Number DOI: http://doi.org/10.33209/2519-4348-2707-9627-2024-12-163

VB. – № 12, 2024. – P. 231-249

Summary

This study offers the author’s version of the solution to the well-known riddle of S. Boethius’ treatise “Consolation of Philosophy”: it is not clear why, at the eve of his execution, the author of the treatise does not demonstrate Christian piety and turns for consolation not to Christ, but to Philosophy. The article presents different versions of the answer to this question: from the opinion about the allegorical nature of the work to refusal for Boethius to belong to Christians. Based on a careful study of the stages through which Philosophy takes a suffering philosopher, as well as the therapeutic means it uses and the results it achieves, the author of the article concludes that this whole process organically fits into the understanding of the role of philosophy in bringing to Christian piety and exquisite theology: this interpretation of the role of philosophy is supported by a reference to the works of authoritative representatives of early Christian patristics. However, Boethius, as it is demonstrated in the article, does not simply join such a position, but details it, using the ideas of late antique philosophy regarding the therapeutic role of philosophy for the soul, but in a different worldview and ideological context. In the opinion of the author of the article, the proposed reading of this treatise by Boethius is capable of enriching our ideas both about the relationship between theology and philosophy in early Christianity, and about the work of Boethius himself. The article uses the methods of textual analysis, comparative studies, and hermeneutics. The article is based on the analysis of numerous sources devoted to Boethius, both Ukrainian and, mostly, foreign ones. The author believes that the proposed reading version of Boethius’ treatise “Consolation of Philosophy” is quite organically consistent with his other theological treatises.

Key words: philosophy, theology, passions, variability of fate, therapy of the soul, good, attributes of God, life with God.

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