Aristion of Pella

ARISTION OF PELLA. - This author is mentioned twice by name in ancient Christian literature. The first time by Eusebius (Hist. ecl., IV, 6, 3), who attributes to A. of Pella the report according to which Hadrian, after the sedition of Bar Kokhba, had forbidden the Jews to approach Jerusalem; the second time by John of Scythopolis (6th cent.: not Maximus the Confessor; cf. Urs v. Balthasar, Das Scholienswerk des Johannes von Skythopolis, in Scholastik, 15 [1940], p. 27), who found in A. the doctrine of the seven heavens. In the fragment of John of Scythopolis A. is remembered as the author of the Dialogue of Papiscus and Jason, already known to Celsus and to Origen; but neither Celsus nor Origen mention the author's name. Origen knows, however, that Jason was a Christian and disputed with the Jew Papiscus over the question whether the prophecies of the Old Testament had been fulfilled in Jesus; Celsus then mentions the dispute in his polemic against an allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, which therefore had in A. a representative. A Christian from Africa, named Celsus, sent to a bishop Vigilius (Celsus and Vigilius are unknown) his translation of the dispute with the words: «praecularum atque memorabile (opus) Iasonis Hebraei Christiani et Papisci Alexandrii Iudei disceptatio» (in Cypriani opera, ed. Hartel, pars III, Appendix, p. 128) and further relates that the hard heart of the Jew Papiscus was won over by the other, so that he asked for baptism at the end. It is not known to what time one must attribute this preface, but it must be very ancient (3rd cent.?).

St. Jerome does not know the name of A.; but he cites twice the Alteratio Iasonis et Papisci (Quaestiones hebr. libr. Genes.), p. 3, ed. Lagarde, and Commentarii in Ep. Pauli ad Gal. 3, 13: PL 26, 387 b). It is seen from these citations that for A. the bereich (the "beginning") of Gen. 1, 1, was the Son (for this exegesis in patristic literature, cf. A. Harnack, in Texte und Untersuchungen, I, III, Leipzig 1883, p. 130 ff.), and that A. knew the text of Deut. 21, 23, in a Greek translation which Jerome (In Gal. 3, 13) compared with the interpretation of Aquila; but it is not true that A. cited the translation of Aquila, which Origen would have noticed. The dispute of A. was written between 135 (end of Jerusalem) and 178 (Celsus), probably closer to the first date.

Erik Peterson