So I need some help folks. I’m working on a paper about the life of Athanasius. I’ve read all the major secondary sources and a good bit of the primary stuff. Surprisingly, I have yet to come across the famed “contra mundum” statement. So this is where you come in. Did Athanasius ever actually say anything like the “Athanasius contra mundum” that we all know today? If so, could you kindly point me to the original source?
tnx.
It’s always seemed a bit odd to me–why would Athanasius, a Greek Father, have used Latin for his most famous quote?
It was said of Athanasius not by him. I believe it was meant as a derogatory statement by one of his opponents to show that Athansius was alone in his aberrant views and that he was essentially saying the rest of Christendom was wrong. I would have to check further to find out who coined it though
Here is what I found in a footnote in NPNF
The proverbial expression is conjectured by Dean Stanley to be derived from the Latin version of the famous passage concerning Athanasius in Hooker, Ecc. Pol. v. 42. Vide Stanley, Grk. Church, lect. vii.
This comes from the print edition NPNF vol 8 (letters of Basil) in the Prolegomena page xxix footnote 17
hope that helps
Okay last one (this follows up the Dean Stanely ref): The Hooker reference can be found in the Everyman’s library edition of his Eccels Polity- (vol 2- which is Hooker’s vol 5) on page 165. you can also find it in google books. Here is the link: http://books.google.com/books?id=WgMPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA126&dq=richard+hooker+laws+of+ecclesiastical+polity+athanasius
Lloyd,
That is fascinating! Thanks.
Steven, you should try to incorporate the sample sentence from the first definition at UrbanDictionary.com:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=athanasius+contra+mundum
Theo that is maybe the best comment on this blog ever.