Fr Joseph Pallattil
The Consolation of Philosophy is a significant and powerful philosophical work by the Medieval Philosopher Boethius, composed around the year 524. It was composed during a one-year imprisonment Boethius served while awaiting trial for the alleged crime.
The entire book is a discussion among Boethius himself and the Lady Philosopher. Lady Philosopher reassures Boethius by examining the passing idea of popularity and riches, and a definitive predominance of things of the brain, which she calls the one genuine great. She fights that bliss originates from inside, and that goodness is all that one really has, in light of the fact that it isn’t risked by the changes of fortune.
Boethius connects with questions, for example, the idea of fate and through freedom, why abhorrent men regularly thrive and great men fall into ruin, human instinct, ideals, and equity. He talks about the idea of choice and determinism when he inquires as to whether God knows and sees all, or keeps an eye on have unrestrained choice. On human instinct, Boethius says that people are basically acceptable and just when they yield to ‘fiendishness’ do they ‘sink to the degree of being a creature.’
In the work Boethius addressed strict inquiries without reference to Christianity, depending entirely on normal way of thinking and the Old style Greek convention. He trusted in the correspondence among confidence and reason. The certainties found in Christianity would be the same as the realities found in theory. In the expressions of Henry Chadwick, ‘If the Relief contains nothing particularly Christian, it is likewise pertinent that it contains nothing explicitly agnostic either… it is a work composed by a Platonist who is additionally a Christian.’
The Consolation of Philosophy presents interpretative troubles of an alternate request from the intelligent works or the philosophical treatises. In contrast to them, it is written in an expand artistic structure: it comprises of a discourse between Boethius, sitting in his jail cell anticipating execution, and a woman who exemplifies Reasoning, and its regularly exceptionally logical composition is mixed with stanza sections. Additionally, despite the fact that somewhere else Boethius doesn’t write in a manner which distinguishes him as a Christian with the exception of in the Religious Treatises I, II, IV and V, the nonappearance of any express reference to Christianity in the relief represents a unique issue, when it is reviewed that it is crafted by a man going to confront demise thus actually making his philosophical and scholarly confirmation. These inquiries will show up in more honed centre when the contention of the Encouragement has been analysed.
The philosophical message of the book fits well with the religious piety of the middle Ages. Readers were encouraged not to seek worldly goods such as money and power, but to seek internalized virtues. Evil had a purpose, to provide a lesson to help change for good; while suffering from evil was seen as virtuous. Because God ruled the universe through Love, prayer to God and the application of Love would lead to true happiness. The Middle Ages, with their vivid sense of an overruling fate, found in Boethius an interpretation of life closely akin to the spirit of Christianity. The book is heavily influenced by Plato and his dialogues. Its popularity can in part be explained by its Neoplatonic and Christian ethical messages, although current scholarly research is still far from clear exactly why and how the work became so vastly popular in the Middle Ages.
