''Ad fontes'' is a Latin expression which means " ackto the sources" (lit. "to the sources"). The phrase epitomizes the renewed study of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

classics in

Renaissance humanism Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ( it, umanista) referred to teache ...

. Similarly, the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and ...

called for renewed attention to the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

as the primary source of Christian faith. The idea in both cases was that sound knowledge depends on the earliest and most fundamental sources. This phrase is related to ''

ab initio ''Ab initio'' ( ) is a Latin term meaning "from the beginning" and is derived from the Latin ''ab'' ("from") + ''initio'', ablative singular of ''initium'' ("beginning"). Etymology Circa 1600, from Latin, literally "from the beginning", from ab ...

'', which means "from the beginning". Whereas ''ab initio'' implies a flow of thought from

first principles In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. First principles in philosophy are from First Cause attitudes and taught by Aristotelians, and nua ...

to the situation at hand, ''ad fontes'' is a retrogression, a movement back towards an origin, which ideally would be clearer than the present situation. The phrase ''ad fontes'' occurs in

Psalm 42 Psalm 42 is the 42nd psalm of the Book of Psalms, often known in English by its incipit, "As the hart panteth after the water brooks" (in the King James Version). The Book of Psalms is part of the third section of the Hebrew Bible, and a book ...

of the

Latin Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels us ...

: According to

Hans-Georg Gadamer Hans-Georg Gadamer (; ; February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 ''magnum opus'', '' Truth and Method'' (''Wahrheit und Methode''), on hermeneutics. Life Family ...

, there is evidence provided by E. Lledo that Spanish humanists drew the expression from this source.

Erasmus of Rotterdam Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...

used the phrase in his ''De ratione studii ac legendi interpretandique auctores'':"On the method of study and reading and interpreting authors." Erasmus von Rotterdam: De ratione studii ac legendi interpretandique auctores, Paris 1511, in: Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera omnia, ed. J. H. Waszink u. a., Amsterdam 1971, Vol. I 2, 79-151. {{quote, Sed in primis ad fontes ipsos properandum, id est graecos et antiquos. (Above all, one must hasten to the sources themselves, that is, to the Greeks and ancients.)

Notes

References

*J.D. Tracy, ''Ad Fontes: The Humanist Understanding of Scripture as Nourishment for the Soul,'' in ''Christian Spirituality II: High Middle Ages and Reformation'', (1987), editor Jill Raitt

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Classics
Latin words and phrases

See also

Notes

References

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