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previous: Chapter 9 This webpage reproduces a chapter of A History of Philosophy by Frederick Copleston, S. J. as reprinted by Image Books — Doubleday New York • London • Toronto • Sydney • Auckland 1993 The text, and illustrations except as noted, are in the public domain. next: Chapter 11

Part I: Pre‑Mediaeval Influences

 p101  Chapter X
Boethius, Cassiodorus, Isidore

1. If one of the channels whereby the philosophy of the ancient world was passed on to the Middle Ages was the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius, another channel, and in some respects a complementary one, was constituted by the writings of Boethius (c. A.D. 480‑524/5), a Christian who, after studying at Athens and subsequently holding high magisterial office under the king of the Ostrogoths, Theodoric, was finally executed on a charge of high treason. I use the word 'complementary' since, while the Pseudo-Dionysius helped to impregnate early mediaeval philosophy, especially that of John Scotus Eriugena, with elements drawn from neo‑Platonic speculation, Boethius transmitted to the early mediaevals a knowledge of at least the logic of Aristotle. His works I have listed in my volume on Greek and Roman philosophy,⁠1 and I shall not repeat them here; suffice it to recall that he translated into Latin the Organon of Aristotle and commented thereon, besides commenting on the Isagoge of Porphyry and composing original treatises on logic. In addition he wrote several theological opuscula and while in prison his celebrated De Consolatione Philosophiae.

It is uncertain whether or not Boethius translated, in accordance with his original plan, other works of Aristotle besides the Organon; but in his extant works mention is made of several salient Aristotelian doctrines. The earlier mediaeval thinkers were predominantly concerned with the discussion of the problem of universals, taking as their starting-point certain texts of Porphyry and Boethius, and they took little notice of the Aristotelian metaphysical doctrines to be found in Boethius' writings. The first great speculative thinker of the Middle Ages, John Scotus Eriugena, was more indebted to the Pseudo-Dionysius and other writers dependent on neo‑Platonism than to any Aristotelian influence,  p102 and it was not until the Aristotelian corpus had become available to the West at the close of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries that a synthesis on Aristotelian lines was attempted. But that does not alter the fact that Aristotelian doctrines of importance were incorporated in the writings of Boethius. For instance, in his theological work against Eutyches⁠2 Boethius speaks clearly of 'matter,' the common substrate of bodies, which is the basis for, and renders possible, substantial change in bodies, corporeal substances, while its absence in incorporeal substances renders impossible the change of one immaterial substance into another or the change of a corporeal substance into an incorporeal substance or vice versa. The discussion is carried on in a theological setting and with a theological purpose, for Boethius wishes to show that in Christ the divine Nature and the human Nature are distinct and both real, against Eutyches who held that 'the union with Godhead involved the disappearance of the human nature';⁠3 but within that theological setting a philosophical discussion is included and the categories employed are Aristotelian in character. Similarly, in the De Trinitate,⁠4 Boethius speaks of the correlative principle to matter, namely form. For instance, earth is not earth by reason of unqualified matter, but because it is a distinctive form. (For 'unqualified matter' Boethius uses the Greek phrase ἄποια ὕλη, taking it doubtless from Alexander of Aphrodisias.)⁠5 On the other hand, God, the Divine Substance, is Form without matter and cannot be a substrate. As pure Form, He is one.

Again, in the De Trinitate,⁠6 Boethius gives the ten Categories or Praedicamenta and goes on to explain that when we call God 'substance', we do not mean that He is substance in the same sense in which a created thing is substance: He is 'a substance that is super-substantial.' Similarly, if we predicate a quality of God, such as 'just' or 'great', we do not mean that He has an inhering quality, for 'with Him to be just and to be God are one and the same', and while 'man is merely great, God is greatness'. In the Contra Eutychen⁠7 occurs Boethius's famous definition of person, naturae rationalis individua substantia, which was accepted by St. Thomas and became classical in the Schools.

2. In his doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, Boethius relied largely on St. Augustine; but in the De Consolatione Philosophiae he  p103 developed in outline a natural theology on Aristotelian lines, thus implicitly distinguishing between natural theology, the highest part of philosophy, and dogmatic theology which, in distinction from the former, accepts its premisses from revelation. In the third book⁠8 he at least mentions the rational argument for the existence of God as unmoved Mover, while in the fifth book⁠9 he treats of the apparent difficulty in reconciling human freedom with the divine foreknowledge. 'If God beholdeth all things and cannot be deceived, that must of necessity follow which His providence foreseeth to be to come. Wherefore, if from eternity He doth foreknow not only the deeds of men, but also their counsels and wills, there can be no free-will.'⁠10 To answer that it is not that future events will take place because God knows them, but rather that God knows them because they will take place is not a very satisfactory answer, since it implies that temporal events and the temporal acts of creatures are the cause of the eternal foreknowledge of God. Rather should we say that God does not, strictly speaking, 'foresee' anything: God is eternal, eternity being defined in a famous phrase as interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio,⁠11 and His knowledge is the knowledge of what is eternally present to Him, of a never-fading instant, not a foreknowledge of things which are future to God. Now, knowledge of a present event does not impose necessity on the event, so that God's knowledge of man's free acts, which from the human viewpoint are future, though from the divine viewpoint they are present, does not make those acts determined and necessary (in the sense of not‑free). The eternity of God's vision, 'which is always present, concurs with the future quality of an action'.

