For the Love of the Gods: The History and Modern Practice of Theurgy - Brandy Williams 2016

Boethius
Stories from the Ancestors

We are now well into contested territory, where Christian apologists claim philosophers as converts, the history of science valorizes the nonritual aspects of philosophy, and scholastic efforts to uncover ongoing Pagan religion are challenged as biased attempts to read contemporary religion back into history. Nonetheless, where we find Neo-Platonic philosophers, we often find converts to Paganism.

This appears to be the case with Boethius. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was born in or near Rome around the year 480 CE. He was orphaned early and had the good fortune to be raised by Symmachus, an aristocratic Christian who provided him with the best possible education.

PLATO AND ARISTOTLE

Boethius bent over the scroll, so intent on his reading that he didn’t hear Aedesia come up behind him until she put a hand on his shoulder. Then he looked up, blinking, and accepted the water she gave him. “Are you making progress?” she asked.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “There is so much to learn. I don’t know how much time I will have. Symmachus asks me every week when I will be returning home. A consul post is waiting for me the moment I step on shore.”

“To be a consul,” Aedesia mused. “Is that what you want to do?”

He shook his head so his hair flew. “I want to study philosophy. It’s all that matters to me.” He squinted up at the woman squeezing his shoulder. “You must understand. You’re a philosopher.”

“And I’ve raised two fine philosophers,” she said. “But they inclined more to Plato, being Pagan. Your church loves Aristotle.”

He tapped the scroll. “Here, Aristotle is saying exactly what Plato said. They can be reconciled, I know they can.” His eyes brightened. “It’s my life’s work to make that clear.”

“Can they?” Aedesia said doubtfully. “It’s like reconciling Christians and Pagans.”

“That’s why I’m the man for the task,” he said confidently. “I’ve studied both Aristotle and Plato, and I’ve studied with Christians and Pagans.”

She sighed. “I wish you could stay. You could smooth the path between Ammonius and the magistrates. It seems every year there’s a new threat to close the Academy.”

“This is Alexandria,” Boethius said confidently. “There will always be an Academy.”

“In name only,” Aedesia said tartly. “You know we’re being pressured to give up our ways. If we don’t, we risk being closed. If we do, we’re just another Christian school.”

Boethius argued, “I didn’t come to you because you’re Pagan. I came to you because you teach philosophy. That work will always live.”

“That’s not what Damascius says,” Aedesia said.

Boethius waved a hand. “Damascius governs the Academy in Athens, not the Academy in Alexandria. Ammonius must do what is right for your students.”

Aedesia searched the face of her student. “Are you certain you must leave? Alexandria still has the finest library in the world.”

“Well,” he said. “I do love to study, but my heart lives in Rome.”

Aedesia nodded, resigned. “It’s rare to find a Roman who can speak Greek these days. We haven’t had another student like you. Your mind runs ahead so quickly, you absorb what we give you and beg for more. It won’t be long before you become the teacher instead of the student.” She patted his shoulder again and moved away. “I wish you all the success you dream.”

“In the world? Or in the spirit?” Boethius said thoughtfully.

“In philosophy, of course,” Aedesia said.

As she moved away, Boethius said to himself, “I wish for both.”

Byzantion

The members of Rome’s ruling class had long warred with one another over who would rule the empire. In the third century CE, Rome’s administrative districts were divided into east and west. Emperor Constantine moved the empire’s seat from Rome in Italy to the Greek city Byzantion, calling it the new Rome, and renaming it for himself, “Constantinople.” We know the city today as Istanbul.

The last emperor to rule a united Roman empire was Theodosius, who died in 395 CE. He left the eastern and western seats to his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, splitting the empire. The Roman world would never reunite, continuing as two distinct cultures. East and west split on more than familial and political lines, they spoke different languages—Rome spoke Latin, Byzantion spoke Greek. The Christian church divided as well. While the Roman Church developed a hierarchy ruled by a pope, Constantinople resisted the pope’s authority; a patriarch ruled the Eastern Orthodox Church. While Rome sent out missionaries to make converts, the Eastern Church founded monasteries that served as refuges for contemplation, developing a unique and beautiful iconography.

The citizens of the Byzantine Empire, as we call it now, continued to think of themselves as living in the Roman Empire. Byzantion survived for a thousand years, from 474 to 1453 CE, while in the west a succession of “barbarian” peoples—Huns, Vandals, and Goths—overran Rome and fragmented her provinces.

