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‘Me Quoquo Excellentior’: Boethius, De Consolatione 4. 6. 38*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. R. Shanzer
D. R. Shanzer
Affiliation:
The University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

In the best Menippean tradition the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius is peppered with quotations from different authors, most notably from the works of Homer. The quotations are generally spoken by Philosophy, and are used to articulate the narrative, e.g. at 1. 4 we find a line from Iliad 1. 363 whose application to the f present situation is immediately comprehensible, and would have been appreciated by the average reader. Another similar quotation is that of Iliad 12. 176: ⋯ργαλ⋯oν δ⋯ με ταȗτα Өε⋯ν ὣς π⋯ντ' ⋯γoρε⋯ειν at 4. 6. 53. Such uses are very simiar to what one, finds in the Apocolocyntosis of Seneca, albeit there used for comic effect. There are also snippets of popular wisdom in the form of an old proverb – though it is one with Menippean associations – and a Pythagorean maxim.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 277 - 283
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1983

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References

1 Thetis consoling the mourning Achilles parallels Philosophy addressing the weeping Boethius.

2 Seneca, , Apocolocyntosis 5. 4 ffGoogle Scholar.

3 Cons. 1. 4. 1.

4 Cons. 1. 4. 38.

5 Courcelle, P., La Consolation de Philosophic dans la tradition littéraire (Paris, 1967), p. 166Google Scholar.

6 Hildebrand, A., Boethius und seine Stellung zum Christentume (Regensburg, 1885), p. 141Google Scholar. He wishes to read δ⋯μoυς for δ⋯μας in direct contradiction to ‘corporeis morbis'. Two conjectures are supplied on p. 141 n. 1 including Ἀνδρ⋯ς σ⋯μ' ἱερoȋo περ⋯στεραi ῲκoδ⋯μησαν!

7 Examination of Ascensius’ notes on Boethius, in Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae … cum commentariis Ascensii Badii (Venice, 1542)Google Scholar, fo. 72v reveals no mention of Hermes at all. I cannot be sure of either the source or the accuracy of Cally's information.

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11 Proclus, , In Tim. III, p. 266. 19Google Scholar Diehl = Or. Chald. 54 Des Places.

12 Raubitschek, A. E., ‘Me quoque excellentior (Boethii Consolatio 4. 6. 27)’, Latin Script and Letters A. D. 400–900, ed. O'Meara, and Naumann, (Leiden, 1976), p. 62Google Scholar.

13 Gruber, J., Kommentar zu Boethius De Consolatione Philosophiae (Berlin–New York, 1978)Google Scholar, ad loc.

14 Cons. 3. m. 10 ‘hue omnes pariter venite capti’ and Mt. 11. 28 ‘Venite ad me omnes’ and Cons. 4. 1. 6. ‘Vilia vasa colerentur’ and 2 Tim. 2. 20 ‘non solum sunt vasa aurea…’ are far from convincing.

15 Lewy, H., Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy (Cairo, 1956)Google Scholar, Excursus 1 ‘on the Neoplatonist's mode of quoting the Chaldaean Oracles’, pp. 443–7.

16 The first manuscript cited is T of our editions, perhaps the earliest manuscript of the De Consolatione. I have collated it from a microfilm. I owe the readings from Harley 3095 to D. Ganz. They Gotha reading is from Haupt (cf. infra n. 17). I have examined the Oxford manuscripts, and they are cited as an example of the amount of corruption present in an average s.xii text.

17 Haupt, M., ‘Analecta’, Hermes 3 (1869), 146Google Scholar.

18 The instance mentioned by Stephanus, who refers to Schleusner's lexicon of the LXX, does not exist.

19 ὅτi τ⋯ ἄκρων τ⋯ς γ⋯ς κα⋯ σὺν ⋯κε⋯νῃ στoiχεȋα ὕδωρ τ⋯ ὣς ⋯τμ⋯ςκα⋯ oἷoν ὑγρ⋯ς ⋯⋯ρ, ⋯⋯ρ δ⋯ ⋯ αἰӨ⋯, αἰӨ⋯ δ⋯ τ⋯ ⋯κρ⋯τατoν τoȗ αἰӨ⋯ρoς. εἰ σ⋯ κα⋯ ⋯ρη αὐτ⋯Өi ἔστi, δ⋯λoν, ὡς ⋯γγ⋯ς τi ψα⋯εi τoȗ oὐρανoȗ. ⋯πλ⋯ς δ' oὖν oἱ τ⋯ν ςτoiχε⋯ων αἰθ⋯ρες, ὥς øησi τ⋯ λ⋯γiα, ⋯κεȋ.

The passage is a commentary on Phaedo 110c. There may well be something wrong with the text given by Norvin: αἰθ⋯ρoς p. 239. 2 may require changing to ⋯⋯ρoς, ‘the aether is the highest portion of the air’.

