1 The Human Person in The Consolation of Philosophy Mark K. Spencer Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy tells a story of moving from a state of self- forgetfulness to a state of having an integral sense of one’s identity in relation to God (C I.2; Duclow 1979, 336; Dougherty 2004, 275). Arriving at this integrated sense of identity in relation to God or the Good requires an account of human powers and of other aspects of the human person that need integration, and an account of our end and of our natural relation to the cosmos and God. To accomplish its task, the Consolation includes a detailed account of what human persons are and what our purpose is. In this chapter, I synthesize the Consolation’s scattered, apparently divergent, but nonetheless substantive claims about human nature and personhood. I am cognizant throughout of the distinction between Boethius the writer (that is, Boethius as author of the Consolation) and Boethius the character (that is, Boethius as depicted in the Consolation) (Duclow 1979, 341; Wiitala 2019, 232). I describe how Boethius the writer illustrates his account of human persons using Boethius the character, whose experience of moving from self-forgetfulness to self-knowledge is a microcosm for the story of every human person’s disordered condition and the cure each person ought to receive (Crabbe 1981, 311). I begin by outlining Boethius’ account of human powers and human nature. Having outlined the Consolation’s view of what we are and can do, I consider the book’s account of human personhood, that is, of who we are. While Boethius does not discuss the term “person” (persona) in this book, and while his account of personhood in the Consolation lacks the technical precision found in his Trinitarian works, he does give an account of some fundamental characteristics of persons, which is consonant with his more explicit treatment of the topic in other texts. Finally, I consider three distinctive themes in the Consolation’s account of human persons. First, this text controversially depicts human nature as able to change into that of a god 2 or of a beast; commentators on the Consolation have debated how to understand this claim. While my focus in this chapter is on giving a systematic portrayal of the book’s account of the human person, I also introduce, and try to resolve, some of the main controversies in the secondary literature regarding human nature in the Consolation. Second, the Consolation depicts all human persons—not just Boethius the character—as microcosms, including in ourselves all aspects of the cosmos. In relation to this theme, there has been some controversy over the relation between the poetry and the prose in the Consolation, and over the relation, within the prose, between the rhetorical and the philosophical passages. Third, Boethius, like many classical writers, depicts human persons as most understandable in relation to beauty. Since this theme sums up earlier ones, I close the chapter there. Human Powers and Human Nature Boethius offers an account of human powers—our abilities to perform basic kinds of acts —that is in continuity with claims made by classical philosophical schools before him (especially Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism) and by many versions of scholasticism after him. My concern here is not to trace those historical links, but to sum up the account of powers in the Consolation. Since, in that text, Boethius never gives a systematic account of our basic powers, my account surveys the powers that he names throughout the book. As we shall see, Boethius argues that our natures can change such that we become beasts (whose nature is sub-rational) or gods (whose nature is supra-rational). Through human nature in itself, we already have, or share in, powers that are rational, powers that are beneath reason, and powers that are above reason (V.5.2–4). Among powers beneath reason, Boethius names the senses, imagination, and passions. We have powers to feel the four basic passions (enumerated by the Stoics) of joy, fear, hope, and sadness (I.m7.20–31; Houwen 2010, 249), as well as others 3 like desire, pleasure, anxiety, and regret (III.7.1–3). These passions, along with imagination, the power to interiorly form images (III.1.5), attract our attention to and make us accustomed to what is fleeting, subject to changes of fortune, and potentially harmful (I.1.7–14; II.4.16–21). These lower powers are frequently in conflict with reason; they can even render us incapable of exercising reason, recalling what we previously rationally grasped, or making free choices on the basis of reasons (I.5.3; I.6.9; III.12.1). All of this is exemplified by the experience of Boethius the character at the beginning of the Consolation: by focusing on his own misfortunes, his attention has been diverted to his passions and to sensory things; as a result, he cannot exercise reason adequately, thus requiring the cure worked by Lady Philosophy. Boethius observes an order among our cognitive powers, that is, powers by which we grasp or are conscious of beings distinct from ourselves (V.5.1, 25–27; Duclow 1979, 338–9). Sensible qualities, like shape or color, as they exist in sensible, material things, affect our sense organs; we thereby grasp those qualities, though we grasp them in different ways through different senses, like sight or touch, according to how those qualities impinge upon the relevant sense organ (V.5.26, 28). Having received these qualities into our senses, we can then interiorly form images of them, and consider them in themselves, apart from how they exist in material things; we do this with the power of imagination. By this power, we also consider those qualities insofar as they are harmful or beneficial to our bodily life; like the senses, this is an ability we share with other animals (V.5.2–3, 28). Through imagination, we achieve a