As a Greek speaker in fifth-century Rome, Boethius was a rarity, distinguishing himself in service to the Latin-speaking rulers of Rome.

MATHEMATICS AND MAGIC

Rusticana entered the study quietly and waited until her husband looked up. “A letter from Cassiodorus,” she said.

Laying aside his stylus, Boethius sighed. “More business from Theodoric?” He scanned the letter quickly. “This time he wants some presents for King Gunobad of the Burgundians. A water clock and … ” Boethius squinted at the letter, “a sundial.”

“Is that all?” Rusticana blew out a breath. “The time that it will take you to make them!”

“No, that’s not all,” Boethius said. “He wants me to pick out a harper. For Clovis, king of the Franks. To tame his savage heart! And he wants me to discover why his horse and foot guards say they’re not being paid properly. Someone is shorting them; he wants me to check the reckoning.”

Sliding onto a bench near the desk, Rusticana said, “He overworks you. Still, it’s flattering that Theodoric thinks so well of you. It will help our family’s position.” She rubbed her husband’s arm and smiled. “No personal word from Cassiodorus?”

“Oh yes,” Boethius said. “He’s full of praise for my learning, my mathematical treatises, and especially my theological tracts. He urges me to write more of those.” He threw the letter down. “He worries that my mathematical skills will be confused for magic. Apparently learning from Pagans leaves me open to accusations of being Pagan myself.”

“Surely not,” Rusticana said, drawing herself up. “We come from a good Christian family.”

“Slanderers are everywhere,” Boethius said. He shook himself. “This lays more obligations on me, just when I was making progress.” He tapped the pages. “Aristotle and Plato speak in harmony. I know I can make that clear.”

The Costs of Empire

For centuries, Western historians have described the fall of the Roman Empire as if it was a tragedy. It might have been for the Roman elite, but was it as painful for the newly freed colonies? Rome’s reach was long, and her vengeance was legendary. From Britain to Asia, Roman roads carried Roman troops to enforce the Roman census and taxes. The same road carried the resources of the territories back to the center of power, gold from Gaul, wheat from North Africa, slaves from everywhere. Roman citizens managed dozens of slaves in the household and hundreds in the fields.

Until recently Western history has glossed over the Roman destruction of Celtic civilization. The names of many Celtic deities are lost beneath the interpretatio Romana, which substituted the names of Roman deities for native ones. There are numerous Celtic pantheons, and they do not map neatly onto the Olympian twelve. For Jupiter we have Taranis, for Mars we have Smertrios, for Neptune we have Nodens, for Hades we have Sucellos. Various attempts have been made to map the Celtic goddesses—Matrona, Morrigan, Danu, Brigit—onto Juno, Diana, Minerva, Vesta, and Ceres. The Romans identified Lugh with Mercury but the god Cernunnos does not neatly correspond with Vulcan or Apollo. The goddess Rosmerta married Mercury, just as Celtic women married Roman soldiers; Rosmerta kept her purse and added Mercury’s caduceus, surely a goddess to reckon with!

In the same way that Roman names have overlaid Celtic deities, Roman descriptions of savage “barbarians” has obscured appreciation for the complexity and sophistication of Celtic culture. The Celts traded far beyond their borders, and their mathematics were generally more sophisticated than the Roman. Celtic culture was patriarchal, but women wielded more power among the tribes than in Rome, and Celtic queens and women warriors fought Roman conquest. Celtic peoples did not find Rome’s conquest a civilizing force, but an exploitive one.

Rome permitted subjugated territories to practice their native religions—to an extent. State religion upheld state political power, so temples to the Roman deities were founded everywhere, including temples to the deified emperors. Roman governors owed Rome a portion of taxes, but the governors were permitted to levy a surcharge and pocket the difference, making taxes difficult to meet. In Israel the High Priest under Roman rule was no longer elected by the people but by Roman governors who usually favored collaborators over those who advocated for the rights of the subjugated. When the Jewish people revolted in an attempt to throw off Roman rule, Rome responded by killing and enslaving Jewish people and destroying the temple in Jerusalem.

Roman conquest has been romanticized as a civilizing force in barbarian territories. Contemporary nuanced analyses of the effect of colonization notes that the benefits of Roman civilization were experienced largely by the cooperating elites. The vast majority of people experienced theft of their resources, loss of autonomy, and conscription of their labor. Some were carted off to serve as slaves to Rome.

