jamesgray2

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

796J Boethius , Anicius Manlius Severinus

Anicii Manlii Torquai Serverini  BOETHII de consolatione philosophiæ Libri V

Oxonii Typis Will Hall, Anno Dom. 1663                                    Price $1,100

Sextodecimo 9 x 7 cm. A6 B- O8, This tiny copy is very clean internally. There is small abrasion on the title, not affecting text.  The margins are of good size and the text is free of any staining or worming of any kind. Bound in full modern calf.

This rare copy is undoubtedly made for Oxford students to carry with them. The Consolation of philosophy is written as a dialogue in five books between Boethius and “Lady Philosophy,” an allegorical figure who appears to him in a vision while he is languishing in jail under sentence of death for treason.

  “Boethius a celebrated Roman philosopher and statesman, born about 475 A.D. He was liberally educated, and well instructed in Greek philosophy. When about thirty-three, he was elected consul. His administration was beneficent and favorable to the oppressed. He translated the works of Plato and other Greek writers into Latin, wrote commentaries on Aristotle, and acquired a great reputation as an author. He held several high offices under Theodoric the Goth, but, having been accused by some envious courtiers of conspiring against the government, he was unjustly condemned by that king and executed about 525 A.D. 

The  ‘De Consolatione Philosophiae,’ written in prison, where he was confined just before his death. It is composed of alternate portions of verse and prose. ‘Few books,’ says Hallam, ‘are more striking from the circumstances of their production. Last of the classic writers, in style not impure, […] in elevation of sentiment equal to any of the philosophers, and mingling a Christian sanctity with their lessons, he speaks from his prison in the swanlike tones of dying eloquence. Quenched in his blood, the lamp he had trimmed with a skillful hand, gave no more light; the language of Tully and Virgil soon ceased to be spoken.’ (Introduction to the Literature of Europe) His great work was very popular in the middle ages, and was translated into various languages.” (Thomas’ Pronouncing Dictionary)

“ The Consolation of Philosophy is committed (by way of Proclus’ commentary on the Timaeus, it has been suggested) to a platonic doctrine of ideas and of reminiscence: the soul is of divine elements on which its knowledge depends; it is in need only of the quickening power of sense perception to arouse it to a knowledge of ideas at rest within it. The developments of that notion bring echoes, one after the other, of pythagoreanism, neoplatonism, stoicism, and augustinism. Yet, as if these came too near to a dereliction from Aristotelian 

principles, Boethius expounds the Trinity, in the work which shows most clearly the augustinian influence, by applying the ten categories to the persons and their relations. At the bottom of these diversified philosophic affiliations is the conviction, often explicit, that there was a single philosophy of the Greeks, to be grasped best in the reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle.

 That, however, was a lesson Boethius had learned from pagan Roman philosophers; even before the coming of Christianity a change in the attitude toward philosophy had instituted a metaphysical conservatism. The distinctions by which the Greeks thought to have divided themselves into opposed schools are needless subtleties when abstract thought is to be invoked (as it is in the very title of four works of Seneca and one work of Boethius) for refuge, or salvation, or relief, or consolation.” (quoted from Selections from Medieval Philosophers I, by Richard McKeon, page 68-69)

Boethius became the connecting link between the logical and metaphysical science of antiquity and the scientific attempts of the Middle Ages.

Wing, B3430; Madan, F. Oxford books, III, 2633; (ESTC), R35351

SIXTEENTH CENTURY

754J   Aeschylus (c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC), Willem Canter 1542-1575. 

Αισχύλου τραγῳδίαι Ζ =.  Æschyli tragœdiæ VII. In quibus præter infinita menda sublata, carminum omnium ratio, hactenus ignorata, nunc primum proditur; opera Gulielmi Canteri. VLTRAIECTINI.

Antuerpiæ : Ex officina Christophori Plantini, architypographi regij, 1580.               Price $ 2,000

Duodecimo 12 x 8.5 cm. Signatures: A-Z⁸ (Z⁷, Z⁸ blank) Bound in full blind stamped pig skin over boards clasps lacking. a very sweet copy.

This handy copy of the plays from the father of Tragedy.  Aeschylus entered many  city competitions for the best play  of   Dionysia of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him.  Only these seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus’s extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia. This is the first canter edition, Willem Canter was a classical scholar from Utrecht. He edited the Eclogues of Stobaeus and the tragedies of Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus.

Adams A-270; Voet, L. Plantin Press, 1555-1589,no. 11; Cockx-Indestege, E. Belgica typographica 38; STCV 12920582; Brunet I, 78.

FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Henry Suso: Mystic to Women and Servent to Eternal Wisdom A rare and wonderful copy!

573J  Henricus Suso. (1295-1366)

 Horologium aeternae sapientiae.

Cologne: Johann Landen, December 1500/1501. PRICE $15,000

Octavo, 13.4 x 10cm. Signatures A-Q⁸. In this copy there are lombard initials in red and blue, one with dog-head decoration, red capital strokes, paragraph marks, and underlining. 

A Woodcut appears three times, on title, title verso, and verso of final leaf (margin of f. 2 slightly extended, occasional damp stains at gutter and edges, a few leaves in gathering O stained and one with short closed tear). Bound in modern vellum with manuscript antiphonal leaf reused as pastedowns. 

No copies of this edition are recorded at auction by ABPC or RBH.

https://data.cerl.org/istc/is00876500

Holdings: GermanyWuppertal StB & Russia Moscow, [Russian State Library] Rossijskaja Gosudarstvennaja Biblioteka (Berlin copy). Number of holding institutions 2. 

Last Edit2016-07-13 12:00:00.00.

The German Mystics of the fourteenth century, Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler and Heinrich Suso, seemed to be constantly Willing the ability of Unwillingness. Perhaps Eckhart is the most profoundly speculatively blunt so much so that he was accused of heresy and brought up before the local Franciscan-led Inquisition, and tried as a heretic but died before a verdict. Tauler intern provides neo-platonic richness and logic to this position. Suso’s is to explore the territory through emotion. Suso’s first books , Büchlein der Wahrheit (Little Book of Truth) and Das Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit (The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom) were written in German and structured as instructions and explanations for Beginners as well as a defense and adaptation of Eckharts spiritual views. 

Eckhart tells us : “Be willing to be a beginner every single morning”

Likewise Suso writes of himself in his Autobiography “The inward impulse, which he had received 8from God, urged him to turn away entirely from every thing which might be a hindrance to him. The tempter met this with the suggestion:—Bethink thee better. ” (First printed Cologne A.D. 1535.) Suso proceeds to expose the interior to the elements and deals with in good spirit.  The Clock of Eternal Wisdom, exhibits not only faith but trust in the unknown, Like Walter Hilton before him, and Thomas à Kempis after him, Suso dwells poetically and thoughtfully on the frustrations and disappointments as well as spiritualising ways of dealing with them by servitude to that which is beyond perception.

Suso Belongs in the Higherarchy of Great books 

of internal spiritual quest along with 

Boethius, Dante and à Kempis

VD16 S 6103; ISTC is00876500; Goldschmidt p. 135. See Ford BPH 177 (first edition) and 178 (fourth edition). [APA citation. McMahon, A. (1910). Blessed Henry Suso. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved April 27, 2022 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/ cathen/07238c.htm%5D

https://data.cerl.org/istc/is00876500

Holdings: GermanyWuppertal StB & RussiaMoscow, [Russian State Library] Rossijskaja Gosudarstvennaja Biblioteka (Berlin copy). Number of holding institutions 2.