Aristides of Athens (2nd cent.)
Author of an Apology for Christianity originally written in Greek and addressed to an unnamed emperor ( CPG 1062). The complete text is preserved only in Syriac translation, ed. with ET, J. R. Harris (1891), since the original Greek is lost apart from two 4th-cent. papyrus fragments and a much later adaptation, when the work was incorporated into the Life of Barlaam and Josaphat (a tale of Buddhist origin), ascribed to John of Damascus (ed. R. Volk, PTS 60; 2006). The unique ms. containing the Syriac text, ms. Sinai Syr. 16, should probably be dated to the 7th cent.
Sources
- CPG 1062–1067.
- J. R. Harris and J. A. Robinson, The Apology of Aristides on behalf of the Christians (Texts and Studies I.1; 1891). (Syr. with ET)
- D. M. Kay, in Ante-Nicene Fathers , additional vol. (1897), 259–79. (ET)
- M. Lattke, ‘Greek words in the Syriac text of the Apology of Aristides’, in Malphono w-Rabo d-Malphone, ed. G. Kiraz, 383–403.
- B. Pouderon et al., Aristide, Apologie (SC 470; 2003). (with a republication of the Syr., together with what remains of the Greek original, and the Armenian and Georgian versions; accompanied by FT, an important introduction, and bibliography)
- C. Vona, L’Apologia di Aristide (Lateranum ns 16; 1950). (IT)