Siiri Toiviainen Rø: Idolatry as Hedonism in Athanasius’ Contra gentes: Echoes of Anti-Epicurean Polemics

In Contra gentes, Athanasius gives an account of the origin of evil in which the fall is attributed to a turn away from the true good towards sensual pleasure mistakenly regarded as the good. As the soul leaves behind the original contemplation, it gradually comes to believe that only visible phenomena, available to the senses in the present moment, truly exist. This ethical and epistemic error lies at the heart of Athanasius’ conception of idolatry: having forgotten the immaterial and intelligible God, the soul attaches the term to perceptible objects and fails to understand that an invisible Creator sustains the visible creation.In this paper I argue that Athanasius’ account of the origin of idolatry can be fruitfully read as an echo of ancient anti-Epicurean polemics. While Athanasius makes no mention of the Epicureans, he accuses the ‘Greeks’ of several errors that belong among the key charges of anti-Epicurean polemics (pleasure as the good; reliance on sense perception; rejection of providence). I suggest that reading Athanasius’ account alongside anti-Epicurean writings both from Christian and non-Christian sources can help us better understand the cultural and intellectual embeddedness of early Christian polemics against idolaters and heretics as pleasure seekers. And, conversely, we can get a more complete picture of anti-Epicurean polemics by extending our perspective to its ‘afterlife’ in fourth-century Christian sources where its most popular charges enjoy a life of their own, separated from direct allusions to Epicureanism.