The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy | Page 3

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.[5] 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 requirements 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.[6]
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 Gorboduc, and who, we learn from I.T.'s preface, meditated a 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 Untersuchungen, 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.
Finally, thanks are due to Mr. Dolson for the suggestion in the footnote on the preceding page, and also to Professor Lane Cooper of Cornell University for many valuable corrections as this reprint was passing through the Press.
H.F.S. E.K.R.
October, 1926.
[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. H. de Wulf, Histoire de la Philosophie médiévale (Louvain and Paris 1915), p. 332.
[4] See below, De Trin. vi. ad fin.
[5] Cp. L. Baur, Gundissalinus: de divisione, Münster, 1905.
[6] Mr. G. Bayley Dolson suggests with greater probability that I.T. was John Thorpe (fl. 1570-1610), architect to Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset. Cf. American Journal of Philology, vol. xlii. (1921), p. 266.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Editio Princeps:
Collected Works (except De fide catholica). Joh. et Greg. de Gregoriis. Venice, 1491-92.
De consolatione philosophiae. Coburger. Nürnberg, 1473.
De fide catholica. Ed. Ren. Vallinus. Leyden, 1656.
Latest Critical Edition:
De consolatione philosophiae and Theological Tractates. R. Peiper. Teubner, 1871.
Translations:
De consolatione philosophiae.
Alfred the Great. Ed. W.J. Sedgefield. Oxford, 1899 and 1900.
Chaucer. Ed. W.W. Skeat in Chaucer's Complete Works. Vol. ii. Oxford, 1894.
H.R. James. The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. London, 1897; reprinted 1906.
Judicis de Mirandol. La Consolation philosophique de Bo?ce. Paris, 1861.
Illustrative Works:
A. Engelbrecht. Die Consolatio Phil. der B. Sitzungsberichte der K?n. Akad. Vienna, 1902.
Bardenhewer, Patrologie (Boethius und Cassiodor, pp. 584 sqq.). Freiburg im Breslau, 1894.
Hauréan. Hist. de la philosophie scolastique. Vol. i. Paris, 1872.
Hildebrand. Boethius und seine Stellung zum Christentum. Regensburg, 1885.
Hodgkin. Italy and her Invaders. Vols. iii. and iv. Oxford, 1885.
Ch. Jourdain. (1) _De l'origine des traditions sur le christianisme de Bo?ce; (2) Des commentaires inédits sur La Consolation de la philosophie_. (Excursions historiques et philosophiques à travers le moyen àge.) Paris, 1888.
Fritz Klingner. De Boethii consolatione, Philol. Unters. xxvii. Berlin, 1921.
F.D. Maurice. Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy. Vol. i. London, 1872.
F. Nitzsch. Das System des B. Berlin, 1860.
E.K. Rand. Der dem B. zugeschriebene Traktat de Fide catholica (Jahrbuch für kl. Phil. xxvi.). 1901.
Semeria. Il Cristianesimo di Sev. Boezio rivendicato, Rome, 1900.
M. Schanz. Gesch. der r?m. Litteratur. Teil iv. Boethius. Berlin, 1921.
H.F. Stewart. Boethius: an Essay. Edinburgh, 1891.
Usener. Anecdoton Holderi. Leipsic, 1877.

BOETHIUS
THE THEOLOGICAL TRACTATES AND THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY

ANICII MANLII SEVERINI BOETHII V.C. ET INL. EXCONS. ORD. PATRICII
INCIPIT LIBER QVOMODO TRINITAS VNVS DEVS AC NON TRES DII
AD Q. AVRELIVM MEMMIVM SYMMACHVM V.C. ET INL. EXCONS. ORD. ATQVE PATRICIVM SOCERVM
Investigatam diutissime quaestionem, quantum nostrae mentis igniculum lux diuina dignata est, formatam rationibus litterisque mandatam offerendam uobis communicandamque curaui