The Works of Boethius
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (c. 477–524)
The whole hand he was dealt and the part of it he lived to play.
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
High. The five theological works, the Consolation, the logic that brought Aristotle into Latin, and books on arithmetic and music. Boethius died at forty-seven, but the West relied on what he left for centuries.
High. Every part of it argues from something the other side already grants: reason, number, the shared categories. It rarely raises its voice, and it rarely has to.
Very high, the sturdiest book on the medieval shelf. Each part supports the others, and the schools built on all of them for seven hundred years.
The Consolation alone was the age’s bestseller; the logic was its textbook. Boethius takes the floor before most of the men who quote him were born.
Boethius set out to translate all of Plato and Aristotle into Latin and show that they agreed. He finished the logic before King Theodoric had him executed. His logic textbooks, his work on arithmetic and music, his five short theological works and the Consolation gave the Latin West much of what it thought with for six hundred years.
A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 25 | Affirm | — | Status | — | — | 1 |
| 26 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 28 | Likeness Attracts | Rationality | Argument | 76 | 100% | 15 |
| 33 | The Will of the Good | Natural Theology | Argument | 82 | 100% | 10 |
| 37 | Not Three Truths | Theology Proper | Argument | 88 | 95% | 10 |
| 40 | Only by Relation | Theology Proper | Argument | 90 | 100% | 10 |
| 43 | An Individual Substance | Christology | Argument | 85 | 100% | 10 |
| 46 | Three Kinds of Music | Natural Theology | Argument | 78 | 100% | 15 |
| 49 | Every Fortune Is Good | Rationality | Argument | 86 | 95% | 10 |
| 50 | Speak Latin | History | Status | — | 100% | 5 |
How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.
Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.
In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.
“Diversity repels; likeness attracts. That which seeks something outside itself is demonstrably of the same nature as that which it seeks.”
Boethius, Quomodo substantiae (the Hebdomads), rule IX (trans. H. F. Stewart & E. K. Rand, Loeb Classical Library 1918, public domain).public domain
In the gameBoethius sets out nine rules before he argues, like a geometer stating axioms. The ninth says that like is drawn to like. What a creature reaches for tells you what it is made for.
“They are called good simply because their Being is derived from the Will of the Good.”
Boethius, Quomodo substantiae (the Hebdomads) (trans. H. F. Stewart & E. K. Rand, Loeb Classical Library 1918, public domain).public domain
In the gameWhy is anything good? Boethius rejects two answers: that good things are little gods, and that goodness is painted on from outside. His answer: things are good simply by existing, because the One who is Good willed them to exist.
“Similarly the Father is truth, the Son is truth, and the Holy Spirit is truth; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three truths, but one truth.”
Boethius, Utrum Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus de divinitate substantialiter praedicentur (trans. H. F. Stewart & E. K. Rand, Loeb Classical Library 1918, public domain).public domain
In the gameA test anyone can run. Say a thing of the Father, then of the Son, then of the Spirit; if it is still ONE when you have said it three times, it belongs to the substance. God, truth, goodness, justice, power — one each, not three. Only Father, Son and Spirit come out three, and those are relations, not substances.
“So then, the category of substance preserves the Unity, that of relation brings about the Trinity.”
Boethius, De Trinitate (trans. H. F. Stewart & E. K. Rand, Loeb Classical Library 1918, public domain).public domain
In the gameSay “the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God” and you have said one thing three times, not counted to three. What tells the persons apart is relation — and a relation divides no substance.
Boethius explained it: what they are keeps them one, and how they relate makes them three. Father, Son and Spirit differ only in their relations to each other.
“we have found the definition of Person, viz.: ‘The individual substance of a rational nature.’”
Boethius, Contra Eutychen et Nestorium III (trans. Stewart & Rand, Loeb 1918, public domain). Latin: naturae rationabilis individua substantia.public domain
In the gameThe sentence every later argument about Christ — and, centuries on, every argument about what a person even is — was built from. Boethius pins it: a person is one particular thing, and a rational one.
Aquinas takes Boethius’s definition of a person and defends it (Summa I, q.29, a.1).
“Since every fortune, welcome and unwelcome alike, has for its object the reward or trial of the good, and the punishing or amending of the bad, every fortune must be good, since it is either just or useful.”
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy IV.7 (trans. H. R. James, 1897, public domain).public domain
In the gameThe hard case put to Boethius in the cell: the wicked flourish, the just are broken. His answer is that no lot is simply bad — each one rewards, tests, corrects, or gives what is deserved, and so is either useful or just. A philosopher’s theodicy, not the whole of one; but a real answer.