Des Places cites ‘P.T.'s’ opinion that the fragment ‘sans doute’ refers to ‘les éléments du monde (les astres) du fr. 39.5’. στoιχεȋα must mean ‘planets’ in fr. 39. but here, according to Olympiodorus, who was in a better position to know than we are, it definitely refers to the traditional elements of ancient cosmology, earth, water, air, and aether. The parallel is not an apt one.

The ‘aethers of the elements’ does not seem to make sense, even as a Chaldaean neologism. and - given an error with the same word a few lines above - may well be a dittography. The occurrence of the word in the Oracula must be attributed to coincidence which produced parallel corruptions in lines with a prima-facie claim to being Chaldaean. The corrupt word in the Phaedo commentary may have led Bieler and Des Places to add Boethius to the collection.

20 A fact of which even the Carolingian commentators with their minimal or non-existent knowledge of Greek were aware, cf. Courcelle, P., ‘La Culture antique de Rémi d'Auxerre’, Latomus 7 (1948), 250Google Scholar, who quotes a note from MS. B.N. lat. 15090 fo. 70r ‘Proverbiale exemplum in Graeco positum, quod corruptum est…’.

21 Taken from Bodleian MS. Rawl. G. 39 fo. 9V, but identical glosses are found in many, perhaps most codices.

22 Engelbrecht, A., ‘Die Consolatio Philosophiae des Boethius’, Sitzb. Akad. Wien. phil.-hist. klasse 144 (1902), 8Google Scholar.

23 cf. Haupt (op. cit. supra n. 17), p. 146, and the various medieval commentaries.

24 Having seen what can happen to a few Greek words between the ninth and twelfth centuries, we should not feel conndence in texts for which we do not have a proper Greek version for comparison. The variants in Harley 3095 show a glossator who is tinkering with ecclesiastical Greek, substituting ἅγioς and σ⋯μα for the more poetic ἱερ⋯ς and δ⋯μας. Perhaps a similar half-knowledge of Greek generated our error αἰθ⋯ρες. A Christianizing glossator draws our attention to ‘deo’ one god, as opposed to ‘düs’, many gods, at 1. 4. 38; perhaps here there was a Greek gloss αἰθ⋯ριoι to explain precisely what sort of δυν⋯μεις these were.

25 Bétant, A.-E., Boèce, de la Consolation de la Philosophie: traduction Grecque de Maxime Planude (Amsterdam, 1964), p. 92Google Scholar. That δύναμις and ‘virtus’ gloss each other reciprocally is also attested by the Greco-Latin glosses; cf. Goetz, G., Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum (Leipzig, 1888), ii. 281Google Scholar ‘ΔYNAMIΣ: tenor, vigor, vis, virilitas, potentia, valentia, potentatus, virtus’ and p. 20 9 ‘virtus: ⋯ρετ⋯, δ⋯ναμις,.…ὑλ⋯χης’.

26 Festugière, A. J., La Révélation d'Hermes Trismégiste (Paris, 1944–1954), iii. 156Google Scholar.

27 One notes the use of the word σκ⋯νoς, a tent, for the body (cf. Joh n 1. 14). This might well be compared with the architectural metaphor implicit in oἰκoδ⋯μησαν of our fragment. For the ‘tent’ as a metaphor for the body see Pseudo-Plato. Axiochus, ed. Hershbell, J. P. (Ann Arbor, 1981), 366AGoogle Scholar (with note 18).

28 Grese, W. C., Corpus Hermeticum XIII and Early Christian Literature (Leiden, 1979), p. 90Google Scholar.

29 CH, ed. Nock-Festugière, IV, ‘fragments divers’ no. 20, p. 117Google Scholar.

30 cf. Cassiodorus, , Variae, MGH XII, p. 40. 5 ffGoogle Scholar. ‘sic enim Atheniensium scholas longe positus introisti’.

31 Erbse, H., Fragmente Griechischer Theosophien (Hamburg, 1941)Google Scholar, para. 44.

32 op. cit. supra n. 28, p. 92.

33 It is worth noting that Lactantius knew a Hermetic writing on the perfection of the human body which might even have discussed its regeneration; cf. Inst. 2. 10. 13 ‘quod Hermes quoque tradit, qui non tantum hominem ad imaginem dei factum esse dixit a deo, sed etiam illud explanare tempta vit, quam subtili ratione singula quaeque in corpore hominis membra formaverit cum eorum nihil sit quod non tantundem ad usus necessitatem quantum ad pulchritudinem valeat’.

34 cf. CH 29 in Scott, , Corpus Hermeticum i. 530Google Scholar (= Stobaeus 1. 5. 14, i. 77 Wachsmuth) with Scott's note in iii. 269. See also Abel, , Orphica, pp. 141–3Google Scholar.

35 cf. Lobeck, C. A., Aglaophamus, sive de theologiae mysticae Graecorum causis (Regimontii Pruss. 1829), p. 737Google Scholar.