Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/72

 54 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. He himself, the man Boethius, was mostly the product of antecedent pagan thought. But he was also a man of rhetorically ardent feeling and literary gifts ; and when in final sorrow he sought the solace of his life- long studies, his thoughts and character fused them- selves into a veritable literary creation. In the manner of that decadent time, the work summarized much ethical pagan thought, and presented it with surface consistency. But the book was more than a summary. Having a unity of feeling inspired by the situation, it offers its contents and its writer in a most appealing way, and speaks to the reader as the author's self. The Consolation of Philosophy is not a Christian work.^ But its author undoubtedly conformed to Christian worship, and was not unlearned in Christian teachings.^ He presents Pagan ethics from the stand- point of one impressed by the problems which Chris- tianity had made prominent, for instance, that of the compatibility of human free will and God's foreknowl- edge. The allegorical opening — Philosophy appearing in a garb adorned with symbols — suited the taste of the time and of the Middle Ages. The romantic pathos of the author's situation proved most appealing to all men touched by life's vicissitudes ; ^ and this prison- writing is optimistic in its teaching, seeing only good 1 See Das System des Boethius, by Nitzsch, pp. 42-92 ; also the work itself. 2 He probably was the author of the Christian Theological Tracts attributed to him. See Hildebrand, Boethius und seine Stellung zum Christenthum ; also Boethius, an Essay, by H. F. Stewart. work.
 * As, e.g., Alfred the Great, one of the many translators of the