Deos Fieri

Abstract

In Boethius’s Consolatio Philosophiae (CP), Lady Philosophy claims that happy people become gods. I argue that close attention to Lady Philosophy’s use of Platonic predication resolves four interpretive challenges posed by this claim: (i) the apparent discrepancy in CP iii 10.24, (ii) the use of deus rather than divinus in CP iii 10.24-25a, (iii) the timing of deification in CP iii 10.24, and (iv) the repudiation of polytheism in CP iii 10.25b.