Expert: Maria - 10/14/2010

Question
I have a translation I would like you to help me with, if possible.  I want to translate "Faith Conquers All" into Latin and Ancient Greek.  I have done some research and tried translating the phrase into Latin myself, but want to make sure if it is even right, "Fiducia Vincit Omnia"? Ancient Greek I have yet to translate.  Any help would be highly appreciated.

*Faith - religiously believing  

Answer
Hello,

if in the sentence “Faith Conquers All"  the noun “faith” refers to “religiously believing”, as you say, and “all” means “all things”, the correct translation is the following:

-”Omnia vincit Fides”.

Note that  “Omnia vincit Fides” is a kind of adaptation of a Virgil’s quote which reads “Omnia vincit Amor” (Eclogues, X, line 69) meaning ”Love conquers all things”.

As for your translation, it is grammatically correct, but the Latin noun “fiducia” does not  mean “faith as a religion / a system of belief", but simply “trust”, “confidence”, “reliance”.

With regard to the ancient Greek translation of the same phrase, here it is:

-“Πάντα  νικᾷ  Εὐσέβεια” (ancient Greek letters) transliterated as “Pánta nikă  Eusébeia”.

Or :

-“Πάντα  νικᾷ  Πίστις” (ancient Greek letters) transliterated as “Pánta nikă  Pístis”.

See below for learning more.

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that in Latin:

-Faith = FIDES (nominative case, 5th.declension)

-Conquers = VINCIT (from VINCO, I conquer)

-All = OMNIA (literally, “all things”. Direct object in the accusative neuter of  OMNIS)

In Ancient Greek:

-Faith = Εὐσέβεια / Eusébeia (nominative case, 1st.declension)  or Πίστις / Pístis.

-Conquers = νικᾷ  / nikă (from νικάω /nikáo, I conquer)

-All = Πάντα / Pánta (literally, “all things”. Direct object in the accusative neuter of  πᾶς / păs).

Note that in ancient Greek Εὐσέβεια  /  Eusébeia means exactly “reverence towards the gods”, “religion “, while later in ecclesiastical Greek we find  Πίστις / Pístis which however means “faith” as “trust” / “trust in others”.

Finally, as you can see, Latin & Ancient Greek word order is different from English, just because in Latin & in Ancient Greek  syntactical relationships are indicated by the endings, not by the order of the words.