Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/28

xx Those of his contemporaries whose writings have reached us, such as Priscian, Cassiodorus, and Ennodius, regarded Boethius as decidedly the most able and learned man of his day. He was deeply versed in the works of the Greek philosophers, some of which he turned into Latin and annotated for the use of his countrymen. It is certain that for centuries after his death the mediaeval schoolmen knew Aristotle almost solely through the translations and commentaries of Boethius. He had also a remarkable talent for mathematical science, and practical engineering, and his work on music remained till last century the chief text-book on the subject at Oxford and Cambridge. After his death Boethius came to be regarded by the Church of Rome as a martyr for the orthodox faith, and was canonized as St. Severinus. Many works on doctrinal theology have been attributed to him, but modem scholars are not agreed as to his authorship of them, nor even as to his having been a Christian at all. His most important and authentic work, the De Consolatione Philosaphiae contains nothing from which the Christianity of its author could be positively inferred, for it bases its philosophy entirely on the old systems of Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Neo-Platonists.

Such was the man who wrote the famous book which King Alfred set himself to make known to his people. That it was a task after the English monarch's own heart we may well believe. The splendid career and the wretched end of the last great Roman must have deeply