THE TRINITY IS ONE GOD NOT THREE GODS

A TREATISE BY ANICIUS MANLIUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS MOST HONOURABLE, OF THE
ILLUSTRIOUS ORDER OF EX-CONSULS, PATRICIAN

TO HIS FATHER-IN-LAW, QUINTUS AURELIUS MEMMIUS SYMMACHUS
MOST HONOURABLE, OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS ORDER OF EX-CONSULS, PATRICIAN

I have long pondered this problem with such mind as I have and all the
light that God has lent me. Now, having set it forth in logical order
and cast it into literary form, I venture to submit it to your judgment,
for which I care as much as for the results of my own research. You will
readily understand what I feel whenever I try to write down what I think
if you consider the difficulty of the topic and the fact that I discuss
it only with the few--I may say with no one but yourself. It is indeed
no desire for fame or empty popular applause that prompts my pen; if
there be any external reward, we may not look for more warmth in the
verdict than the subject itself arouses. For, apart from yourself,
wherever I turn my eyes, they fall on either the apathy of the dullard
or the jealousy of the shrewd, and a man who casts his thoughts before
the common herd--I will not say to consider but to trample under foot,
would seem to bring discredit on the study of divinity. So I purposely
use brevity and wrap up the ideas I draw from the deep questionings of
philosophy in new and unaccustomed words which speak only to you and to