level of abstraction or separation of cognitive contents from material conditions. Furthermore, in addition to enabling imaginative acts, receiving sensible qualities into our sense organs also inflames our passions. These are the powers whose acts have absorbed Boethius the character’s attention at the beginning of the text; he is unable to consider philosophical reasoning at that point, because his 4 attention is absorbed by passions resulting from sensible qualities, both in themselves (like the sound of music) and as they are beneficial or harmful to him. The senses and passions also call and rouse (provocet excitque) our mind or reason to think. When we sense or feel, we find ourselves called to rationally attend to what we have sensed or felt (V.m4; V.5.1). By reason, we consider the universal features of individual sensible beings, that is, those qualities in them that can belong to many individuals, and we make judgments about what those beings are (V.5.29, 39). We also grasp everything that we grasp by imagination or sense, but we grasp those features of things universally, as they are found in many things, which is to grasp them in a higher, more unified, and more all-encompassing way (V.5.36). Through the use of reason, we can freely choose to perform acts and to act in pursuit of happiness, we can fix what we have grasped in memory, and we can form virtues whereby we reject what is evil in the passions and achieve tendencies to good action (II.1.15; II.4.5–6; III.12.1; IV.2.11; LaChance 2004, 321). Lady Philosophy works on Boethius in the early books of the Consolation to turn him away from attending to sense and imagination to attending to rational argument; she uses rhetoric, which involves a rational grasp of sensible and passion- inducing contents to draw him to a more focused use of reason, before turning to purely rational, philosophical argument (Duclow 1979, 337). Transcending reason, we share in the power of intelligence, which is a properly divine power. Reason grasps universal concepts and truths, and it does so discursively, by reasoning from one judgment to another. Sense, imagination, and reason each just grasp some aspect of the forms of things, but not things as they are in their entirety (V.5.25; Sharples 2009, 216; Magee 2009, 183; Evans 2004, 268–9). Intelligence, by contrast, is a power for grasping each form— each given being in its complete intelligibility as a whole—exactly as it is, simply and 5 holistically. Because God has the power of intelligence, he grasps the whole of history exactly as it is, without thereby imposing necessity on it. Reason could only grasp the whole of history in a discursive, step-by-step manner, a cognitive method that only grasps things as following from, or necessitated by, previous things. Boethius the character cannot grasp how God can know free human acts without imposing necessity on them, but this is because he is thinking of God’s knowledge or providence as if it were an instance of reason, when really it involves intelligence. When we look at the world according to our normal human condition, in which we rely on reason or sense, we cannot conceive of what it is like to exercise intelligence (IV.6.10, 17; V.4.21–5, 30–3; V.5.5–11). But we have the potential to be raised, either by philosophy or by direct divine action, to share in this mode of cognition. However, when this has happened, we cannot adequately express what we grasp in words, since words pertain to reason (IV.1.9; IV.6.53–4; V.5.11). After the first few books of the Consolation, Lady Philosophy seeks to bring Boethius to share in this simple, intelligent, divine grasp on things (III.m9.22–8). Only by sharing in that simple, holistic grasp on things can one have a holistic sense of oneself fully integrated around the Good. That is a way in which we are deified, that is, become gods. Finally, the Consolation gives an account of the power of the will, and of power in general. The account of the will in the Consolation is basically the same as the one Boethius uses in other works (e.g., 1IN 195.25–26; see LaChance 2004, 309). The power of will, by nature, has aspects that we cannot lose, such as the power to choose among acts and control our actions. To be rational, on Boethius’ account, is to have freedom of choice (libertas arbitrii), for reason allows us to judge what is to be pursued or avoided, which is the basis of choice. By nature, we desire the human end, happiness, and we choose among means to it. We also, by nature, have freedom and power sufficient to achieve what pleases (libeat) us; even the vicious have this 6 power (IV.2.45). But we only have freedom and genuine power to achieve our end, and to transcend our nature, when our wills are integrated around the good (V.2.2–6). By the will, we are meant not just to select among alternatives, but to move towards full goodness, unity, and happiness (that is, fulfillment and integration) in imitation of the goodness, unity, and happiness that God is, the one whom we truly desire. Integration requires grace, and without it, we lack power to achieve what we truly desire (desiderent), God (IV.2.45). One has true power or freedom to effectively act if and only if one is moving toward the good, unity, and true happiness. We naturally have the power to change our intentions, or to pray and hope in God, and to offer our lowliness to God in return for his help, but we can lose this power (V.3.28–34; 6.37–8; LaChance 2004, 314–15). Movement toward the good occurs in human beings not naturally or spontaneously, but requires voluntary growth in virtue, voluntarily coming together (convenientia) with the rule of God; to not voluntarily do this is to go against our nature (III.12.17–18). We can be ruled by God either through reason, when guided by law, or through intelligence, when guided by unifying love (III.m12.47–48; LaChance 2004, 309). Boethius also