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“Marcianus” Aristides, On The Worship of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

G. C. O'Ceallaigh
G. C. O'Ceallaigh
Affiliation:
New York, New York
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Extract

Careful inspection of all external and internal evidence reveals that the Apology of Aristides, known since 1889 as the long-lost “earliest extant apology for the Christian Faith,” mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome, was written by a proselyte to Hellenist Judaism, probably in the time of Hadrian, not as an apology for Christians at all, but primarily as a counterattack upon polytheists and their religious notions and secondarily, as a defense of the monotheistic worship and the morals of the Jews. This definitely Jewish work of the second century was interpolated and “edited” by a Christian writer, probably of the late fourth century, and was thus converted into what passed as an apology for Christianity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , October 1958 , pp. 227 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1958

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References

1 Harris, J. R., The Apology of Aristides, in Texts & Studies, I, 1 (Cambridge, 1891).Google Scholar

2 a) Cf. C. Wessely, Les plus Anciens Monuments d. Christianisme (II) in Patrol. Oriental., t. 18 (Paris, 1924), Supplement, p. 499 (= Oxyrh. pap. 1778 in A. S. Hunt, Oxyrh. Pap., v. XX, p. 159; b) Cf. H. Milne, A New Fragment of the Apol. Aristid., in Journ. Theol. Stud., v. 25, p. 73 (= Brit. Mus. Pap. Inv., no. 2486) reprinted by G. Krueger in Theolog. Literaturzeitung, 1924, no. 2, p. 47.

3 Preserved in 4 Mss., the earliest, of 981. Cf. P. Martin, in J. B. Pitra's Analecta Sacra Spic. Sol., t. IV (Paris, 1883), pp. 6 ff., 282 ff. Cf. Harris, op. cit., pp. 26 ff.; and N. O. Emin, Transl. & Studies in Sacr. Armen. Lit. (in Russian) (Moscow, 1897), pp. 249–55.

4 Euthymius' authorship, asserted by von Rosen, 1887; Hommel, 1888; established by Conybeare, F. C. (Folk-Lore mag., v. 7 (1896), pp. 102–42)Google Scholar; confirmed by Peeters, P., La Première Traduction Latine d. B & J, in Analecta Bollandiana, v. XLIX (1931), pp. 276–312CrossRefGoogle Scholar; corroborated by J. Sonet, Le Roman de B & J, 2 v. (1949–52). Cf. also R. L. Wolff, The Apol. of Aristid. in Harvard Theol. Rev., v. 30, n. 4. Euthymius, second abbot at Mt. Athos, died in 1028. (For Euthymius' text I prefer Mt. Sinai Gk. Ms. 392, prob. 11th C., but use also Boissonade's, whose prime source was Paris Bibl. Nat. Cod. 903, also 11th C.)

5 Euseb., H. E. IV, 3 (Migne, PG 20): Kai Aristeidēs de pistos anēr tēs kath' hēmas hormōmenos eusebeias, tō Kodratō paraplēsiōs, huper tēs pisteōs apologian epiphōnēsas Hadrianō kataleloipe. Sōzetai de ge eis deuro para pleistois kai hē toutou graphē. All later references (in Jerome, Syncellus, Ado, Usuard) are admittedly derived from this and have no further knowledge of the Apology.

6 E.g., Seeberg, R., D. Apol. d. Aristid. in Th. Zahn's Forschungen z. Gesch. d. nt. Kan. (Leipzig, 1893), p. 251Google Scholar: “… dass Euseb. dasselbe nicht gelesen hat. Euseb. hat also ueber die Apol. nach Hoerensagen berichtet.” Cf. Harnack, A., Chronol. d. altchr. Lit. (Leipzig, 1897), p. 271Google Scholar: “… er scheint sich nicht die Muehe genommen zu haben, sie zu lesen”; and p. 272, n. 3: “… dass er das Buch nicht selbst gesehen hat.” Cf. Bardenhewer, O., Gesch. d. altkirch. Lit. (Freiburg i. Breisgau, 1902), v. I, p. 172Google Scholar. Cf. Puech, A., Hist. d.l. Litt. Grecque Chrétienne (3 v., Paris, 1928), v. 2, p. 126Google Scholar: “… qu'il n'a parlé de ce dernier (i.e. Aristid.) que par ouïdire.” So also Dict. d. Théol. Cathol., v. 13.2 (1937), art. Quadratus, “Eusèbe n'a parlé que par ouï-dire du travail d'Aristide …. ” Vona, C., L'Apologia di Aristide, in Lateranum, nov. ser., an. xvi (Rome, 1950), p. 5Google Scholar. (It should be noted that although Vona defines his Italian text as a “versione dal Siriaco” (meaning Harris' transcription of 1889) he nowhere refers directly to the Syriac.)

