He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only. —C.S. Lewis
Imagine you lived in a time of absolute moral and political decay ( I know it's hard, but try). Try to imagine yourself living in the most powerful military nation mankind has ever known.
Indeed, visualize living in the wealthiest nation in the world by far. A nation so over-flowing with prosperity and decadence that it can afford to spend billions of dollars abroad in "infrastructure" and proxy wars.
Imagine, if you can, that the leaders of your political, social, and religious institutions have sold out their allegiance to foreign governments. Corruption is rampant at all levels of government.
Moral responsibility is considered taboo, a passé remnant of an old patriarchy. Churches are in disarray. It has never been easier to be sexually miscreant.
Philosophy has become so esoteric it is only relevant to a small academic elite with no connection to the general public. At any rate, the general public is too illiterate to care.
Your nation's military has scarcely been weaker at any point in the last century, meanwhile your foreign enemies swell with power. Truth is the rarest commodity to find at high levels of government.
Now imagine, despite all of this, that most people in your country believe they are still the greatest, wealthiest, and most invincible nation in the world.
In reality, your entire society will collapse in the next four decades. 95% of the population will soon be wiped out, and civilization will almost entirely disappear.
Since this thought-experiment is obviously SO different from the situation in the West today, it's probably hard for you to imagine what life would look like.
I'll just tell you, then, that this was the exact status of the Roman Empire in the West during the 5th century. ( Thank goodness we don't have to worry about these nightmare scenarios in America!)
So, if I were to tell you to imagine now that you are the most powerful person in the Roman government living at this time, what would you do?
You are eminently famous on the international and national stages, fabulously wealthy, and one of the most accomplished living scholars in the world.
Also, you know the end is coming. You can see the fabric of society tearing, and you know the collapse of civilization is at hand. How do you spend your days, months, years?
Would you bathe in your wealth? Enjoy the fall of the Republic, so to speak? Sell out to foreign leaders? Secure your family's safety in another country?
Honestly, ask yourself what you would do if you were the most powerful person in the American government today. How would you spend your time if you truly believed the show was coming to an end?
I'm guessing you didn't say: "I would write a bunch of books on philosophy for regular people to read."
No?
Well, that was exactly the answer a man named Boethius gave to that question. Had he not given that answer, Western Civilization would have died in the 6th century.
Boethius is easily one of the most significant figures in all of western history and almost single-handedly saved Europe from complete collapse for 900 years.
Sadly, I'm willing to bet you've never heard of him.
This is the story of how he saved Western Civilization.
'Boethi-who? Boe-What-Now?"
The most significant fact about the life of Boethius, was his death.
In 524, he was executed by the Ostrogothic ruler of Rome, Theodoric. His wealth had been confiscated and most of his family had been put to the sword.
Remarkably, just a few months earlier, he was the most powerful man in the Roman government (second only to the King Theodoric).
His death would prove to be one of the most significant events in world history, but before I tell you why, let's see how he got there.
Boethius: The Man, The Politician, The Philosopher, The Christian
Boethius was born at the beginning of the end for Rome, in 475 AD. He would live most of his life under the rule of Theodoric, and would rise to prominence in Roman politics at a young age after being well-educated.
By any worldly standard, the life of Boethius was enormously successful.
He was a genius and a scholar, recognized as one of the greatest living philosophers of his time, a successful lawyer, and a powerful politician and magistrate.
He had a beautiful family with two sons ( both splendidly successful and powerful), and a loving wife. He was insanely wealthy, and to top it off, he was tremendously famous throughout the world.
Even the emperor in the east, Justinian, praised him and confirmed his sons as consuls of the Roman government, at the same time.* He was Theodoric's trusted adviser and highest appointed official.
So what happened?
Downfall
Boethius had one snag — he was a Christian.
Normally, that wouldn't be a problem. Most of the aristocracy at this time was at least nominally Christian.
But Boethius was a Christian with power and a conscience. That rare combination does tend to spell problems.
Boethius was disgusted by the corruption in the Roman government, and ran several legal campaigns against other government officials.
His efforts notably saved thousands of people from starvation and poverty. A great deal of the corruption in the Roman Senate came to a grinding halt under Boethius' short-lived reign as the head-of-state.
If you can believe it, this made him a good number of "friends" in the government....
Before he knew it, Boethius found himself being charged with treason, and three false witnesses were there to prove it.
Back in those days, most Roman emperors didn't last 20 days in power. So, if you were an enterprising emperor, you needed to be very proactive against treason.
As such, Theoderic promptly arrested the man he had named his most powerful ally just a few months earlier.
He sent Boethius to prison in Pavia without trial, confiscated his wealth, executed a number of his family members, and shortly thereafter tortured and killed Boethius himself.
The Consolation of Philosophy
Boethius, had lost "everything" in a matter of days.
By any worldly standard, the life of Boethius was a total failure.
His family was lost, his wealth, his reputation and fame, his power, his health, his life — all gone.
