Letter 6006: Philosophy has nothing to teach a man who has already surpassed his teachers.
Ennodius of Pavia→Boethius|c. 497 AD|Ennodius of Pavia
education booksfriendship
From: Ennodius, deacon and literary figure in Pavia
To: Boethius [almost certainly the philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, later author of The Consolation of Philosophy]
Date: ~497 AD
Context: An early letter to the young Boethius — one of the most brilliant minds of late antiquity, who would later be executed by Theoderic. Ennodius addresses him with a mixture of admiration and the easy familiarity of shared aristocratic culture.
To Boethius, from Ennodius.
Philosophy has nothing to teach a man who has already surpassed his teachers. The silence of the ancients, once they had said all there was to say, is the model I should follow. But I cannot keep quiet when affection demands a hearing.
I write to you not as a teacher — heaven forbid — but as a friend who takes delight in your gifts and wants to be counted among those who recognized your worth before the world confirmed it. Your learning is already the talk of Italy. What remains is for you to remember that even learned men owe letters to their friends.
I await your reply with the eagerness of a man who knows the quality of what he is about to receive. Farewell.
VI. BOETIO ENNODIVS.
Par quidem fuerat unis litteris magnitudinis tuae respondisse
simpliciter nec geminare debere conloquia semel obnoxium:
sed cautione ad hoc, non inscitia deuolutus sum. de utrisque
enim epistulis una obsequitur debito, altera praestatur affectui.
credite, nefas putaui non cum faenore suo restituere quod
mens uenerabilis prima contulerat. dulciora sunt ante exemplum
bona diligentiae, nec tantum habet uirium aut genii
1 malitiae L patrocinii T 4 inclyti BTV (sed y B corr.)
1
principiis BlL, principia V 6 domina L* adcedit B 9 eripnet
B grandiorum fort . comulum praextuleris B 12 notitiae]
etiam notitiae B 15 dioina ex dioitia T m. » nos cara]
natura b et tn. ree . s. I. B 16 mihi L 17 perscriptum B
18 diffunderẽnt B
YL 22 siplicit L 28 scitia L 24 preetatnr LV affec-
hi. B 25 pntatjj T1 faenore V, foenore L, fenore BT
qui amicitiarum callem secundus ingreditur: summatim sibi
gratiam non potest uindicare cui in amore forma praestatur:
inpudentiae est non respondere caritati, cum manifestet res
bene orta uirtutem. haec in festinatione perlatoris celer scripsi:
latius posthac uerba diffundam nec maciem ingenii mei, dum
merita uestra respiciuntur, aspiciam, si tamen desideriis meis
tabellarum frequentiam commodetis. domine mi, salutationis
uberrimae seruitia dependens quaeso, ut memoriam proximitatis
uos habere resignent promulgata sine intermissione conloquia.
◆
From:Ennodius, deacon and literary figure in Pavia
To:Boethius [almost certainly the philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, later author of The Consolation of Philosophy]
Date:~497 AD
Context:An early letter to the young Boethius — one of the most brilliant minds of late antiquity, who would later be executed by Theoderic. Ennodius addresses him with a mixture of admiration and the easy familiarity of shared aristocratic culture.
To Boethius, from Ennodius.
Philosophy has nothing to teach a man who has already surpassed his teachers. The silence of the ancients, once they had said all there was to say, is the model I should follow. But I cannot keep quiet when affection demands a hearing.
I write to you not as a teacher — heaven forbid — but as a friend who takes delight in your gifts and wants to be counted among those who recognized your worth before the world confirmed it. Your learning is already the talk of Italy. What remains is for you to remember that even learned men owe letters to their friends.
I await your reply with the eagerness of a man who knows the quality of what he is about to receive. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.