BOETHIUS.* THIS is another specimen of the excellent work which

the Cambridge Essay Prizes either originate or encourage. Mr. Stewart modestly excuses the publication of his volume by pleading the obligation laid upon him by the conditions of the founder's will. No such plea, we can assure him, was neces-

• Boethius an &say. By Hugh Brauer Stewart. Edinbargh and London : Mackwood and Sons. 1991.

sary. The intrinsic interest of the subject, and the learning and ability with which it is treated in these pages, afford a sufficient justification.

The Hulsean Prize, which was won by the essay, expanded and developed into the book now before us, has, we believe, a theological purpose, and is intended to further the study of Church history or Christian apologetics. It became necessary, therefore, for Mr. Stewart to discuss the question of his author's religious attitude. This had remained virtually undisputed "for more than a thousand years, from the eighth to the eighteenth century." He was even regarded as a

martyr for the Catholic faith, sealing with his blood, it was suggested, his testimony for Athanasian doctrine as against the Arianism of the Visigothic King Theodoric. There were, it is true, writers who criticised the spirit of the De Consolatione,

as savouring too much of Platonism, and who found some- thing like a scandal in the marked absence of all Christian topics from a work composed under circumstances which should have made them especially apropriate. "The whole

work," says Mr. Yule, who writes on Boethius in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, "with the exception of words and phrases (e.g., adunatio, angelica virtute, comternus, purgatoria dementia), which imply nothing more than an acquaintance with Christian writers, might have been written, as far as theology is concerned, by Cicero himself." But then, a certain halo of Christian belief was thrown over the Consolatio by the theological tractates, asserting orthodox doctrine as

against heretical teachers, especially Arius, Nestorius, and Eutyches, which were unhesitatingly ascribed to Boethius.

It was not till the beginning of the eighteenth century that the Boethian authorship of the tractates was doubted. It was then that Gottfried Arnold asserted their spuriousness. He was followed by other critics who denied that Boethius was in any sense a Christian. Mr. Stewart gives an interesting

summary of the controversy. He rejects the ingenious theory that the Christian part of the Conso/etio has been

lost, the part that survives being devoted to showing what philosophy could do, while the later books would have ex- hibited a more excellent way. But he is quite certain that Boethius was at least outwardly a Christian ; less he could not have been to have held office under a King who, heretical as he was, undoubtedly demanded from his ministers a profession of Christian belief. And he gives what seems to us an

excellent account of the undoubtedly indifferent tone which "characterises the Consolatio "The gloom and silence of the dungeon, the terrible conscious- ness of desertion by his friends, the enforced idleness, would have driven any ordinary man mad, much more one of Boethius's vast mental activity and insatiate appetite for work. He tries verse- writing, but finds that it does him more harm than good, leaving him exhausted and unstrung ; his present excited mood is not the one for theology ; a philosophical dialogue with occasional inter- ludes of song shall be his diversion, and help him to bear the ghastly companionship of his own thoughts. Whenever his bitterness overmasters him and he is giving way to the sense of his wrongs, he can call in a physician who will enable him to pause and look dispassionately on the uncertainty of human wishes and his miserable state ; who will brace his faculties, and perhaps recover for him something of his ancient skill in reasoning. This consummation is certainly reached towards the end of the dialogue, where the pupil proves himself by no means unequal to the severe catechetical discipline to which his mistress subjects him. But the passages where the writer lets his heart speak and gives his brain a rest, of which the fine peroration to the fifth book is a notable example, show that Boethius, had he chosen, might have touched a chord within us which no amount of logical thrust and parry can set vibrating."

Later on, Mr. Stewart suggests that the philosopher, disap- pointed at the course which events had taken, turned from

the fruitless struggle, as it seemed to him, between orthodoxy and heresy, to seek the guidance of an earlier thinker and teacher in philosophy. The question is not a little compli- cated by the peculiar position of Theodoric, an Arian monarch, who yet for political reasons supported the spiritual claims of

the Roman See. On the whole, Mr. Stewart's opinion inclines to the genuineness of the tractates, both from internal evi- dence and from the external proof afforded by the curious fragment which is called the Anecclokm, Holderi. This pur-

ports to be part of a work by Cassiodorns, and distinctly attributes the theological works to Boethius.

We could wish that Mr. Stewart had included in his argu- ment the closely parallel case of Ausonius, of whom Gibbon declares with emphasis that he remained a pagan to the end of his days, while Bayle asserts with equal assurance that he was a Christian. Here, too, we have theological poems the genuineness of which no one has questioned, on the one side, and on the other, no little evidence of a practical pagan spirit. This is not so much shown by the gross- ness of some of the poems—the Italian literature of the Renaissance often united a nominal Christianity with an impurity which matched the worst effusions of paganism —as by the non-Christian character of the verse which comes most directly from his heart. His memorial verses on kins- folk, colleagues, and friends, are instinct with genuine feeling, but they are not lightened by a single gleam of Christian feeling. Yet these would be occasions where we should most expect to find some expression of it. If Ausonius, a Christian when he is at the Court of a Christian Emperor, relapses into paganism when he is in his study, it is not surprising to find Boethius undergoing something of the same change when he passes from the presence of Theodoric to his prison cell. Dis- putants about the belief of the two writers remind one of the old story of the shield with its gold and silver sides. Both showed a golden aide to their Royal employers, a silver side to their friends and family.

Mr. Stewart gives an excellent analysis of the Consolatio, and discusses its philosophy with much acumen and force. This is perhaps the most valuable part of his book. Another interesting section is the description of our own King Alfred's translation, or, as it might almost be called, adaptation, of the Consolatio. The good King set about the work because he believed that it would tend to the edification of his subjects ; and with this object in view, he did not scruple to Christianise the too philosophical original. Another great Englishman who translated Boethius's work was Chaucer ; while he makes a pointed reference to it in his Troylu,s and Chryseyde. Mr. Stewart feels himself compelled to formulate an indictment against the great poet's scholarship ; and, indeed, some of the errors which he quotes are very curious. Pacinorum, "of wicked felons ;" fluctus avidurn mare, "the sea so greedy to flowen ;" quasi vero eredamus, "right as we trowen," are instances. Mr. Stewart differs, we see, from Professor Morley, holding the translation to be a work of Chaucer's later years. Perhaps he had forgotten his Latin ; that is not an uncommon incident of later life.