# Spes contra spem



## Joan bolets

Hello,

Does anybody know what this saying implies? The translation it's 'hope against hope' but i quite don't get it. I've found it on an article in italian, whose exercpt is reproduced here:

_Ma in realtà, anticipando un'uscita di scena che in tanti avrebbero voluto rinviare all'indomani delle elezioni europee, ha di fatto restituito la parola a questi stati maggiori, al momento peggio che squinternati, caricandoli di una pesantissima responsabilità politica: non ci sono più io a fungere da schermo e da parafulmine, adesso tocca a voi dire se, e come, e con quale leadership, pensate di restare insieme per proseguire, *spes contra spem*, questa avventura._

Thanks!


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## brian

I think it means that _you_ hope for something that other people do _not_ hope for, so in a way, you are hoping against their hope: or _your hope against their hope_.

It comes from Paul's letter to the Romans (4, 18), talking about Abraham "hoping against hope" that he would become "the father of all nations," but I'm not a biblical scholar, so don't ask me what _spes contra spem_ really means there. 

I think it really just means "hoping a lot/with a whole lot of hope."


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## berndf

I understand it as "hoping against all odds". The Italian Bible has "contra ogni logica speranza" in Romans 4.18, the KJV has "who against hope believed in hope" and Luther has "Er hat geglaubt auf Hoffnung, wo nichts zu hoffen war". The passage in the Vulgata from which the expression is taken reads "qui contra spem in spem credidit".


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## brian

Then there's also the possibility that the Latin phrase took on its own meaning _in Italian_. Italian still contains tons of Latin words and expressions that other languages don't have--some of them have retained their original meaning, while others have evolved in meaning just like anything else in a language.

Here is an example in the Italian-English forum: it doesn't help if you know Latin because the literal translation of _ante litteram_ does not express the actual meaning that it has in Italian. You have to actually know what it means _in Italian_.

The fact that a Google search for _spes contra spem_ brings up so many Italian websites leads me to believe that it is (or was) used in Italian, possibly with a different meaning than its literal one in Latin.


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## berndf

I think you get so many Italian hits because of the Italian charity with this name.

Pope John-Paul II said this in 1994 at the height of the Balkans war:





> "Ecco la speranza che ci ha guidato nei trascorsi giorni di comune riflessione, tenendo viva la consapevolezza che la pace nei Balcani è possibile. "Spes contra spem!". Niente è impossibile presso Dio!"


(source)

This fits my interpretation quite well.


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## Joan bolets

Looking at the web of this charity, it seems that the expressions comes form St. Paul referring to Abraham:

Deve (_the charity...)_ il suo nome a un motto latino tratto dalla Lettera ai Romani di San Paolo (Romani 4,18: "Egli ebbe fede *sperando contro ogni speranza* e così divenne padre di molti popoli, come gli era stato detto: Così sarà la tua discendenza").

Then I would say it translates as 'Hoping against the odds (or against the oppisite will of others)...


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## Bittertooth

"Hoping against all odds" or "against the hopes of others" does not convey the meaning or at least there is more to it, IMHO. Not only on the "italian vs latin" level, but also at an ideological level.

As all of you know, latin grammar uses cases, so here we have "spes", nominative case -- the subject -- "contra spem", objective case, i.e. "against hope" as the object.

So, "having hope", possessing it, it's not enough, you must be the subject of it, "you must be hope", as was the case for Abraham, who chose to be the instrument of G-d ;-) and "became hope" for his people.

--
G.


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## berndf

Bittertooth said:


> As all of you know, latin grammar uses cases, so here we have "spes", nominative case -- the subject -- "contra spem", objective case, i.e. "against hope" as the object.


"Spem" is an allative accusative required by the preposition "contra". I don't think you can deduce a subject-object relationship just from the presence of an accusative here.


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## Bittertooth

berndf said:


> "Spem" is an allative accusative required by the preposition "contra". I don't think you can deduce a subject-object relationship just from the presence of an accusative here.



This seems to me as a confirmation of the importance of the ideological level of the issue.

You wrote before, 





berndf said:


> the KJV has "who against hope believed in hope" and Luther has "Er hat geglaubt auf Hoffnung, wo nichts zu hoffen war". The passage in the Vulgata from which the expression is taken reads "qui contra spem in spem credidit".



Faith, hope and love are the three theological virtues and they are substantiated by each other (but love is the most important, says St.Paul). Here you have an act of faith: "who against hope believed in hope", "qui contra spem in spem credidit" (I don't speak german and can't comment on Luther but I assume from your post the german version confirms the other two). 

An act of faith, therefore an act of will that gives hope to the subject. The subject is qualified by the fact that he believes in hope; hope is the object of his belief as opposed to hope as an object that he has in his hands ("in spem credidit", also the preposition "in" requires the accusative and the subject-object relationship here is manifest).

This ideology is also confirmed by the fact that "spes contra spem", or in the italian translation "sii speranza, non 'avere speranza' " ("be hope! do not have hope") is the canonical response to another italian saying, "Chi vive di speranza disperato muore" (there is a thread for this in http : // forum . word . reference . com / showthread . php ? t = 768166 but I can't write the URL correctly since this is just my second post). Mahatma Gandhi expressed almost the same in the quote: _Be the change you want to see in the world .

_I understand this may seems a little windy -- as ideological and especially theological issues often are -- but I stand by my story 

--
G.


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## berndf

Bittertooth said:


> This ideology is also confirmed by the fact that "spes contra spem", or in the italian translation "sii speranza, non 'avere speranza' "


What makes you think "sii speranza, non 'avere speranza'" is a translation of "spes contra spem"? Do you have a source where the Latin expression is translated like this into Italian?


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## Albert MacSwigart

brian said:


> I think it means that _you_ hope for something that other people do _not_ hope for, so in a way, you are hoping against their hope: or _your hope against their hope_.
> 
> It comes from Paul's letter to the Romans (4, 18), talking about Abraham "hoping against hope" that he would become "the father of all nations," but I'm not a biblical scholar, so don't ask me what _spes contra spem_ really means there.
> 
> I think it really just means "hoping a lot/with a whole lot of hope."



It might be of some help to know that "contra spem spero . . . Et rideo" ("against all hope I hope ... And I laugh (smile?)" was a motto used by the painter Hieronymus Bosch, to whom it clearly means something like "against all reasons to despair (i.e. what makes my utmost will to hope fail), I hope . . . " His sense of the divine comedy has some kinship with the "credo quia absurdum est" of Origen.


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## Scholiast

salvete omnes!

Of this old-ish thread I knew nothing until Albert MacSwigart revived it just now.

The key to understanding it is indeed Paul's _Letter_ to the Romans, and in particular, to the situation in which Abraham found himself according to the Hebrew story to which he refers.

Paul's phrase is παρ᾽ ἐλπίδα ἐπ᾽ ἐλπἰδι, "beside/against/beyond hope towards hope", and was rendered by Jerome as _spem contra spem_; but more important is the context. In the Old Testament narrative (familiar to Paul and most of his addressees) Abraham's wife had been for long years barren, and Abraham had given up hope of offspring. But in _Gen. _17, God says to Abraham (in spite of this) "I will make you the ancestor of many nations". This encourages Abraham to hope, in spite of his years of despair thitherto, that either Sarah or Hagar may indeed one day bear him children.

Σ


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