seeks a definition or account of the nature of the substance that underlies these powers. In his ignorant state at the beginning of the Consolation, Boethius the character defines human beings, following Aristotle and Porphyry, as “rational and moral animals” (I.5.14–15; Houwen 2010, 247–8). This definition captures something right: it is what reason grasps as applying universally to all human beings, after considering sensory and imaginative experiences of human beings (V.4.34–5). But Lady Philosophy leads Boethius to see that we are more than what is captured in this definition; the Aristotelian account leaves out some features of our nature, which were better grasped by Plato. That Boethius the character initially thinks that the Aristotelian definition is adequate is a sign that he has forgotten his true end (I.5.16–17; 7 Magee 2009, 194). He needs first to learn how we are not animals in the same sense as other animals. Like other animal bodies, ours naturally tend towards survival, well-being, and reproduction, that is, the kinds of unity and goodness suitable to animals (III.11.30–31). But we also love and desire through spiritual powers of the soul like intelligence, reason, and will. This not a mere natural intention or teleological ordering, but rather is a voluntary love, and is especially found in charity (that is, love for our highest unity and good). This love can conflict with our bodily desires and the lower desires of our soul; for example, we can rationally judge it better for us to die or forego reproduction in certain circumstances (III.11.32–33). Sometimes Boethius is read (e.g., Dougherty 2004, 279) as endorsing dualism about our souls and bodies, such that they are distinct substances ordered to distinct ends, which can be in conflict. Such a reading might rely on a passage in which Boethius, following Plato’s Phaedo, describes how our souls are imprisoned by our bodies, such that they lose freedom when their attention slip to bodies (dilabuntur ad corpora) from divine contemplation, or are associated with earthly limbs (cum terrenis artubus colligantur), or, worst of all, are enslaved by bodily passions, that is, by vice (V.2.8–9). But Boethius thinks the body never deprives the soul of the possibility of receiving divine illumination, and of turning back to God (III.m11.9–10). Overcoming loss of freedom requires turning our attention from bodies to our true, interior selves; there, where we were specially created by God, and where we distinctively participate in God, we find truths that can lead us back to God. Learning philosophy, remembering these latent truths when that memory has been obscured by attention to the body, gives us the “wings” of which Plato wrote in the Phaedrus, that is, a share in the divine power of intelligence, which allows us to return to God (III.m11.1–160; III.12.1). While the body (and the life of the soul insofar as it is immersed in the body) is temporal, moving from moment to moment, the soul, by 8 sharing in the divine act of intelligence which grasps all things without determining them, can share in divine eternity and providence, that is, in perfect unity and goodness (V.6.5–6). Other readings (e.g., Houwen 2010, 254–5), by contrast, note that, for Boethius, our bodies and souls are substantially united. As in Platonic texts like the Republic and Timaeus, it is powers of the soul like appetite and reason that are in conflict, rather than body and soul. The substantial union of body and soul are seen in that, as Aristotle observed, our upright posture, with our faces facing outward, befits our nature. Unlike the posture of the animals, which is directed toward the earth, this posture teaches us to seek the heavens, that is, God (V.m5.9–15). In God’s providence, there can also be other, individual cases of fit between soul and body; for example, Lady Philosophy describes a virtuous person whom God, fittingly, preserves from all bodily impairment and disease (IV.6.37–38). We can resolve these readings, and better see how the account of animality in the definition of human nature needs nuancing, by noting how, for Boethius, each of us should be strictly identified with our immortal soul (mens, animus) (II.7.22–23; IV.4.7), but, as we just saw, the body is also substantially united to the soul. The true character of each person, his or her virtue or vice, is found in the soul, as is each person’s true power of acting and moving oneself towards one’s end. A sign of all this is found in the fact that we can only really gain power over each other’s bodies and external goods, not over each other’s will or soul (III.6.4–6). We are souls created by God, who exist prior to our bodies, in some sense not fully explained in the Consolation (III.m6.5–6; V.2.8–9). This need not be read as a temporal pre-existence; rather, everything Boethius says is consistent with a view on which the soul is created ontologically prior to the body, that is, prior in being, power, and explanation. Ideally, even when the soul rules the body, it focus its attention not on the body, but on God, such that we are conformed to 9 his nature. This points to a final way in which the Aristotelian definition must be altered: an account of human nature must include an account of participation. As we shall see, if we focus on higher things, like God (for example, through prayer (III.9.32, V.3.33, V.4.30–33, V.5.11, V.6.46)), then we share in their powers more than we previously did; if through passion and sense, we focus on lower things, we share more in their powers and nature (IV.4.28–31). But even in its fundamental nature, the human soul is a participation in the natures of other things. For example, Boethius describes a world-soul which animates and moves the cosmos, shares in God’s providence, and is directed to turn back to God (which I discuss further in a section below); our souls share by nature in that soul, and