gentleexit

Most biographies of Athanasius (the man behind the Trinity) claim that his enemies called him 'the black dwarf'. The "black" part seems to be popular - it makes Athanasius a hero of a sort. Some even propose celebrating him in "black history month".

But no one I've read sources the moniker and I've looked for it in the histories of the time but with no luck. Anyone know who first said the little (Julian said he was a manikin) man was black, specifically denigrated him as a "black dwarf"?

Is this just extrapolation? Egyptian, so black. Julian said he was little. Hence, surely someone called him ... Or is there an ancient source?

Toto

Christianity Today calls him a "short, dark-skinned Egyptian bishop."

If he was Egyptian, he probably had a dark complexion. "Black" could refer to his hair color (as in "black Irish.") "Paul" means "runt" - so there is some precedent for insulting nicknames.

Ben C Smith

My impression is that the ancients were not quite so sensitive about insulting nicknames as we are. The name of the orator Cicero means chickpea (or garbanzo bean), and he was allegedly named after an ancestor who had something that looked like a chickpea on his nose.

Ben.

Toto

But this doesn't answer the question of who exactly in antiquity called Athanasius the "black dwarf" or what record we have of it.

I suspect that Athan's enemies' works did not survive, but there might be some mention by a contemporary.

Roger Pearse

There ought to be an ancient source, if this is based on fact. I did a google search and found nothing but secondary sources of evidently non-academic nature.

One could look in Philostorgius, Sozomen and Socrates.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

avi

While "black" certainly does represent the absence of color, i.e. the absorption of all visible light, without reflecting any of it, it also conveys, at least in contemporary English, the sense of evil, wickedness, and lacking in moral quality of goodness, character traits which I personally ascribe to Athanasius, and suppose that the Arians likewise did so.

Thus I wonder whether this same, secondary meaning of "black" was also prevalent in that era, 1600 years ago, in those languages (Greek?) employed by the folks who described Athansius as "black". Were the three scholars cited by Roger: Philostorgius, Sozomen, and Socrates, men who simply used this epithet to describe Athanasius, or, were they authorities whose writings could make mention of the rationale for calling him "black"? Richard the Lionheart was not imagined as possessing a physically imposing thorax, but rather the character of magnanimity, or according to some sources, a bellicose nature of considerable dimension.

figuer

Are these the same people that claim Cleopatra and Hannibal were black?

Roger Pearse

Samuel Pepys uses the term in his Diary without any such sense to refer to fellow Englishmen.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Chili

Pure Reason is wherein a dwarf becomes a giant and that will make anybody black. The Trinity concept is a good example of this which in reality is very simple . . . except in the eyes of an Englishman (Dostoevski would say) where fog obscures the rational mind to make enlightenment sought.

Wasn't this why Caspar was black?

A similar concept is beards. Jesus is always shown with a beard until he was raised. So it looks like like the Romans gave him a shave and a haircut first.

Derec

He was an Alexandrian, a hellenistic city that was very cosmopolitan. There is really no way to guess his complexion from that bit of geography.