The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

convert of St. Paul had never been heard of before? that Cyril of Alexandria, that Athanasius himself, were ignorant of their existence? But these writings were in themselves of too great power, too captivating, too congenial to the monastic mind, not to find bold defenders. Bearing this venerable name in their front, and leaving behind them, in the East, if at first a doubtful, a growing faith in their authenticity, they appeared in the West as a precious gift from the Byzantine Emperor to the Emperor Louis the Pious. France in that age was not likely to throw cold and jealous doubts on writings which bore the hallowed name of that great Saint, whom she had already boasted to have left his primal Bishopric of Athens to convert her forefathers, whom Paris already held to be her tutelar patron, the rich and powerful Abbey of St. Denys to be her founder. There was living in the West, by happy coincidence, the one man who at that period, by his knowledge of Greek, by the congenial speculativeness of his mind, by the vigor and richness of his imagination, was qualified to translate into Latin the mysterious doctrines of the Areopagite, both as to the angelic world and the subtle theology. John Erigena hastened to make known in the West the ‘Celestial Hierarchy,’ the treatise ‘on the Name of God’ and the brief chapters on the ‘Mystic Philosophy.’ ” ↩

Paul Orosius. He was a Spanish presbyter, born at Tarragona near the close of the fourth century. In his youth he visited St. Augustine in Africa, who in one of his books describes him thus:⁠—

“There came to me a young monk, in the catholic peace our brother, in age our son, in honor our fellow-presbyter, Orosius, alert in intellect, ready of speech, eager in study, desir ing to be a useful vessel in the house of the Lord for the refutation of false and pernicious doctrines, which have slain the souls of the Spaniards much more unhappily than the sword of the barbarians their bodies.”

On leaving St. Augustine, he went to Palestine to complete his studies under St. Jerome at Bethlehem, and while there arraigned Pelagius for heresy before the Bishop of Jerusalem. The work by which he is chiefly known is his “Seven Books of Histories”; a world-chronicle from the creation to his own time. Of this work St. Augustine availed himself in writing his “City of God”; and it had also the honor of being translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred. Dante calls Orosius “the advocate of the Christian centuries,” because this work was written to refute the misbelievers who asserted that Christianity had done more harm to the world than good. ↩

Severinus Boethius, the Roman Senator and philosopher in the days of Theodoric the Goth, born in 475, and put to death in 524. His portrait is thus drawn by Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Ch. XXXIX:⁠—

“The Senator Boethius is the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman. As a wealthy orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honors of the Anician family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings and emperors of the age; and the appellation of Manlius asserted his genuine or fabulous descent from a race of consuls and dictators, who had repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol, and sacrificed their sons to the discipline of the Republic. In the youth of Boethius, the studies of Rome were not totally abandoned; a Virgil is now extant, corrected by the hand of a consul; and the professors of grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence were maintained in their privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths. But the erudition of the Latin language was insufficient to satiate his ardent curiosity; and Boethius is said to have employed eighteen laborious years in the schools of Athens, which were supported by the zeal, the learning, and the diligence of Proclus and his disciples. The reason and piety of their Roman pupil were fortunately saved from the contagion of mystery and magic, which polluted the groves of the Academy; but he imbibed the spirit, and imitated the method of his dead and living masters, who attempted to reconcile the strong and subtle sense of Aristotle with the devout contemplation and sublime fancy of Plato. After his return to Rome, and his marriage with the daughter of his friend, the patrician Symmachus, Boethius still continued in a palace of ivory and marble to prosecute the same studies. The Church was edified by his profound defence of the orthodox creed against the Arian, the Eutychian, and the Nestorian heresies; and the Catholic unity was explained or exposed in a formal treatise by the indifference of three distinct, though consubstantial persons. For the benefit of his Latin readers, his genius submitted to teach the first elements of the arts and sciences of Greece. The geometry of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras, the arithmetic of Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the astronomy of Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of Aristotle, with the commentary of Porphyry, were translated and illustrated by the indefatigable pen of the Roman Senator. And he alone was esteemed capable of describing the wonders of art, a sundial, a water-clock, or a sphere which represented the motions of the planets. From these abstruse speculations Boethius stooped, or, to speak more truly, he rose to the social duties of public and private life: the indigent were relieved by his liberality; and his eloquence, which flattery might compare to the voice of Demosthenes or Cicero, was uniformly exerted in the cause of innocence and humanity. Such conspicuous merit was felt and rewarded by a discerning prince; the dignity of Boethius was adorned with the titles of Consul and Patrician, and his talents were usefully employed in the important station of Master of the Offices.”

Being suspected of some participation in a plot against Theodoric, he was confined in the tower of Pavia, where he wrote