C.S. Lewis, the Boethius of his day

In this issue of Credo Mag, we sit down with Jason Baxter to reflect on the life of C.S. Lewis and his love for Boethius. In his book, The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis, Dr. Baxter introduces us to the major influences of one of the twentieth century’s most influential figures: C.S. Lewis. Though many today would not know it, Lewis was heavily inspired by Boethius, who lived 1500 years before him. Whether we are aware of it or not, we owe much of our culture to the great mind of Boethius. So, in this interview, Dr. Baxter invites us to reflect on why Boethius mattered to C.S. Lewis and why he matters for us today.

How was C.S. Lewis the Boethius of his day? 

Boethius was living at the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire. Lewis thought he was also living through a period of cultural collapse, in which “Old Western” (the basic Christian and classical philosophy regarding the world and human morality) was under siege, this time, by new Barbarians. These Barbarians were, you could say borrowing from Lewis’s contemporary, T.S. Eliot, “worshippers of the machine.” If you need a mental image, just think about Weston and Devine, who think that everyone who doesn’t possess the progressive mindset should be sterilized and colonized. In this way, Lewis, who was perhaps the best-read man of his age, and who also could read all the classics in Italian, Latin, French, and Greek, felt that he had a similar role for his world that Boethius had played in late antiquity. They both acted rather like a curator of a museum would if his museum caught on fire: sound the alarm and then start grabbing as many paintings off the wall before the place burns down. Lewis thought he didn’t have the luxury to be a scholar with surgical precision: he was just trying to save the pre-modern worldview in its broad outline.

Lewis thought he didn’t have the luxury to be a scholar with surgical precision: he was just trying to save the pre-modern worldview in its broad outline. Share on X

How does C.S. Lewis model for us on how to view the past?

There’s a great statue by Bernini depicting Aeneas’s escape from Rome. The Roman hero, famous for his pietas, leads his son forward while carrying his age father on his shoulders. Anchises, the father, has the household gods. I think an image like this helps us understand Lewis: the way forward must involve a backwards-looking glance. Lewis always maintains a sense of reverence for the past, in direct contradiction to what he called the “chronological snobbery” of his day. If Homer or Ariosto or Dante seem strange, wait before you speak in criticism: it might be us we are the aberrant culture. 

What is your favorite writing of Boethius and why?

This is an easy question to answer because Boethius’ best writing is clearly, easily, and obviously the Consolation of Philosophy. If you assigned his other treatises to undergrads, they would think he was a bore, because he is very pedantic and very dialectical. The great tragedy of his life–being imprisoned on false charges of treason–turns out to have been the best thing for his writing: deprived of his library and that otium (leisure for contemplation) a Roman man felt he needed for thinking, he was made to sum up his life’s aspirations. But because he was also heartsick, he included poetry that was meant to retune the soul, even before the more severe therapies of philosophy. Thus, Consolation is more human than anything else he wrote. It’s also more beautiful than, say, his treatise on music, because in Consolation he’s not just interested in reflecting on the deep laws of some academic study but in trying to persuade his heart to agree with his head.

If you were introducing Boethius to a group of high-schoolers, how would you do it?

Woof. This would be difficult. It’s even hard for college students. The Platonic ideal would be to have a group of advanced Latin students with whom you could read some of the best poems (I.1, II.9, III.8). But in less Platonic circumstances? I would read Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio” or at least my chapter that touches on the “Dream of Scipio” from my Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis. There are some extraordinary passages about retuning the soul to the music of the spheres. I would then introduce my students to how Boethius sounded when sung by medieval monks. There’s a wonderful team of scholars and musicians who reconstructed something of the sound of the music assigned to Boethius. Or I might let them listen to a contemporary composer’s setting, Pierre Chepelov. I think hearing Boethius put to music might make people more patient for the deep arguments of Books III, IV, and V. But these are very hard chapters. I wrote about them in an accessible way in a chapter in Handbook of Literary Apologetics, and I have plans to post that chapter on my Substack, Beauty Matters.Reading” should mean more than looking at all the words in the right order. We need well-trained guides to go through these things. Share on X

You mention that C.S. Lewis’ vocation, like Boethius’, was “the humble one of making old books live again.” So, what texts from the past do you believe are the most important to make “live again” in our own day?