7 Eusebeia appears here more than forty times. Even in NT usage the word usually refers to basic Jewish piety, as Ac. iii, 12; 1 Ti. ii, 2; iv, 7–8; vi, 11; 2 Ti. iii, 5. And since the NT sebomenos (Ac. xiii, 43 et passim) is so closely cognate, yet always refers to a Jewish proselyte, it must be considered at least possible that a man named Eusebius thought of a sebomenos when he wrote, “pistos anēr tēs … eusebeias.”

8 Available since 1952 on microfilm. Cf. Libr. of Congr., Checklist of Mss. in St. Catherine's Monastery, Mt. Sinai, p. 17.

9 Since Harris transcribed the Syriac text, 1889, the codex has lost 37 leaves from the front. He found the Apology on Folio 93.

10 The first scribe had written in single column style. The secondary address and one line of the text bring our scribe to the bottom of the page. Turning over to 56v, he continues the Apology in two columns to the page, thus setting the style for the balance of the book, through Folio 204.

11 Chapter xiv, on the Jews, ʼlhʼ brwyʼ dkl wʼḥyd kl (God, Creator of all and Almighty).

12 Cf. his Ep. ad Magn. (PL 22,667), Atheniensis pontifex ecclesiae.

13 Cf. J. T. Milik in Rev. Bibl., 60 (1953), pp. 276–94.

14 Cf. Duerr, J., D. Reisen d. Kaisers Hadrian (Wien, 1881), pp. 42 f., 70 f.Google Scholar

15 Op. cit., p. 23. Others have exclaimed over the different styles: Puech, op. cit., p. 130; Pellegrino, M., Gli Apologeti Greci del II Sec. (Rome, 1947), p. 29Google Scholar, who finds the “ragionamento d'un filosofo” strangely commuted, and “il canto d'un poeta” emerging. Cf. Vona, op. cit., p. 25.

16 Geffcken, J., Zwei Griech. Apologet. (Leipzig, 1907), p. xlGoogle Scholar: “Gleichwohl haben wir es in Aristid … mit einer Apologie zu tun, die im ganzen ihrer Form nach noch mehr im juedisch-hellenistischen Lager als im eigentlich christlichen weilt”; and cf. p. 83. Cf. Altaner's, B. art. in Klauser's Reallexikon f. Antike & Christent. (1950), v. I, pp. 652 f.Google Scholar Cf. Puech, op. cit., pp. 128 f.; Pellegrino, op. cit., p. 38, “Cosi l'apologia giudaica può aver lasciato le sue tracce.”

17 E.g., Josephus, Contr. Ap., “Apollonius … reproaches us as … the weakest of all the Barbarians.” Casamassa, P., Gli Apologisti Greci, in Lateranum, nov. ser., an. ix–x (Rome, 1944), pp. 140 ff.Google Scholar, aptly recalls that Tatian (To the Greeks) always uses “Barbarians” to signify “Jews and Christians,” and in chap. 42 calls himself a philosopher of the Barbarians. Cf. Clem. Alex. Stromata V, xiv, 1, and esp. VI, vi, 1: “… edothē nomos men kai prophētai Barbarois, philosophia de Hellēsi,” wherein no one can doubt these Barbarians are the Jews (and Christians).

18 Annales, xv, 44 compared with his Hist., v, 3, shows the former refers to the “multitudo ingens” of Roman Jews.

19 Discourses, II, 9, 3 on “real Jews” who are “baptized … circumcised.”

20 Cf. xxv, 4: “(Claudius) chased out of Rome the Jews who, impelled by one Chrestus, were continuously turbulent.”

21 Hegesippus (apud Eusebius, H.E. IV, 22) about the year 185, calls the Church “the Children of Israel,” and declares, “in every city (including Rome and Corinth which he recently visited) the state of affairs is maintained in accordance with the Law and the Prophets.”

22 Cf. our note 17, and Stromata VI, ii, 1.

23 Ref. of All Heresies, written after 233, at Bk. X, sec. 26–27, repeatedly divides the world into four races, placing the “worshippers of God” in one class, as “of greater antiquity than all Chaldaeans, Egyptians and Greeks,” thus automatically precluding the thought of Christians, as distinct from the Jews.

