Dante Alighieri
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Roman Roads Classics
Boethius · AD 524 · Philosophy
The Consolation of Philosophy
Adapted into modern English with an introduction by Brent E. Karding
Written in prison, awaiting execution: Lady Philosophy talks a grieving man out of self-pity and back to the truth about God.
Love, all-sovereign Love!—oh, then,
You are blessed, you sons of men,
If the love that rules the sky
In your hearts is throned on high!
About the book
Embracing emotion is not the answer. Remembering truth about God is.
At the heart of Boethius’s most famous book lies a familiar problem: injustice. For him, this wasn’t an academic chin-scratcher for egg-headed intellectuals to discuss. Like a roaring tiger, it was shredding his relationship with God and threatening his very life as he sat imprisoned, falsely accused of treason. He wrote this book to declaw that tiger.
He discovered the danger of wallowing in emotion, and the necessity of thinking diligently and deeply about God. He found consolation as he sat in the rubble heap of his life, joy in rediscovering the sovereign love of God. In other words, he found satisfaction in doing philosophy—and he wrote this book to help you taste that love and share that joy.
This edition brings H. R. James’s 1897 translation into modern English. Brent Karding changed about a quarter of the words, the “thee” and the “hadst,” and kept James’s rhymed, metered verse for the poems. Every chapter opens with a short summary, and footnotes explain the names a reader won’t know.
“So when our youngest daughter needed heart surgery the day after she was born, I took the Consolation with me to our hospital room. It was like bringing a friend to put his arm around me and encourage me with solid, unchanging truth.”
Look inside
Prose and song
The full contents5 books · 170 pages
- Introductionvii
- Murderous Monsters · Fickle Fortune · True Philosophy · Suffering · Satisfaction · Sovereignty · With Plato I Emphatically Agree · Why No Bible? · My Modernization Philosophy · How to Read This Book
- Book IThe Sorrows of Boethius3
- Book IIThe Vanity of Fortune’s Gifts23
- Book IIITrue and False Happiness49
- Book IVGood and Bad Fortune90
- Book VFree Will and God’s Foreknowledge123
Taught in Old Western Culture
Romans: Nicene Christianity · from $74.75Year Two, Unit 4: Nicene Christianity
Wes Callihan’s unit on the Nicene age ends with a lecture on Boethius, after Athanasius, John Chrysostom, and Augustine’s Confessions and City of God.
After Hours · Aug 14, 2026 · 1 h 35 minThe Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius - Brent Karding
Roman Roads After Hours, with Brent Karding, author of a new introduction and modernization of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. Title: Life, Loss, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Boethius's Struggle and Solution in The Consolation of Philosophy. Purchase The Consolation of Philosophy, modernized by Brent Karding with a new introduction.
The editor
Brent E. Karding
Brent Karding lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, with his wife and four children. His passion to help people know and delight in Jesus Christ led him to teach at a Christian college, to create Bible study courses and coach students around the world at biblearc.com, to write choral music and hymns, and currently to preach expositional sermons at the church he pastors. He discovered the Consolation through his love for old books and for the writing of C. S. Lewis, and is currently focusing on it for his Master of Theology thesis at Toronto Baptist Seminary.
Publishing information
- Author
- Boethius
- Translation
- H. R. James (1897), adapted into modern English by Brent E. Karding
- Introduction
- Brent E. Karding
- Format
- Paperback, 5.5 × 8.5 in · 170 pages
- Edition
- 2025
- Audiobook
- Read by Brent Karding, with ten recorded discussions with Bill Emberley
- Series
- Roman Roads Classics
- ISBN
- 978-1-963505-21-4
- With thanks to
- Biblearc, for their collaboration
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