Boethius drew not merely on Aristotle, but also on Porphyry and other neo‑Platonic waters, as well as on Cicero, for example, and it may be that the division of philosophy or speculative science into Physics, Mathematics and Theology was taken directly from the Isagoge of Porphyry; but it must be remembered that Porphyry himself was indebted to Aristotle. In any case, in view of the predominantly neo‑Platonic character of foregoing Christian philosophy, the Aristotelian element in the thought of Boethius is more remarkable and significant than the specifically neo‑Platonic elements. It is true that he speaks of the divine Goodness and its overflowing in a manner reminiscent of neo‑Platonism (in the De Consol. Phil.⁠12 he says that 'the substance of God consisteth in  p104 nothing else but in goodness') and that he sometimes uses such terms as defluere in connection with the procession of creatures from God;⁠13 but he is quite clear about the distinction between God and the world and about the Christian doctrine of creation. Thus he expressly affirms that God, 'without any change, by the exercise of a will known only to Himself, determined of Himself to form the world and brought it into being when it was absolutely nothing, not produ­cing it from His own substance',⁠14 denying that the divine substance in externa dilabatur⁠15 or that 'all things which are, are God'.16

3. Boethius, then, was of very considerable importance, for he transmitted to the earlier Middle Ages a great part of the knowledge of Aristotle then available. In addition, his application of philosophical categories to theology helped towards the development of theological science, while the use of and definition of philosophical terms was of service to both theology and philosophy. Lastly we may mention the influence exercised by his composition of commentaries, for this type of writing became a favourite method of composition among the mediaevals. Even if not particularly remarkable as an original and independent philosopher, Boethius is yet of major significance as a transmitter and as a philosopher who attempted to express Christian doctrine in terms drawn, not simply from the neo‑Platonists, but also from the philosopher whose thought was to become a predominant influence in the greatest philosophical synthesis of the Middle Ages.

4. Cassiodorus (c. 477–c. 565/70) was a pupil of Boethius and, like his master, worked for a time in the service of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths. In his De artibus ac disciplinis liberalium litterarum (which is the second book of his Institutiones) he treated of the seven liberal arts, i.e. the three scientiae sermocinales (Grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric) and the four scientiae reales (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy). He did not aim at novelty or originality of thought, but rather at giving a synopsis of the learning he had culled from other writers,⁠17 and his book on the arts, like that of Martianus Capella, was much used as a text-book in the early Middle Ages. In his De anima Cassiodorus drew on St. Augustine and on Claudianus Mamertus (died c. 474) in proving the spirituality of the human soul. While the soul cannot be a part of God, since it is changeable and capable of  p105 evil, it is not material and cannot be material, since it can have what is spiritual as the object of its knowledge, and only that which is itself spiritual can know the spiritual. As spiritual, the soul is wholly in the whole body and wholly in each part, being indivisible and unextended; but it operates in a given part of the body, e.g. a sense-organ, now with greater, now with less intensity.18

5. Cassiodorus, then, was much more a 'transmitter' than an original thinker, and the same can be said of Isidore (died c. 636), who became Archbishop of Seville in the Visigothic kingdom and whose encyclopaedia, the Originum seu Etymologiarum libri XX, was very popular in the early Middle Ages, being included in every monastic library of note. In this work Isidore deals with the seven liberal arts, as also with a great number of scientific or quasi-scientific facts and theories on subjects from Scripture and jurisprudence and medicine to architecture, agriculture, war, navigation, and so on. He shows his conviction about the divine origin of sovereignty and the paramount authority of morality, law and justice in civil society, even in regard to the conduct and acts of the monarch. In addition to his Etymologies Isidore's Libri tres sententiarum, a collection of theological and moral theses taken from St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Grant, was also widely used. His treatise on numbers, Liber Numerorum, is often fanci­ful in the extreme in the mystical meanings which it attaches to numbers.

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The Author's Notes:

1 p485.

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2 Contra Eutychen, 6.

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3 Ibid., 5.

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4 2.

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5 Cf. the latter's De Anima, 17, 17, and his De anima libri mantissa, 124, 7.

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6 4.

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7 3.

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8 12.

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9 2 ff.

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10 5, 3.

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11 5, 6.

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12 3, 9.

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13 Cf. Lib. de hebdom., 173.

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14 De Fide Catholica.

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15 De Consol. Phil., 3, 12.

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16 Quomodo Substantiae. I do not, of course, mean to imply that there is any doctrine of creation in Aristotle.

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17 De anima, 12.

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18 De anima, 4.

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