24 Cf. Stromata VI, xv, “… if it was the case that the Hellenic dialects were named from Hellen, the son of Zeus, surnamed Deucalion, etc.” Our Christianizer was again victimized by a corrupt text, it seems.

25 Cf. Stromata I, xxi.

26 Funk, F. X., D. apostolischen Konstitutionen (Rottenburg, 1891) is the definitive work. Cf. esp. p. 366.Google Scholar

27 Mingana, A., in Woodbrooke Studies V (Cambridge, 1932), pp. 186 f.Google Scholar (the Syriac), pp. 51 f. Cf. Kelly, J. N. D., Early Christian Creeds (London, 1950), p. 187Google Scholar, for J. Lebon's Greek translation of the assembled Creed.

28 Cf. Kelly, op. cit., pp. 296 f.

29 H.E.IV,24. Cf. Kelly, p. 293.

30 Ibid., pp. 288 f.

31 Harris (others agreed) thought this word, šrbʼ (story, history) was a mistake for šrbtʼ (race), but the ms. admits of no doubt. The Christianizer cut down a long dissertation on the Jews, but forgot to alter this word to conform.

32 Op. cit., p. 13, calls this “one of the surprising things,” and continues, “one certainly would not suspect that the chasm between the Church and the Synagogue had become as practically impassable as we find it in the middle of the second century….”

33 Raabe, R., Die Apologie des Aristides aus dem Syrisch. uebers., in Unters. ueber d. Edessenische Chronik of L. Hallier (Leipzig, 1892), p. 57Google Scholar, suggests that it is because of this puzzling “friendly spirit toward the Jews” that the B & J author had to rewrite the text at this point. Raabe (pp. 32 f.) suspected two authors.

34 Op. cit., pp. xl f.

35 Cf. our note 16.

36 Contr. Cels. 1,26; V, 6–8.

37 Cf. VI, v, epoisei palin hōde pōs: mēde kata Ioudaious sebesthe; kai gar ekeinoi, monoi oiomenoi ton Theon ginōskein, ouk epistantai, latreuontes ańgelois kai archańgelois, mēni kai selēnē, kai ean mē selēnē phanē, sabbaton ouk agousin to legomenon prōton, oude neomēnian agousin, oute azuma, oute heortēn, oute megalēn hēmeran. The passage in the Origenian Commentary on John, xiii, 17, cuts and paraphrases the Stromata text and connects it with Heracleon, but has no connection with Jewish holy days or with the idea, “not in accordance with true knowledge.”

38 Clement's words are: a) ou katʼ epignōsin; b) allʼou katʼ epignōsin; c) hōs hēmeis kata tēn gnōsin tēn teleian.

39 Euthymius has, allʼ ou katʼ epignōsin, identical to b) above. (Rom. x, 2 has this same phrase, but no faintest suggestion of either Jewish angel-worship or a reference to Jewish feasts and fasts. On the contrary, Paul, in the same breath, bears witness to Israel's “zeal for God,” which is certainly incompatible with angelworship.)

40 To confirm our decision as to his source, the Christianizer uses this phrase, ydʻtʼ ḥtyttʼ or its equivalent, again and again, in chaps, xv, xvi, xvii.

41 J. A. Robinson, The Remains of the Orig. Gk. Apol. Aristid., in Appendix to Harris' work, Texts and Studies, I, 1, built very extensively on this erroneous idea. Others thought the PP had been used, but not to the extent conceived by Robinson.

42 Cf. our note 36, texts cited.

43 Cf. his Respons. ad Quest, ab Algas. Propos.

44 Virtually all the critics have remarked this botched text. Among the latest, Pellegrino, op. cit., p. 29, observes, “Il maggior disordine si nota dove si parla dei cristiani….”

45 This interpolation now reads, “… to ye, O thou King….”

46 This interpolation gives the reading, “… which thou, your majesties, dost grant….” Anent this mlkwtkwn Harris (op. cit., p. 57) declares, “This phrase, ‘your majesty,’ does not in any way suggest that more than one person is addressed.” Since he tried, against all the evidence, to establish Antoninus as the only emperor addressed, this remark is not surprising; nor is the fact that he ignores all other plural apostrophes in the text. We would ask Harris, if this were addressed to two emperors, would it be any different from mlkwtkwn?