. . . “But you, by being planted within
me, dispelled from the chamber of my soul all craving for that which perishes,
and where your eyes were looking there could be no place for any such
sacrilege. For you instilled into my ears, and thus into my daily thoughts,
that saying of Pythagoras, "Follow after God."
Nor was it seemly that I, whom you had
built up to such excellence that you made me as a god, should seek the support
of the basest wills of men.
“Yet, further, the innocent life within
my home, my gathering of most honorable friends, my father-in-law Symmachus, a
man esteemed no less in his public life than for his private conscientiousness,
these all put far from me all suspicion of this crime.
“But—O the shame of it!—it is from you
that they think they derive the warrant for such a charge, and we seem to them
to be allied to ill-doing from this very fact that we are steeped in the
principles of your teaching, and trained in your manners of life.
“Thus it is not enough that my deep
respect for you has profited me nothing, but you yourself have received wanton insult
from the hatred that had rather fallen on me.
“Yet besides this, is another load
added to my heap of woes: the judgment of the world looks not to the justice of
the case, but to the evolution of chance, and holds that only this has been
intended which good fortune may chance to foster. Whence it comes that the good
opinion of the world is the first to desert the unfortunate. It is wearisome to
recall what were the tales by people told, or how little their many various
opinions agreed". . . .
—from
Book 1, Prose 4
However
much Boethius may be ranting as he lays bare the wound, his rant is hardly
without an appeal to reason.
Philosophy
had taught him what was right, and had always reminded him to stay the course,
to cling to what is absolute and virtuous, never to be swayed by what is
changeable and vicious. She told him to follow the ways of God, not the ways of
men. Perhaps Boethius can even come to terms with the harm done to him, yet he
also considers many different aspects of how this injustice does an even deeper
harm. It affects not only the aspects of his life, but the conditions of the
whole world around him.
First, it
is one thing to accept suffering for oneself, and quite another to allow it to
be forced upon others. Boethius’ wife will be left a widow, his children
fatherless, and their reputations will be forever ruined by the scandal. His
friends, who had always looked to him for support, will no longer have that
reliable companion to turn to in in their time of need. They may remain
convinced of his innocence, but what are they truly to think of him, and how
will this affect their opinion of the Philosophy that he so loved?
I think
of a nineteenth century painting by Jean-Victor Schnetz, The Farewell of Consul Boethius to his Family, and I can only
ponder the deep personal loss and disappointment they must face, both by being
separated from him, and from having to experience the failure of the values he
had so cherished.
I have
never heard anything about what became of Boethius’ wife and children, though I
cannot imagine they emerged unscathed. His mentor and father-in-law, Symmachus,
was eventually also executed for his perceived role in the plot.
One of
the greatest burdens of my own life has been worrying what will become of my
own loved ones as a consequence of my actions, and whether they will end up
thinking of me with respect, or cursing my name.
Second, Philosophy
herself, as the champion of what is true and good, also suffers at the hands of
wickedness. When selfish and dishonest men act, they will disguise their vices
with the appearance of virtue. I may well know of their deception, but what
sort of an example does this provide to others? People will see the successes
of corrupt men, and they will see that those corrupt men have associated
themselves and their actions with wisdom and moral worth. What will anyone
think about virtue, when he has only the model of greedy people who claim to
practice virtue?
I think
of Colonel Slade from Scent of a Woman,
when he calls out the hypocrisy of the Baird School:
Mr.
Sims doesn't want it. He doesn't need to labeled: "Still worthy of being a
'Baird Man.'" What the hell is that? What is your motto here? "Boys,
inform on your classmates, save your hide"—anything short of that we're
gonna burn you at the stake?
Sadly,
that is exactly what too many of us will think we have learned, that character
is not about integrity, but about self-preservation. Every victory by a
scoundrel will encourage ten more to think it perfectly acceptable to be a
scoundrel.
Third, whenever
wrong triumphs over right, people become more and more convinced that there is
no longer any moral order in the world, but that our situation in this life is
only subject to the chaos of good luck or bad luck. If the wicked prosper, and
the righteous perish, how could that build a sense of trust in rewards and
punishments being fair? Perhaps, we will begin to think, there are no deeper
causes, there is no ultimate purpose, and we can never rely on justice.
I think
of all the times I see the guilty avoid what they deserve, and the innocent
denied what they deserve. Unlike the old movies, the villain in the black hat
often ends up running the town, and the hero in the white hat ends up shot in
the back. Popular opinion is left with only fortune as a measure, and too soon
we admire the fellow who happened to win, not the fellow who tried to do right.
The
burden of injustice isn’t just about what I must bear, but the horror of being
a witness to what so many others must bear, and how the love of truth is itself
lost in the whole process.
Written in 6/2015
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