Overview
About this work
St Athanasius’s Against the Heathen is an early Christian defense of faith in the one true God. Beginning with humanity’s fall from the knowledge of God, he traces idolatry to the soul’s misuse of freedom and its fixation on created things. He then challenges pagan myths, images, sacrifices, and nature worship before turning positively to the rational soul and the ordered harmony of creation. The treatise culminates in the Word of God, through whom the Father creates, orders, sustains, and makes Himself known.
Setting
Historical context
Against the Heathen is the first half of the paired work usually read with On the Incarnation. Its exact date remains debated. Older scholarship often placed the two treatises around 318, before the Arian controversy, while later scholarship has argued for a post-Nicene date in the late 320s or early 330s. What is clear is that the work belongs to Athanasius’s early theological writing and contains no sustained anti-Arian polemic. Its apologetic setting addresses pagan religion and philosophical claims while already developing themes that continue directly into On the Incarnation.
Structure
Contents
The treatise moves in three broad stages. Sections 1–29 explain evil as a turning of the soul from God and offer an extended critique of idolatry, mythological gods, image worship, sacrifice, and the worship of nature. Sections 30–34 turn inward, arguing from the rational and immortal soul toward knowledge of God. Sections 35–47 turn outward again to the order and harmony of creation, arguing that the universe is governed by one divine Word. Athanasius closes by directing the reader from creation to the Father through His Word and toward the restoration of human life in Him.
Text & source details
Editions
- Edition
- Original Greek
- Reader label
- Ancient Greek
- Publication
- J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, vol. 25 (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1857), Oratio contra gentes, cols. 4–96.
- Date
- 1857
- Rights
- Historical 1857 edition; public domain in the United States. Other jurisdictions should be reviewed as appropriate.
- Edition
- Voices of the Fathers Modern English
- Reader label
- Modern English — VOTF
- Translator
- Voices of the Fathers editorial project
- Publication
- Voices of the Fathers
- Date
- 2026
- Rights
- Voices of the Fathers Modern English is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), to the extent copyright and related rights subsist in the translation and associated editorial material. Commercial reuse requires separate permission from Voices of the Fathers. The underlying ancient text and identified public-domain source editions retain their respective status.
- Edition
- Archibald Robertson (1892)
- Reader label
- English — Robertson (1892)
- Translator
- Archibald Robertson
- Publication
- A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Volume IV: Athanasius: Select Works and Letters (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1892).
- Date
- 1892
- Rights
- Published in 1892; public domain in the United States. CCEL identifies the historical NPNF text as public domain.
Text and edition sources
J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, vol. 25, S. P. N. Athanasii Archiepiscopi Alexandrini Opera Omnia (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1857), Oratio contra gentes, cols. 4–96.
Applies to: Ancient Greek Public domain historical edition. Source websiteAgainst the Heathen, Voices of the Fathers Modern English, Voices of the Fathers, 2026, CC BY-NC 4.0.
Applies to: Modern English — VOTF CC BY-NC 4.0 for the project-created translation/editorial contribution. Source websiteAgainst the Heathen, Voices of the Fathers Modern English, Voices of the Fathers, 2026, CC BY-NC 4.0.
Applies to: Modern English — VOTF Voices of the Fathers Modern English is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), to the extent copyright and related rights subsist in the translation and associated editorial material. Commercial reuse requires separate permission from Voices of the Fathers. The underlying ancient text and identified public-domain source editions retain their respective status. Source websiteArchibald Robertson, trans., “Against the Heathen,” in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. IV (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1892).
Applies to: English — Robertson (1892) Public domain in the United States. Source websiteLexical and concordance sources
James Strong, A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament (1890), as represented in the project concordance toolkit.
Public-domain historical lexicographic source where applicable.Voices of the Fathers editorial project, Against the Heathen Greek concordance recovery v21 (2026).
Overview research
Archibald Robertson, “Introduction to the Treatise Contra Gentes,” NPNF Second Series, vol. IV (1892).
Public domain. Source websiteMichael Slusser, “Athanasius, Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione: Place and Date of Composition,” Journal of Theological Studies 37.1 (1986): 114–117.
Source websiteBiblissima+, “Contre les païens” / Athanasius, Contra gentes.
Source website