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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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75 Pages
Page 5
viii. Fifth-century historians, Palladius, Hist. Laus. 8, Socrates (H. E., i. 21) Sozomenus (i. 13) attest the established tradition of their day that Athanasius was the author of the Life.
ix. Augustine (Conf. viii. 14, 15, 19, 29) and Chrysostom (Hom. 8 on S. Matthew) mention the Vita without giving the name of the author. But we are not entitled to cite them as witnesses to its (alleged) anonymity, which they neither affirm nor imply.
The above witnesses, all of whom excepting No. viii. come within 50 years of the death of Athanasius, are a formidable array. No other work of Athanasius can boast of such external evidence in its favour. And in the face of such evidence it is impossible to place the composition later than the lifetime of the great Bishop. We have therefore to ask whether the contents of the Vita are in irreconcileable conflict with the result of the external evidence: whether they point, not indeed to a later age, for the external evidence excludes this, but to an author who during the lifetime of Athanasius (i.e. not later than the year of his death) ventured to publish a hagiographic romance in his name ('Evagrian' heading, and S:S:71, 82).
3. Internal Evidence. It may be remarked in limine that for the existence of Anthony there is not only the evidence of the Vita itself, but also that of many other fourth-century documents (see above 1.a. under 'sources'). Weingarten quite admits this (R. E., X. 774, but he implies the contrary in his Zeit-tafeln, ed. 3, p. 228); and Mr. Gwatkin is certainly far ahead of his evidence when he pronounces (Arian Controversy, p. 48) that Anthony 'never existed.'
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/anthony-life.asp?pg=5
