| Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy is written in poetry and prose with dramatic and mythic aspects. These two genres of writing, with their different aspects, enable the argument to have a fully human movement. The free activity of the prisoner's soul must include every level of his knowing: sense, imagination, reason, and intellect. The argument is at once this fully human movement and also a movement toward and within the divine. The prisoner's ascent through the various modes of his self is effected by Lady Philosophy's systematic treatment. She is Sapientia of an ambiguous stature. She is the divine Wisdom and, as such, is incomprehensible to natural human knowing. However, she is also present to each of the levels of human knowing and is, therefore, a divine ladder with human rungs by which Boethius might ascend. It is her ambiguous stature which enables her to treat each of the levels of Boethius' soul. The argument thus moves both internally and externally. What underlies the relation between this subjective freedom and the divine activity is a formula which preserves the various modes of knowing by distinguishing them. Ultimately, the divine life both grounds the self's movement towards it and is present within that movement. The grace of God which effects the full conversion of the entire human personality is thus a work both human and divine. The means of this full conversion, which is both internal and external and, therefore, both human and divine, is prayer. Prayer is the proper activity of each level of the self in relation to God as its principle. This human activity is, at the same time, God's activity in each mode. Prayer lifts the whole prisoner to his highest felicity. Only thus conceived, is the argument of the Consolation disclosed. |
