ABSTRACT
The tradition of medieval translations of the De Consolatione Philosophiae by Boethius extends from c. 900 A.D., the date of King Alfred’s work, to the end of the fifteenth century. To the medieval library on logic, Boethius added several volumes. He began his work on this subject by writing a commentary on Vitorinus’ Latin translation of Porphyry’s Introduction to the Categories. The philosophy expressed in the Consolatio was welcomed by most medieval thinkers. Boethius discusses the nature of good and evil, the foreknowledge of God, and the possibility of free will, and he integrates the complex ideas into a seemingly consistent, theistic world view. Most of the Consolatio translations are prefaced by information on the life and times of Boethius, and the prefaces form a tradition of their own, almost independent of the Consolatio itself. In the Middle Ages, however, there was a strong tendency to read the Consolatio as a Christian text.
