189 see also Das Mönchtum u.s.w., Giessen, 1886), Möller, Lehrb. without absolutely pronouncing for him as the author, while Hase ( J. 1878) put the book in the lifetime of Ath. 130, &c., characterises Weingartens attack on the Vita as too bold. Keim ( Aus dem Urchr. zeitalter, reprinted in 1877 from Zeitschrift für K.G. In more recent times the attack has been led by Weingarten ( Ursprung des Mönchtums in nachkonst. All the above belong to the period before 1750. We may add, as more or less unbiassed defenders of the Vita, Cave ( Hist. in Vitam et Scripta S.A., and the Monitum in Antonii Vitam, which latter may still claim the first rank in critical discussions of the problem). To the former class belong the Magdeburg Centuriators, Rivet, Basnage, Casimir Oudin to the latter, Bellarmin, Noel Alexandre, and above all Montfaucon in the Benedictine edition of Athanasius (especially in the Vita Athanasii, Animadversio II. Since the Reformation the general tendency of protestant writers has been to discredit, of Roman Catholics to maintain the authority of the Vita. (in Archives des Missions scientifiques et littéraires, 3me, série, 1879, vol. copticorum reliquiæ, (Bologna, 1785), Revillout, Rapport sur une mission, etc. Copticorum, (Rome, 1810), Mingarelli, Codd. Coptic fragments and documents (for early history of Egyptian monasticism with occasional details about Antony) in Zoega, Catalogus codd. (written late in the fourth century, but by a person who had known Pachomius). The only reference to Antony in other writings of Athanasius is in Hist. In attempting this, while holding no brief for either side, I may as well at once state my opinion on the evidence, namely that, genuine as are many of the difficulties which surround the question, the external evidence for the Vita is too strong to allow us to set it aside as spurious, and that in view of that evidence the attempts to give a positive account of the book as a spurious composition have failed.ġ. But the point is at any rate worthy of careful and dispassionate examination.
Monasticism, with all its good and evil, is a great outgrowth of human life and instinct, a great fact in the history of the Christian religion and whether its origin is to be put fifty years earlier or later (for that is the net value of the question at issue) is a somewhat small point relatively to the great problems which it offers to the theologian, the historian, and the moralist.
In doing so, I can honestly disclaim any bias for or against the Vita, or monasticism. To assist his judgment, it will be attempted in the following paragraphs to state the main reasons on either side.
As it is, the question being still in dispute, although the balance of qualified opinion is on the side of the Athanasian authorship, it is well that the reader should have the work before him and judge for himself. If on the other hand its spurious and unhistorical character had been finally demonstrated, its insertion would be open to just objections. If that claim were undisputed, no apology would be needed for its presence in this volume. Antony is included in the present collection partly on account of the important influence it has exercised upon the development of the ascetic life in the Church, partly and more especially on the ground of its strong claim to rank as a work of Athanasius.
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