The truth is, we’re in a real crisis of literacy: students are having a harder and harder time with the very act of reading. Their imaginations have been flattened by social media and advertising. They are quite literally addicted to these forms of media, which are designed to be addictive. It’s hard to overstate the urgency of our situation, to which most of us willingly turn a blind eye (I tried to begin diagnosing the situations in my Why Literature Still Matters and Falling Inward). And so, I think we have to be really smart about what we mean by “reading.” Reading” should mean more than looking at all the words in the right order. We need well-trained guides to go through these things. But, with that having been said, I’ve had the most success teaching the following to college and high school students: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey; Plato’s Symposium and the first half of the Phaedrus (although the context of Greek pederasty is, understandably, a real barrier to appreciating the deeper arguments); Augustine’s Confessions; Boethius’s Consolation; and Dante’s Comedy. I suppose it’s no surprise that I’ve spent the past ten years writing about these texts and trying to make readers see and feel why they matter. 

How does Boethius teach us to confront the “problem of evil” in Book 2 of the Consolation?

Boethius really wants to confront the problem of evil throughout the Consolation, but Book 2 is the most accessible. In that book, Boethius is using “Stoical” arguments (as opposed to the industrial-strength Platonic arguments that will show up in Books 4 and 5). These arguments are a series of therapeutic arguments in which Boethius has to help himself re-contextualize his loss of position, family, wealth, dreams, and ambitions: all the things he worked for. And so, he conducts a series of thought experiments: even now, even if you are rich and famous, if you went to a foreign country, say, Pakistan or Bosnia, would they know who you are? You’re not as famous as you think you are. And so, if you lose fame, how much have you lost? Boethius also creates a famous literary character, Lady Fortune, who has a wheel, by which she distributes worldly goods. The wheel is always spinning. In one age, America is the dominant power in the world. In the previous age, it was England. Before that, France. Before that, Italy. Before that, Byzantium. Before that, Rome, then Greece, Babylon, etc. This is the way of the world: you can’t hold onto it. And so, Boethius thinks, if it’s taken away from you, you’ll be less surprised.   

Who are some authors that you believe embody the lives of C.S. Lewis and Boethius today?

These were great men, and so I don’t want to be misunderstood if I compare myself to them, but as it turns out, I have modeled my study of literature on them. I think my problem is that I spend so much time reading old books, it’s hard for me to identify living writers! I admire a number of writers like Nicholas Carr, Paul Kingsnorth, Byung-Chul Han, and Iain McGilchrist who do a good job in diagnosing our cultural situation. But I also think that in our adrenaline-junky culture, we like reading authors who tell us about the problems more than we like doing the slow, quiet work of healing. If we lose access to words, we lose access to our ability to draw forth from our hearts our deepest selves. Share on X

What are the dangers of ignoring the centuries that came before us, and how does Boethius teach us to avoid those dangers?

We’re about to find out… I’ve already touched on this above, I think, and I go into this at greater length in Why Literature Still Matters and on my piece “The Secret of your Loneliness,” on my Substack, Beauty Matters. In short, I think if we ignore the past and the mode of reading it–that is, it’s not just a correct set of opinions, but a praxis, a practice, a discipleship, a formation–then we will be (and are, already becoming…) more lonely, more anxious, more shallow, easier to manipulate by propaganda and marketing, less capable of being still, and, in short, less capable of loving well. Why? A lot of people would think these claims are hyperbolic, and I do admit a tendency to hyperbole! In short–and here I’m quickly summarizing my reading of Richard Wilbur’s immortal poem, “Advice to a Prophet” from the last chapter of Why Literature Still Matters– if we lose access to words, we lose access to our ability to draw forth from our hearts our deepest selves.

Photo credit: Slices of Light