thereby have providence over our bodies and are ordered to return to God (III.m9.13–21). Personhood in the Consolation Boethius’ developed account of personhood is found in his Trinitarian treatises and commentaries on Aristotelian texts. Here, I briefly summarize that account so that we can see, by comparison, the similar, though less explicit, account in the Consolation. Building upon the terminology of earlier Church Fathers and of the Church’s Ecumenical Councils, Boethius defines persons as individual substances of a rational nature. Persons have essences (ousiai) but persons do not exist in subjects; in technical terms, they are subsistences, not properties of other substances. This is true of many substances—that is, things that have or underlie non-subsisting properties—but a distinguishing mark of persons is that they are rational or intellectual by nature (OS V.3.168–172). To have a nature is to exist as a distinct kind of thing, to be oriented to act and be acted upon in definite ways, and to have value of some sort—but natures do not exist except in individual substances (Chadwick 1981, 191–2). To be a person is to be good, that is, desirable or valuable. To be a created person, or any created substance, is to share in existence or 10 esse. That which exists (as opposed to esse itself) can share in what it other than itself (OS III.26–50). To be a person is also to be an individual, a single being that has, but is distinct from, its nature (OS V.4.298–300, V.7.607–18; Koterski 2004, 219–20). Each person has an incommunicable quality, a personal property that cannot belong to another, for example, the “Platonitas” of Plato, the distinct quality that belongs to Plato and characterizes all his acts (2IN II.136–7; CAT 241D; Chadwick 1981, 191–2). Boethius does not explicitly say what that quality is (Gracia 1984, 90–97). Elsewhere, he argues that members of species of material substances, like human beings, are individuated and rendered distinct members of that species by the unique bundle of accidents that each one has, and especially by their occupying different places (OS I.1.56–63; Gracia 1984, 67–82). Incorporeal things, by contrast, are distinguished not by spatial location, but (like the divine, Trinitarian persons are distinguished) “by difference,” that is, by their relations to one another, especially by the positive quality of their differences from one another (OS I.5.307–16; Bradshaw 2009, 121–2). Some commentators on Boethius identify the incommunicable quality of each human person with the unique bundle of accidents (including an entire life history) each of us has; since human persons are material substances, then, as Boethius explicitly says, we are individuated by our accidents (Magee 1997, 122; Cameron 2009, 93). But as we have seen, human persons are, for Boethius, primarily their souls, and so one could contend that we too are individuated “by difference,” by a single positive, incommunicable, relational quality (Gracia 1984, 95–7). Boethius’ claim that human persons are distinguished by our accidents could be taken as an account of how we are distinguished as members of the human species and genus of animals, not an account of how we are distinguished as persons or as what are fundamentally incorporeal souls; the latter is explained by a single, relational quality, a distinction “by difference.” If we were to reconcile 11 Boethius’ claims in this way, then we would be reading Boethius as implicitly anticipating the distinction made later in the scholastic tradition, on which the principle whereby we are individual instances of a specific material nature is distinct from the principle whereby we are unique persons (Spencer 2014, 884–93). The Consolation does not present this technical metaphysical account of personhood, but its claims are in accord with that account. Boethius the writer holds that there is something proper to each person, since God in his providence sees what is fitting (conveniat) to each person and ensures that each person has it (IV.6.30). There is some property, or set of properties, that befits each person—something unique about, say, Boethius the character that makes him a fitting and distinct object of God’s providential concern—and that is present because of relations of fittingness and participation to God. This could be taken to develop the view on which we human persons are distinct in virtue of bundles of accidents: God gives to each of us those accidents that are most fitting for us, and these distinguish us from others; God alone, by his providential intelligence, sees and bestows that whole set of properties that makes us unique. But the Consolation’s claims could also be taken to develop the view on which we human persons are distinct from others by a singular, incommunicable difference: the relation constitutive of personhood is our distinct, positive relation of participating in God and being the object of his providence. But really, the Consolation implicitly offers support for the resolution to this interpretive tension mentioned above. We have seen how divine intelligence grasps each being as a holistic form, including all of its properties. While I am an instance of human nature by having a unique bundle of accidents, as a person—as this complete, whole form who has that nature and those accidents—I am distinguished from others “by difference,” that is, by my unique relation of participating in God and being seen as a whole form by his providential intelligence. 