Introduction

In this re-issue in 1973 of Boethius’ Theological Tractates and Consolation of Philosophy the Loeb Classical Library has taken advantage of much revision and re-translation by S. J. Tester, of the Department of Classics, University of Bristol. The original rendering of the Tractates for the Library by Dr. H. F. Stewart and Professor E. K. Rand, besides inaccuracies, contained omissions, obscurities, paraphrases, and some needless archaisms; and the translation of the Consolatio by “I. T.” (1609), despite its virtues and the revision by Dr. Stewart, was too far removed from the purposes of the Loeb series, and has been relinquished. In this reprint therefore much of the translation of the Tractates and the whole of the translation of the Consolatio, with the notes also, are the work of Tester, whose aim was, in addition to correction, to produce throughout the volume a homogeneous rendering, reasonably literal, which would make philosophical sense. The following note on the text, written by Rand in 1918, still applies: “The text of the Opuscula Sacra is based on my own collations of all the important manuscripts of these works. In preparing the text of the Consolatio I have used the apparatus in Peiper’s edition (Teubner, 1871), since his reports, as I know in the case of the