{"id":857,"date":"2014-07-15T21:05:50","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T02:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=857"},"modified":"2015-08-09T22:11:14","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T03:11:14","slug":"boethius-on-good-fortune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2014\/07\/15\/boethius-on-good-fortune\/","title":{"rendered":"Boethius on Good Fortune"},"content":{"rendered":"

“What I want to tell you is something wonderful, which makes it very difficult for me to put it into words.\u00a0 For I think that ill fortune is better for men than good.\u00a0 Fortune always cheats when she seems to smile, with the appearance of happiness, but is always truthful when she shows herself to be inconstant by changing.\u00a0 The first kind of fortune deceives, the second instructs<\/em><\/strong>; the one binds the minds of those who enjoy goods that cheatingly only seem to be good, the other frees them with knowledge of the fragility of mortal happiness.\u00a0 So you can see that the one is inconstant, always running hither and thither, uncertain of herself; and the other is steady, well prepared and–with the practice of adversity itself–wise.\u00a0 Lastly fortune when apparently happy leads men astray by her blandishments, wandering from the true good; when she is adverse, she commonly draws them back, as it were with a hook, towards it.” Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy<\/em> II. viii. Loeb Classical Library No. 74, trans. S.J.\u00a0Tester. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1918), p. 225.<\/p>\n

In this famous work from late antiquity Boethius discusses the true nature of Fortune. Good fortune is temporal and vanishes quickly. \u00a0It deceives because it does not endure and human beings who experience it forget the true and highest good. \u00a0Adversity acts to draw us back to permanent things, that reside only in God and are under the control of Providence. \u00a0This work was not simply philosophical speculation for Boethius. \u00a0He wrote this work during his time in prison in the early 520s. \u00a0Boethius had lived as a philosopher and state official under the Ostrogothic king, Theodoric. \u00a0He accused Boethius of treason and imprisoned him. \u00a0Later, Boethius was executed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“What I want to tell you is something wonderful, which makes it very difficult for me to put it into words.\u00a0 For I think that ill fortune is better for men than good.\u00a0 Fortune always cheats when she seems to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,29,86,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boethius","category-government","category-philosophy","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1170,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions\/1170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}