12 In the Consolation, Boethius presents each person as called to the heights of unity, goodness, and being. Nothing, he says, is more precious (pretiosa) than I am to myself (II.4.23). Happiness means self-sufficiency, participating in goods that cannot be lost by fortune, such that I truly possess my precious self, and have free power over myself and my happiness, such that it is mine and I cannot lose it. This is to possess the goodness, unity, being, and divinity that I ought to have (II.4.23–6; III.10)—to truly be the holistic form as which God sees me. I can possess such a state because I have a rational or intellectual nature, that is, because I am an immaterial person. I am not merely a material thing subject to the whims of fortune, which rules the material world. Rather, as an immaterial person, I am capable, by nature, of being raised above my nature to share in God’s nature (II.5.25). Because of his participation metaphysics, Boethius can maintain that in such a state I am both self-sufficient, good, one, and divine in myself, and yet also entirely participate in God’s self-sufficiency, goodness, unity, and divinity. He can maintain both that persons who truly know themselves and maintain their proper unity and goodness are better than all things, and that our true good is more precious than ourselves. To be a created person is to share in, and thereby really have, what is other than me. God gives me my nature, such that it is mine and at the same time a participation in him. He allows me to share in his nature, such that I become, in myself, a god; I can take on, and be characterized by, what is better than me by nature. As we shall see in the next section, it is only by this deification that I, by my own power, maintain my own proper unity, goodness, and subsistence. And yet my own power is just a share in God’s power and is given to me, though by it, I achieve my highest good and most become the person I am (III.10.25–29, 11.9–10; Nash-Marshall 2000, 186–221, 274–90; Dougherty 2004, 273–4). In these ways, the Consolation illustrates claims about personhood that Boethius makes more precisely elsewhere. 13 Becoming a God or a Beast I turn now to three themes that run through the account of human persons in the Consolation. The first builds upon the account of personhood just given. While we have a human nature, which gives us definite powers and kinds of action, that nature is unstable. By our actions, Boethius says, our nature changes, such that each of us becomes either a beast or a god. While we are greater than all things by sharing in the divine nature, we can also, by acting in such a way that we intend lower things as goods, make ourselves lower than all things (II.5.26– 9). Throughout the early books of the Consolation, Lady Philosophy leads Boethius the character to grasp what genuine happiness (beatitudo) is, as opposed to earthly, temporary felicity (III.2.3, 14–15). All human persons are ordered to and desire the same end, the good, but different persons conceive of the good in different ways, as, for example, power, fame, glory, pleasure, or wealth (III.2.16–20). Even though focusing on any of these in separation from God leads to anxiety, regret, and subjection to fortune, the good includes all of these, so that the person who has attained the true good will also have true power, fame, and glory, all of which are names for God himself (III.2.16–19, 3.16, 7.1–3; Wiitala 2019, 235–6). And, as we saw in the last section, to possess true happiness and the true good is also to have true being and unity, and this is to participate in God—that is, to not only resemble God in virtue, but to actually possess divinity by participation, to become a god (III.10.17–25; Dougherty 2004, 284). Following Plotinus, Boethius holds that this is to be firmly and permanently established in unity with oneself, to be rendered solid, permanent, and eternal, like God (Schuhl 1971, 224; Dougherty 2004, 277). By contrast, to seek, contemplate, and subordinate oneself to what is lower than oneself, such as earthly goods, is to move away from God, to lose being and unity, and to become what is lower than oneself. The reward of pursuing goodness is to share in being and goodness more, 14 while the punishment for wickedness is to become wicked, to share in being and goodness less, and to share in what is ontologically below us, that is, to become beasts (IV.2.32–6, 3.10–15). Here Boethius the writer makes some of his most surprising and controversial claims. To exist properly speaking (simpliciter) requires doing what it takes to maintain one’s participation in being and goodness; for us, this is good action. The vicious person no longer truly shares in being and goodness as a human person should; he or she abandons being (esse desistunt), and so, like a corpse, only exists in a certain sense, not simpliciter (III.11.10, IV.2.32–6). To cease to exist simpliciter as a human being is, in some sense, to lose our nature. While vicious human beings retain the form, appearance, or beauty (species) of the human body, the “quality of their soul” (qualitas animae) becomes that of a beast (IV.4.1). For example, the avaricious have something of the nature of wolves, the angry have something of the nature of lions, the stupid have something of the nature of donkeys, and so on (III.3.15–21). This is a reversal of what happened in the Odyssey, when, under the influence of Circe, Odysseus’ men changed their bodies, but retained their minds; in vice, things are worse: one retains one’s body, but not, properly speaking, one’s mind or rationality, that is, one’s true human self (IV.m3.25–39; Crabbe 1981, 323–4). Overcoming vice, by contrast, is like Hercules overcoming monsters; just as Hercules was deified as a result of doing that, so we become gods by overcoming vice and attaining virtue (IV.m7; Houwen 2010, 254). At the beginning of the Consolation, Boethius the character has allowed his circumstances to lead him to despondency, to focusing on the senses and thereby lacking self-knowledge; Lady Philosophy has come to rescue him because, were he to continue on that path, he would be in danger of bestialization, of losing his true nature (I.6; Dougherty 2004, 276). 