"৳ What then is the consequence..? How does God foreknow these uncertain contingencies? For if he thinks a thing will inevitably happen, which possibly may not, he is deceived; which one can neither believe, nor say of God, without blasphemy. But if he perceives that things will happen according to their casual circumstances; if he knows that they either may or may not take place; what sort of prescience is this, which comprehends nothing certain..? May it not be... compared with the ridiculous divination of ? Whatever I say, either shall or shall not be. In what... is the prescience of God superior to the opinion of men, if... he judges with uncertainty... the event... not fixed?"
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Footnote: was a blind pirophet or soothsayer of Thebes. Boethius takes this ridiculous divination from Horace, who, to ridicule the foolish credulity of the Romans of his time, upon the article of divination, makes Tiresias reply to Ulysses, who was consulting him; O son of great Laertes! every thing Shall come to pass, or never, as I sing; For Phœbus, monarch of the tuneful Nine, Informs my soul, and gives me to divine.
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Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy
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