ARISTONE di 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. di Pella the information that Hadrian, after the revolt of Bar Cocheba, forbade the Jews to approach Jerusalem; the second time by Giovanni di Scitopoli (6th century: not Massimo il Confessore; cf. Urs V. BALDASSARRE, 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 Giovanni di Scitopoli, A. is remembered as the author of the Dialogue of Papiscus and Jason, already known to Celsus and Origen; but neither Celsus nor Origen mentions the author’s name. Origen does know, however, that Jason was a Christian and disputed with the Jew Papiscus over the question of whether the prophecies of the Old Testament had been fulfilled in Jesus; Celsus, in turn, mentions the dispute in his polemic against an allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, which thus had a representative in A. A Christian from Africa, named Celsus, sent 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 overcome by the other, so that in the end he asked for baptism. It is not known to what period this preface should be attributed, but it must be very ancient (3rd century?).
S. Girolamo does not know A.’s name; but he cites the Alteratio Iasonis et Papisci twice (Quaestiones hebr. libr. Genes., p. 3, ed. Lagarde, and Commentarii in Ep. Pauli ad Gal. 3, 13: PL 26, 387 b). These citations show that for A. the bereich (the “principle”) 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 Girolamo (In Gal. 3, 13) compared with Aquila’s interpretation; but it is not true that A. cited Aquila’s translation, something Origen would have noticed. A.’s dispute was written between 135 (the end of Jerusalem) and 178 (Celsus), probably closer to the former date.