15 Commentators have been divided on how to understand these claims. This debate is not only over the metaphysical status of the claims about bestialization, but also about the philosophical role of the poetic, metaphorical, rhetorical, and other imagistic sections of the Consolation. While this chapter is not about the poetry in the Consolation as such, this latter debate is relevant for my purposes here insofar as the question of how poetry interacts with our powers sheds further light on the account of human persons in the Consolation. All sides of this debate agree that the claims about deification in the Consolation are literal, metaphysical claims: in accord with Boethius’ Platonic and Patristic background, Boethius the writer does think we can really share in the divine nature (O’Daly 1991, 208; Dougherty 2004, 283). But some commentators argue that the claims about bestialization are metaphorical or symbolic: through vice, we become like beasts and like non-beings, but this is not a metaphysical claim, that is, our nature does not actually change (Chadwick 1981, 240; O’Daly 1991, 209–15; LaChance 2004, 322). On this reading, Boethius the character’s state at the outset of the book is a sorry one, for he is in moral peril, but he is not literally in danger of losing his nature. These readings observe that Lady Philosophy’s approach to Boethius the character in the early books is therapeutic: since Boethius is immersed in the life of the senses, and therefore incapable of raising his mind to metaphysical argument and insight, she employs rhetoric and sensory imagery to lead him away from that debased state. But, beginning around II.3, and definitively by V.1, Lady Philosophy transitions to non-metaphorical, rigorous argumentation, thereby leading Boethius the character—and us readers—to greater insight into, and participation in, divine intelligence (Crabbe 1981, 311; Dougherty 2004, 280–1; Magee 2009, 181). This participation in divine intelligence is deification; while all things participate in God for their being, unity, and goodness, only persons can be genuinely deified, for only persons 16 by nature can share in divinity itself, that is, in the intelligent, providential ruling of all things (III.10.17, 11.38, 12.8; Chadwick 1981, 227–9; Wiitala 2019, 245–7). But other commentators note that Lady Philosophy does not just discuss bestialization in the early chapters of the Consolation, where it would be reasonable to think of her claims as metaphorical. Rather, these claims also appear in later books, and not only in the poetic sections, which are continued rhetorical devices to give Boethius the character a break from the rigors of rational argument and intelligent insight (IV.6.6; Dougherty 2004, 280–1). Michael Dougherty argues that the claims that wicked persons cease to truly exist and that their nature changes to that of a beast should be understood as metaphysical claims. He traces the explanation that it is the quality of the soul that changes (IV.4.1) to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and History of Animals. While human souls retain their identity when they fall into vice, qualities or dispositions inhering in those souls change, such that they take on dispositions that properly belong to the natures of wolves, lions, donkeys, or other beasts (Dougherty 2004, 279–80, 288– 91). While one does not properly speaking become a wolf, one comes to share in dispositions that ought to only belong to wolves, and, in that sense, becomes a beast. Robert Porwoll agrees that the claims about bestialization are metaphysical claims. He argues that, if they were not, then part of Lady Philosophy’s solution to the problem of evil would fail. She contends that while evil men seem to prosper, by having wealth, fame, and so forth, they are actually punished, because they thereby share in what is lower than themselves, and so lose their being and nature. If this is not a metaphysical claim, then it is not the case that evil men are punished just by pursuing evil (Porwoll 2008, 59). But Porwoll thinks that these views ought to be understood in light of Boethius’ Platonic metaphysics of participation. A creaturely nature is a principle of movement; to be a creature is not to have a static identity, but to 17 be en route, in a state of movement. This is because to be a creature is to be a being only by participation, and so to need to establish oneself in true being only by maintaining one’s participation in true being, unity, and goodness, that is, in God. For rational beings, this occurs through pursuit of virtue; only by moving upward do we maintain ourselves in being. To fail to do this is, ipso facto, to fail to participate in being, and so to move toward non-being. On this reading, to become a beast means to move down the hierarchy of being, toward a state of greater mental fragmentation and self-destruction (Porwoll 2008, 64–71). It is literally to share in animals’ natures, and in that sense become a beast, rather than just taking on qualities or dispositions belonging to beasts. These two metaphysical readings seem reconcilable to me; indeed, as Porwoll notes, Boethius the writer was always trying to reconcile Plato and Aristotle (Porwoll 2008, 72), and so it seems most likely that he intends each of these readings. On the view of the Consolation, human nature is constituted such that, if we fail to pursue virtue, we both participate less in true being, and we participate more in the natures and dispositions of beings that are below us. But, if we pursue virtue, we participate more in true being and in divine powers like intelligence, and thereby in God’s nature. We can only exist in a state of being progressively bestialized or deified; that is the consequence of not only having a creaturely nature, but also of having a rational nature, given how reason intrinsically involves a step-by-step movement toward a conclusion. One further thing, however, must be said about how the Consolation