Boethius' Consolation in a Classical Context

The Consolation of Philosophy, written around 523 CE by Boethius when he was in prison and awaiting execution, became a seminal document of the Middle Ages, influencing literature from the sixth century to the present day. Clearly, one source of this work's potency is the fact that it provides a synthesis of Greek and Roman knowledge. This culmination of classical knowledge, moreover, is embedded in a skillfully wrought artistic form, which demonstrates a zenith in classical literature. Commentators have battled for centuries over the spiritual underpinnings of the text, and although many scholars have appreciated the infusion of Platonic metaphysics within The Consolation, they have given little consideration to Pythagoras as Boethius' inspiration. Boethius, who considered himself the "schoolmaster of the west", wanted to revive Pythagoreanism to avert the loss of spirituality through politics. Boethius brings in spirituality through the lattice-work of numbers, which he connected to the lattice-work of the Harmony of the Spheres, which, it was believed, holds the whole universe together. Boethius feared that the church, in promoting faith and dismissing reason, was a detriment to mankind. This study argues that The Consolation of Philosophy, which has been acknowledged as an important philosophical treatise and which has been shown to incorporate and preserve the best of classical knowledge, is a strong statement about knowledge and the nature of knowledge, which despite the Church's attempt to appropriate it, reflects ancient wisdom of Greek philosophy, especially Pythagorean, in both structure and form.