ARISTO OF PELLA. – This author is mentioned twice by name in anti-Christian literature. The first time by Eusebius (Hist. eccl., IV, 6, 3), who attributes to A. of Pella the notice that, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, Hadrian had forbidden the Jews from approaching Jerusalem; the second time by John of Scythopolis (6th century: not Maximus the Confessor; cf. Urs von Balthasar, Das Scholienerwerk des Johannes von Skylotholis, 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 recalled as the author of the Dialogue of Papiscus and Jason, already known to Celsus and Origen; yet neither Celsus nor Origen mentions the author’s name. Origen, however, knows that Jason was a Christian and disputed with the Jew Papiscus on whether the prophecies of the Old Testament had been fulfilled in Jesus; Celsus then mentioned the dispute in his polemic against an allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, which thus had in A. one of its representatives. An African Christian named Celsus, writing to a bishop Vigilius (Celsus and Vigilius are unknown), sent him his translation of the dispute with the words: «praeclarum atque memorabile (opus) Iasonis Hebraei Christiani et Papisci Alexandrini Judaei disceptatio» (in Cyprian’s works, ed. Hartel, pars III, Appendix, p. 128) and further recounts that the hard heart of the Jew Papiscus was overcome by the other, so that he finally asked for baptism. It is not known to which time this preface is to be attributed, but it must be very old (3rd century 2).
St. Jerome does not know A.’s name; yet he cites twice the Altercatio Iasonis et Papisci (Quaestiones hebr. in libr. Gen., p. 3, ed. Lagarde, and Commentarii in Ep. Pauli ad Gal. 3, 13: PL 26, 387 b). From these citations it appears that for A. the *bereshith* («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 version which Jerome (In Gal. 3, 13) compared with Aquila’s interpretation; yet it is not true that A. cited Aquila’s version, of which Origen would have been aware. The dispute of A. was written between 135 (end of Jerusalem) and 178 (Celsus), probably nearer the first date.