portrays human persons in this state of movement. Most of the commentators I have cited so far agree that the poetic and other metaphorical sections of the book are of merely rhetorical or recreational significance. But there is reason to think that, instead, they too are of philosophical significance; 18 if that is so, it bolsters the case for a metaphysical interpretation of the bestialization claims. It is true that Lady Philosophy castigates the Muses for stirring up Boethius the character’s passions: most poetry merely plays upon the senses and thereby attracts us to what is lower than ourselves (I.1.7–14). But Gerard O’Daly notes that Boethius may have been familiar with Proclus’ theory of poetry. In addition to lower, sensual forms of poetry, Proclus describes “didactic poetry,” which turns the soul toward knowledge of itself, and “inspired poetry,” which draws the soul up toward the divine. Many of Lady Philosophy’s poems contain mythic allegories, like those mentioned above, and allegories based on Platonic dialogues. If these are didactic or inspired poems, then their purpose might not be to draw the soul of Boethius the character to contemplation of his true nature or of God (O’Daly 1991, 62–7; Crabbe 1981, 312). The human person, by nature, shares already in the natures of things above and below it, and can be led through poetry to an awareness of this fact, even if it is difficult to articulate that sharing in other beings’ powers other than in a poetic way. This theme of sharing in natures above and below us brings us to the second theme about human persons that runs through the Consolation, our status as microcosms. Human Persons as Microcosms The idea that the human person is a “microcosm” is common in classical and medieval philosophy. Human persons are images of the whole cosmos, containing something of all other kinds of being. Human persons also stand at the midpoint of the cosmos, sharing in both the material and the immaterial, the sensible and the intelligible, the temporal and the eternal. We can be established stably in God, but we are also subject to the precariousness of fortune; we tend to find fortune precious (pretiosa) even though we can and should find God most precious (II.1.13–14). As located at this point in the cosmos, we naturally have a mediating or priestly role 19 in the cosmos, helping to make divine providence present to the sensible world, and elevating the sensible world to God. All of these themes are found in the Consolation; indeed, we have already seen many of them, especially in how human nature, on Boethius’ view, includes a share in vegetative, animal, and divine life, reason being poised between the bestial and the divine. Much of the poetry in the Consolation links human life to the cycles and patterns of nature; here, again, we see how the poetry is not merely rhetorical, but puts us in touch with key metaphysical claims about human persons. God perfectly orders the cosmos, as is seen especially in the regular, cyclical motion of the heavens, in the stars and constellations, but also in the cycles found on earth in the seasons, the weather, including in violent events like storms, and even in the cycles of fortune. Human life can only be understood as rooted in, and reflective of, the natural world (I.m5.1–24; II.2.8–9; O’Daly 1991, 104-5). As we saw above, our upright posture directs our attention to the starry heavens, which, on Boethius’ classical cosmology, are understood as unchanging and spiritual. Vulgar and vicious people fail to look to the motion of the stars, and instead, like beasts, attend only to earthly things (IV.4.29; V.m5.9–15; Houwen 2010, 254–6). All things, on this cosmology, seek their origin or their natural state, and nothing has stability or can reach its end unless it seeks its origin (III.m2.34–8). God is our origin, our Father, just as he is the origin of the stars, and the regular motion of the heavens invites us to seek him, especially since our souls came from him (III.m6.1–6; V.m5). As was mentioned above, Boethius takes up the Stoic and Neo-Platonic idea that there is a world-soul, which moves the physical cosmos, especially the stars. Some later medieval thinkers worried that this claim was incompatible with orthodox Christianity, given that the soul of the world was sometimes identified with God, a view that seems tantamount to pantheism (Moreschini 2014, 125, 133). But for Boethius, the world-soul is not God, but is rather an angel or intelligence subordinate to 20 God, for he says it is given stability by God, and only on that basis moves the physical cosmos. Likewise, our souls, which are little versions of, and participations in, the world-soul, are meant to be given stability in virtue by God and to thereby rule our bodies as the world-soul rules the heavens (III.m9.13–21). Here, although Boethius does not use this language, we see the priestly or mediating role of the human person, as, for example, when a prayer is offered for God to rule us as he rules the heavens and not leave us subject to fortune (I.m5, 46–8). Anticipating later medieval thinkers, Boethius views the cosmos as a sort of moral allegory. Just as poetry, including that found in myths and Scripture, has an allegorical, moral meaning, so likewise the whole physical cosmos, with all its cycles, has such a meaning. Indeed, nature can be better understood in light of Scripture and myth, and vice versa. The stars call us to the uprightness and stability of virtue, requiring us not to turn back to earthly things, unlike Orpheus, who turned back to look at Eurydice (III.m12; Houwen 2010, 254–6; Lewis 1964, 85– 7). They call us to grow the wings given by philosophy, as described in Plato’s myth in the Phaedrus, so that we can ascend through them to the highest sphere of the cosmos, which is our true homeland (patria), where God rules the cosmos (IV.m1). As Plato observed in