ad loc.).
[24] Vide supra, Introduction, p. xii.
[25] Similarly Porphyry divided the works of Plotinus into six Enneades or groups of nine.
[26] Cf. discussion of the nature of good in Cons. iii. m. 10 and pr. 11 (infra pp. 274 ff.).
[27] On this mathematical method of exposition cf. Cons. iii. pr. 10 (infra p. 270).
[28] Esse = Aristotle's tè eºnai; id quod est = tè t°.
[29] Consistere = ÃpostÒnai.
[30] Id quod est esse = tçde ti.
[31] Cf. the similar reductio ad absurdum in Tr. 5 (infra, p. 98) and in Cons. v. pr. 3 (infra, p. 374).
[32] Vide supra, p. 6, n. b.
[33] The conclusions adverse to the genuineness of this tractate, reached in the dissertation Der dem Boethius zugeschriebene Traktat de Fide Catholica (Jahrbücher fur kl. Phil. xxvi. (1901) Supplementband) by one of the editors, now seem to both unsound. The writer of that dissertation intends to return to the subject elsewhere. This fourth tractate, though lacking, in the best mss., either an ascription to Boethius or a title, is firmly imbedded in two distinct recensions of Boethiuis’s theological works. There is no reason to disturb it. Indeed the capita dogmatica mentioned by Cassiodorus can hardly refer to any of the tractates except the fourth.
[34] For instrumentum = Holy Scripture cf. Tertull. Apol. 18, 19, adv. Hermog. 19, etc.; for instrumentum = any historical writing cf. Tert. De Spect. 5.
[35] Boethius is no heretic. By the sixth century uel had lost its strong separative force. Cp. “Noe cum sua uel trium natorum coniugibus,” Greg. Tur. H.P. i. 20. Other examples in Bonnet, La Latinité de Grég. de Tours, p. 313, and in Brandt’s edition of the Isag. Index, s.v. uel.
[36] Vide Cons. i. pr. 3 (infra, p. 140), and cf. Dante, De Mon. iii. 16. 117.
[37] Ut quia. A very rare use. Cf. Baehrens, Beiträge zur lat. Syntaxis (Philologus, Supplementband xii. 1912). It perhaps = Aristotle's oºon špe°. Cf. McKinlay, Harvard Studies in Cl. Philol. xviii. 153.
[38] In integro = prorsus; cf. Brandt, op. cit. Index, s.v. integer.
[39] The doctrine is orthodox, but note that Boethius does not say ex nihilo creauit. Vide infra, p. 366 II. 24ff.
[40] Vide infra, Cons. iv. pr. 6, p. 342 I. 54.
[41] e.g. Ishamel also kat t€rka geg™nnjtai, Gal. iv. 23.
[42] Cf. "populus dei mirabiliter crescens…quia…erant suspecta…laboribus premebatur. Aug. De Ciu. Dei, 18. 7. For other coincidences see Rand, op. cit. pp. 423ff.
[43] Evidently the letter addressed to Pope Symmachus by the Oriental bishops (vide Mansi, Concil. viii. 221ff.), in which they inquire concerning the safe middle way between the heresies of Eutyches and Nestorius. The date of the bishops' letter, and consequently, in all probability, of Boethius's tractate was 512.
[44] Obviously his father-in-law Symmachus. Vide p. 76, eius cuius soleo iudicio, etc.
[45] Cf. Hor. Serm. i. 3. 82; ii. 3. 40.
[46] Cf. infra, de Cons. i. pr. 4 (p. 142) oportet uulnus delegas.
[47] Vide supra, p. 75, and De Trin. p. 3.
[48] For a similar example of the method of diuisio cf. Cic. De Off. ii. 3. 11. Cf. also Isag. Porph. edit. prima, i. 10. (ed. Brandt, p. 29).
[49] Boethius's definition of persona was adopted by St. Thomas (S. ia iae. 29. 1), was regarded as classical by the Schoolmen, and has the approval of modern theologians. Cf. Dorner, Doctrine of Christ, iii. p. 311.
[50] Implying a short penultimate.
[51] Tusc. ii. 15. 35.
[52] For a similar submission of his own opinion to the usage of the Church cf. the end of Tr. i. and of Tr. ii.
[53] Cf. the discussion of aequiuoca=èmðnumov in Isag. Porph. Vide Brandt's Index.
[54] Vniuersalitas=tèo kaqdlou.
[55] For a similar reductio ad absurdum ending in quod nefas est see Tr. iii. (supra, p. 44) and Cons. v. 3 (infra, p. 374).
[56] The ecclesiastical via media, with the relegation of opposing theories to the extremes, which meet in a common fount of falsity, owes something to Aristotle and to our author. Vide infra, p. 118.
[57] The use of this kind of argument by Boethius allays any suspicion as to the genuineness of Tr. iv. which might be caused by the use of allegorical interpretation therein. Note also that in the Consolatio the framework is allegory, which is also freely applied in the details.
[58] Another reductio ad absurdum or ad impistotem, cf. supra, p. 98, note b.
[59] Vide supra, p. 100 note.
[60] This respondendum has the true Thomist ring.
[61] Adam did not need to eat in order to live, but if he had not eaten he would have suffered hunger, etc.
[62] The whole of this passage might be set in Tr. iv. without altering the tone.