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Boethius.  Consolatio Philosophiae.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius (480-525 AD) serves as a bridge between the ancient world and the medieval world.  His translation of Aristotle's logic and other writers' math into Latin served as the basis for medieval education for centuries, especially as scholars lost their ability to read Greek.  Some of his logic is still in use today, such as the Square of Opposition, also known as the Logic Square. Because he was an eminent scholar, Boethius also served Theodoric the Great and rose in power.  His political work eventually brought him into disfavor with the emperor, and he was imprisoned before being executed.

Boethius wrote the Consolatio Philosophiæ in response to his imprisonment. Despondent over his changing fortune (he bequeathed the popular figure of the Rota Fortunæ, the Wheel of Fortune, to the Middle Ages), he fell into a deep sleep and had a dream vision.  The dream vision also becomes a standard type of medieval literature.  The events in the dream are allegorical.  The characters in the dream are personifications of virtues, vices, etc. 

Boethius combines ancient philosophy and Christian thinking in his work.  That's my thesis -- there is a debate within the scholarly community over the influence of Christianity on the work.  He was involved with the early church in his career, so I'm assuming that Christianity played a role in the work. It's not an obvious role, but Consolatio lays the groundwork for the medieval synthesis of ancient thought, Jewish, Christian, Greek, and Roman.  They certainly talk about God, but that could theoretically be a philosophical deity rather than a specifically Christian one.  This marks a choice that the early church made in its relationship to the larger culture.  The church debated whether it should adopt the broader culture or avoid it.  Tertullian expressed one side of the debate:  "Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis" - "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"  The anti-intellectual tradition in the church certainly has strong support at times, whether it's the whole Galileo fiasco or the Creationism Museum in Kentucky, also a fiasco.  

Boethius comes down on the other side of the debate in the role of the arts in society.  At the outset of the dream, Philosophia banishes the Muses because they work in the realm of illusion; Philosophy will lead him to true reality.  This is a neo-Platonic strand in the vision.  Plato in the Republic argues that the perfect utopia will banish poets (and by extension other artists) because they lead people into illusion and away from reality.  This approach is the opposite of the one taken by Aristotle.  In the Poetics, he argues that drama is superior to history because history deals with the particulars and accidental occurrences, while drama deals with universal truths. 

Sometimes we have the impression that the path to Truth is by adding up all the facts:

The Aristotlian approach treats facts and Truth as separate categories.  Going back to Jonah, if it turns out to be a parable rather than literal events, the Truth of the message remains unaffected in the Aristotelian universe.  Of course, Plato and Boethius both resort to allegory (stories that aren't factual) to communicate deeper truths.

Boethius also incorporates some elements of Stoicism into his dialogue with Philosophy.  Stoicism held that there were things that 'mattered' (διαφορα diaphora) and things that 'didn't matter' (αδιαφορα adiaphora).  They didn't mean it in the way we do -- it's closer to things we can change and things we can't.  The Serenity Prayer is basically a stoic prayer:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

 Boethius cannot alter being in jail or his eventual execution.  But he can change his reaction to his circumstance.