the Timaeus, we can begin to grasp what human persons are, what our end is, and the deified condition that is open to us, through the concrete experience of stargazing. We must then let our minds be drawn from the motion, order, and beauty of the stars to the divine intelligence that governs them (III.8.8). Lady Philosophy finds fault with Boethius the character at the beginning of the Consolation not only because he is attending only to the sensual and earthly, but also because he used to engage in rational astronomy, and he thereby used to see how God ordered his creation, but now he has forgotten this (I.m2; Houwen 2010, 248). This moral “reading” of nature 21 throughout the Consolation lends support to the view mentioned in the last section, on which the poetic passages of the text are of philosophical, not just rhetorical, importance. Even for we modern readers who cannot accept, as scientifically true, Boethius’ view of the cosmos as a series of nested spheres with the earth at the center, we can and should still take seriously his moral and experiential reading of the cosmos. Even if the motion of the stars is not unchanging, scientifically speaking, it nevertheless appears that way, and it can thereby provide us with important spiritual lessons. What C.S. Lewis has called the “discarded image” of the classical and medieval universe is still, for the modern stargazer, a way the world can appear (Lewis 1964; Scheler 1973, 303–8; Husserl 1981). This “phenomenological” account of the cosmos should not be entirely discarded in favor of a more literal, scientific account of the cosmos. The Consolation can help the modern reader recover a sense of his or her place in this experiential and allegorical aspect of the cosmos. Furthermore, modern science has discovered many real regularities in nature unknown to Boethius, which provide us with additional ways of seeing the stable order in creation. To take our place in the cosmos requires appreciating not just virtue, but also the stability of the physical cosmos (Crabbe 1981, 311). The Consolation provides a model for thinking about, and experiencing, human persons as microcosms, as located at the midpoint of the cosmos. Human Persons and Beauty The final theme that runs throughout the Consolation, which must be grasped if one is to fully see all that Boethius wants to say about human persons, is the linking of human persons to beauty. In this, too, Boethius is one with the classical tradition before him and the medieval tradition after him, both of which see beauty as crucial for understanding human persons, being as such, and God. For Boethius, like others in his tradition, beauty includes both intelligible 22 order (ratio) and splendor or brightness of form (formae nitor), that is, the pleasing, perceivable appearance or manifestation of the form of things (III.8.8–9). As with many themes we have encountered throughout this chapter, Boethius contrasts earthly to true views of beauty. We have already seen how Boethius uses aesthetic language in describing what occurs in bestialization: vicious persons retain the appearance or beauty (species) of the body, but not that of the soul. Expressions of good fortune, sweetened with rhetoric, poetry, or music, can appear beautiful (speciosa) and give temporary alleviation of hurts, but they do not cure (II.3.2). Earthly things like fine clothes, gems, landscapes are beautiful (pulcher), but only because they are the work of God and because of their own nature; their splendor belongs to them, not to us, and we should not seek or admire that beauty, because it is beneath us, and so that beauty cannot add to the higher beauty we human persons have by nature or by virtue (II.5, 8–21, 30). Mere physical beauty (pulchritudo) is a bodily good, but the beauty of even the most beautiful bodies is superficial: were we to see the inside of such a body, we would see that it is most ugly (turpissimum). We only become enthralled with such beauty because our perception is weak and limited (III.2.10, 8.10). Other earthly goods that we think are beautiful, like a good reputation or the splendor of flowers, are likewise only superficially beautiful, because they are passing and subject to the whims of fortune and others’ opinions; for this reason, none of these beauties can give true happiness (III.6.4, III.8.12). Beauty actually worth considering is found in the heavens, and more in their intelligible order than in their sensible properties (III.8.8–9). It is found in virtue (III.4.8), and above all in God; what is most beautiful is that in God, perfect sufficiency is one with perfect simplicity, power, the most splendid fame (celebritate clarissimum), the most worthy honor (honore dignissimum), the greatest joy (laetissimum), and above all goodness, which we most desire 23 (III.9,4–15, 10.26–7, IV.3.8). Our proper end as human persons is to ascend to this true beauty, and become one with it, thereby becoming supremely beautiful ourselves (Crabbe 1981, 318– 19). This, above all, is the unified, lofty vision of the human person to which Boethius seeks to lead us in the Consolation. It brings together all the themes regarding the human person that I have described in this chapter. While we have bodies, with sensible and affective powers, those bodies’ posture is meant to call our attention to our souls, with their rational powers and their participation in divine intelligence. We are meant to ascend to the true beauty that is grasped by intelligence, becoming deified rather than bestialized. As we have seen, Boethius uses the language of fittingness in the Consolation (e.g., IV.7.17), which is also aesthetic language: as microcosms, we take on our true beauty by fitting into the cosmos in the way most proper to us. To grasp all of these beauties that befit the human person is to fully grasp the vision of the person with which Boethius would like to leave us.