Not to mention, the government corruption would soon be in full swing again now that Boethius was out-of-the-way.
By all accounts, then, Boethius' life was destitute and disastrous. That is, all accounts except for Boethius'.
Boethius had spent the last three decades of his life quietly writing works of philosophy and theology in common Latin.
He translated most of the works of Plato and Aristotle into common Latin. He wrote commentaries on the bible in Latin.
He wrote commentaries on Plato and Aristotle, as well as an number of other thinkers. He wrote original works on philosophy as well, all in Latin.
Why? He understood what was coming.
He knew that the show was coming to an end, that Rome would soon collapse.
He also knew that the vacuum created by the fall of Rome could spell the end of civilization.
He knew that if civilization was going to make it, it would need to be able to read the great thinkers of the West.
He knew civilization would need to be able to understand the Sacred Scriptures.
Most importantly, he knew if people were going to read at all, it would be in the only language they knew— Latin.
( Even in Boethius' day, all philosophy was taught and written in Greek. Boethius knew that this would not continue if the West fell into chaos, so he wrote everything in Latin.)
Boethius spent thirty years on this project, working up until the day he was arrested.
Then in the weeks leading to his execution, he wrote one, last, book— The Consolation of Philosophy.
It would become the most important work of philosophy for the next 500 years.
It is to this day one of the finest treatments of the problem of evil, God's providence, human suffering, and the meaning of life.
The Consolation is written as a dialogue between the prisoner Boethius and "Lady Philosophy" who brings the prisoner out of depression, turning his mind towards heaven.
In the book, Boethius argues that the loss of his possessions and reputation does not disturb him.
He cannot be made unhappy by the loss of wealth, fame, property or reputation because he does not base his happiness on them.
He thus identifies the five false paths to happiness:
Financial Wealth
Social Status / Honors and Recognition
Political Power
Fame
Physical Pleasure and Sex
Instead, Boethius argues, true happiness is found in union with God.
All of his material possessions and good fortunes were given to him by God, and they were always God's to take away.
By correctly understanding the relationships he has to the world and to God, Boethius is able to lift himself out of his depression and provide meaning for his suffering.
This is the consolation of philosophy —that there is greater security in storing up virtue than in storing up riches.
Boethius, therefore, already has everything. He has a loving relationship with God, and that cannot be taken away.
Boethius went to his execution smiling — he died the very definition of a badass.
Legacy
Boethius was tortured and executed in October of 524.
He had a rope tightly tied around his head, he was bludgeoned until his eyes popped out, and then his head was crushed in.
A few decades after his death, the collapse of the Roman Empire he had predicted occured.
By 565, 95% of the population had died. The loss of life was parallel to the loss of knowledge.
Medicine, technology, politics and philosophy virtually disappeared in what would come to be known as the so-called "Dark Ages."
Only, the ages weren't so dark. In fact, philosophy, literature, and theology survived the fall of Rome.
How is this possible? It was thanks to the works of Latin that Boethius had written.
For the next 600 years, the only sources of Aristotle and Plato came from Boethius. He was also the main source of biblical commentary for several centuries.
Never in any time in all of human history has society been so dependent on one man as an intermediary for intellectual development as with Boethius.
He single-handedly provided centuries of civilization with access to the greatest minds of the Western canon.
His most famous work, of course, was his last — The Consolation of Philosophy. So far-reaching was its impact that C.S. Lewis once said of the work:
Until about two hundred years ago it would, I think, have been hard to find an educated man in any European country who did not love it.
How sad, then, that today you can scarcely find a Christian who has even heard of it, nevermind read it.
How tragic that there is scarcely anyone, Christian or otherwise, who even knows the name "Boethius."
Boethius is a saint and martyr in both the Orthodox Catholic and Roman Catholic Churches. He is commemorated in October.
Conclusion
There is much more I wish I could say, but I encourage you as always to read more on your own.
I have been fortunate enough to read The Consolation several times, and it is both very easy to read and very uplifting. I encourage you to read it for yourself.
So why should you care about the story of Boethius, and what does it have to do with our modern life?
I hope it reveals that civilization is preserved by men and women willing to dedicate their lives to the pursuit of virtue, not by getting the "right" man into office.
The story of Boethius is repeated throughout history (Thomas Moore and Socrates come to mind), so it's worth considering what his life has to teach us.
If there were dark days ahead of us, how would we be able to handle it?
Would we give into despair at the loss of our prosperity, or like Boethius, would we face the coming of the night with a smile on our face and light in our heart?
I hope the latter.
As always, thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this article, please share and subscribe!!
Further Reading
The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
* For those of you who don't know, the "consuls" were the original heads of state in the Roman republic (essentially monarchs). There were always two of the them in order to preserve the balance of power. Even after the rise of the Empire, the consuls maintained their role over the senate. So for both of Boethius' sons to be consul at the same time was a big deal. In other words, in 522, Boethius' family had a monopoly on Roman politics!
My favorite post of yours so far!