Scholarship analyzing and mourning the demise of the Roman Empire often reflects a fear of the loss of the European and American Empires succeeding the Roman. We know that it is the fate of all far-flung exploitive regimes to fragment, to cede territory and resources, to become vulnerable to exploitation in return. Recognizing this bias in ourselves can help us become more open to alternative points of view exploring the costs of empire to those who genuinely bear it. It can open history to faces and voices that reflect experiences of peoples other than the elite.

LADY PHILOSOPHY

Why should he get out of bed? He was still in prison, days turning to weeks turning to months. In the beginning his memories had comforted him, how good Symmachus had been to him, how happy he had been with Symmachus’s daughter, Rusticana, as his wife. He remembered the day that was the pinnacle of his political career: his two sons Boethius and Symmachus were appointed consuls of Rome, and he stood between them to deliver a paean of praise to the emperor Theodoric.

It only took the slanderers a year after that to bring him down. They produced a letter supposedly written by him to the Emperor Justin attacking Theodoric. Clearly a forgery! Yet it was enough to exile him to this prison cell in a tower in a backwater city far from Rome.

“Get up,” Lady Philosophy said. “You have work to do.”

He tried to ignore her. “Leave me alone.”

The light from her face filled the room. She held out a hand. “Come, to your desk. You still have life and hope.”

“Will you lecture me again?” he grumbled, swinging his legs to the floor. “I know, I know. Don’t trust Fortune. The swing of her wheel takes those she favors up and then down again. Now that I’m down, do I wait for her to swing me back up?”

The lady said gravely, “Why don’t you get off the wheel altogether?”

He flexed his cold hands and reached for the stylus. “How is this possible?”

“What would Proklos say? Plotinus? Plato?”

“Settle the body, still the mind, contemplate the divine,” he murmured. “The life of the spirit is the true life.”

“Remember,” she whispered. “Remember, remember. You came from the stars. Philosophy gives you wings. Rise up! Above the air, above the sun, above the stars, rise up, rise toward the One. It is the road home! When you have walked that road, you will look down again on earth and its petty rulers, and it is they who will seem like exiles to you.”

Pagan Conversion

The phenomenon of prison conversion to a religion offering comfort is quite common. This seems to have been what happened to Boethius. Arnaldo Momigliano is widely quoted as saying, “Many people have turned to Christianity for consolation. Boethius turned to Paganism. His Christianity collapsed—it collapsed so thoroughly that perhaps he did not even notice its disappearance.” There is no Christianity in the work Boethius wrote in prison, The Consolation of Philosophy, and Lady Philosophy’s final call to rise to the stars is strictly Neo-Platonic.

Despite the hope Boethius expressed that his fortunes would turn again, he was executed for treason by strangulation. His foster father Symmachus defended him to the end and was executed too. After Boethius’s death, his friend Cassiodorus edited Boethius’s works. Fabio Troncarelli observed drily that Boethius had known how to die, but Cassiodorus knew how to live, reinventing the works of Boethius in an acceptably Christian image.

The works of Boethius entered into the quadrivium, the medieval monastic teaching curriculum.

THE LESSONS OF BOETHIUS

The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists mixed Christian students with Pagans for centuries. Neo-Platonism influenced the development of Christian theology through Boethius and other sources. Yet the study of Plato and his followers focused on the contemplation of the vastness of the universe and always seemed to have a fundamentally Pagan character.

Few have had such a dizzying fall from height as Boethius. In struggling to maintain his balance in a perilous moment, Boethius found comfort in lifting his eyes above his physical to gaze steadfastly at the goal of the philosopher, to know the divine. The comfort of Lady Philosophy is always available to those who place our lives in the context of that goal.

Notes on the Story

Boethius spoke Greek and was highly educated in Neo-Platonic philosophy as well as practical mathematics and astrology. No account remains of his early education; some scholars believe he learned entirely from teachers in Rome, some think he might have visited Athens, and some speculate that he traveled to Alexandria to learn from Ammonius. I see no reason why he would not have traveled; the breadth and depth of his education argues for it. The mixed Pagan and Christian atmosphere in the Alexandrian school seems suited to the young Boethius’s temperament.

Helen Barrett’s biography Boethius: Some Aspects of His Works and Times includes the interesting details about Cassiodorus’s letters and Theodoric’s requests of Boethius.

Boethius’s own work, Consolation of Philosophy, offers us the window into his prison cell during the time of his incarceration. Although his prison stay ended with his execution, his work survives to this day.