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

“While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment the sentence or the stroke of death, he composed in the tower of Pavia the Consolation of Philosophy; a golden volume not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the situation of the author. The celestial guide whom he had so long invoked at Rome and Athens now condescended to illumine his dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour into his wounds her salutary balm. She taught him to compare his long prosperity and his recent distress, and to conceive new hopes from the inconstancy of fortune. Reason had informed him of the precarious condition of her gifts; experience had satisfied him of their real value; he had enjoyed them without guilt; he might resign them without a sigh, and calmly disdain the impotent malice of his enemies, who had left him happiness, since they had left him virtue. From the earth Boethius ascended to heaven in search of the Supreme Good; explored the metaphysical labyrinth of chance and destiny, of prescience and freewill, of time and eternity; and generously attempted to reconcile the perfect attributes of the Deity with the apparent disorders of his moral and physical government. Such topics of consolation, so obvious, so vague, or so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human nature. Yet the sense of misfortune may be diverted by the labor of thought; and the sage who could artfully combine, in the same work, the various riches of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, must already have possessed the intrepid calmness which he affected to seek. Suspense, the worst of evils, was at length determined by the ministers of death, who executed, and perhaps exceeded, the inhuman mandate of Theodoric. A strong cord was fastened round the head of Boethius, and forcibly tightened, till his eyes almost started from their sockets; and some mercy may be discovered in the milder torture of beating him with clubs till he expired. But his genius survived to diffuse a ray of knowledge over the darkest ages of the Latin world; the writings of the philosopher were translated by the most glorious of the English kings, and the third Emperor of the name of Otho removed to a more honorable tomb the bones of a Catholic saint, who, from his Arian persecutors, had acquired the honors of martyrdom, and the fame of miracles.”

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Boethius was buried in the church of San Pietro di Cieldauro in Pavia. ↩

St. Isidore, a learned prelate of Spain, was born in Cartagena, date unknown. In 600 he became Bishop of Seville, and died 636. He was indefatigable in converting the Visigoths from Arianism, wrote many theological and scientific works, and finished the Mosarabic missal and breviary, begun by his brother and predecessor St. Leander.

“The Venerable Bede,” or Beda, an Anglo-Saxon monk, was born at Wearmouth in 672, and in 735 died and was buried in the monastery of Yarrow, where he had been educated and had passed his life. His bones were afterward removed to the Cathedral of Durham, and placed in the same coffin with those of St. Cuthbert. He was the author of more than forty volumes; among which his Ecclesiastical History of England is the most known and valued, and, like the Histories of Orosius, had the honor of being trans lated by King Alfred from the Latin into Anglo-Saxon. On his deathbed he dictated the close of his translation of the Gospel of John. “Dearest master,” said his scribe, “one chapter still remains, but it is difficult for thee to speak.” The dying monk replied, “Take thy pen and write quickly.” Later the scribe said, “Only one sentence remains”; and the monk said again, “Write quickly.” And writing, the scribe said, “It is done.” “Thou hast said rightly,” answered Bede, “it is done”; and died, repeating the “Gloria Patri,” closing the service of his long life with the closing words of the service of the Church. The following legend of him is from Wright’s Biog. Britan. Lit., I 269:⁠—

“The reputation of Bede increased daily, and we find him spoken of by the title of Saint very soon after his death. Boniface in his epistles describes him as the lamp of the Church. Towards the ninth century he received the appellation of The Venerable, which has ever since been attached to his name. As a specimen of the fables by which his biography was gradually obscured, we may cite the legends invented to account for the origin of this latter title. According to one, the Anglo-Saxon scholar was on a visit to Rome, and there saw a gate of iron, on which were inscribed the letters P.P.P.S.S.S.R.R.R.F.F.F., which no one was able to interpret. Whilst Bede was attentively considering the inscription, a Roman who was passing by said to him rudely, ‘What seest thou there, English ox?’ to which Bede replied, ‘I see your confusion’; and he immediately explained the characters thus: Pater Patrice Perditus, Sapientia Secum Sublata, Ruef Regnum Romae, Ferro Flamma Fame. The Romans were astonished at the acuteness of their English visitor, and decreed that the title of Venerable should be thenceforth given to him. According to another story, Bede, having become blind in his old age, was walking abroad with one of his disciples for a guide, when they arrived at an open place where there was a large heap of stones; and Bede’s companion persuaded his master to preach to the people who, as he pretended, were assembled there and waiting in great silence and expectation. Bede delivered a most eloquent and moving discourse, and when he had uttered the concluding phrase, Per omnia saecula saeculorum, to the great admiration of his disciple, the stones, we are told, cried out aloud, ‘Amen, Venerabilis Beda!’ There is also