BAR IONA (Βαριωνᾶς). — A patronymic surname of the apostle Simon surnamed Peter (Mt. 16:17); it is an Aramaic form (bar Jōnā), to be translated “son of Jonah,” since jōnā (Heb. jōnāh) means “dove” (or is it a contraction of Jonathan or Jonadah?), the name of the well-known prophet (Ion. 1:1; II Reg. 4:25).
St Jerome (L. III in Mt.: PL 26, 121) sees in « Filius columbae » an implicit influence of the Holy Spirit, but mentions the opinion of those who asserted that it was « scriptorum vitio depravatum, ut pro Bar Ioanna h. e. filius Ioannis
Bar Iona scriptum sit una detracta sillaba. And Cod. 1424 (9th cent.) of the Gospels notes in a marginal gloss that τὸ ἰωδάκον has υἱὲ Ἰωάννου.
The Fourth Gospel presents B. I. in two passages translated into Greek (1:42; 21:15-17 three times), but the critical reading is uncertain. The oldest codex (B) has in both passages [ὁ υἱὸς] Ἰωάννου, as does the Sinaitic codex in Io. 1:42; but the great majority of Greek codices always have Ἰωνᾶ. The Clementine Vulgate has filius Iona in Io. 1:42, but about ten ancient codices of the Vulgate have filius Johanna (the “Western” reading of the Koridethi codex); in Io. 21:15-17 all the Latin codices have Ioannis. Latin Origen, citing the “Gospel according to the Hebrews,” has fili Ionne (ed. E. Klostermann, X, Leipzig 1935, pp. 389-90) or fili Ioanne (PG 13, 1295). Ἰωάννης for Ἰωνᾶς in the Fourth Gospel is perhaps due to the influence of “Western” codices; many thought that Ἰωνᾶς in this case derived from contracted Jōhānān.
Modern critics, from H. von Soden (Griechisches N. T., Göttingen 1913, pp. 184, 228 ff.) to A. Merk (Novum Test. gr. et lat., 4th ed., Rome 1942, pp. 309, 391) and J.-M. Bover (Novi Test. Biblia gr. et lat., Madrid 1942, pp. 274, 348), regard the reading Ἰωάννου rather than Ἰωνᾶ as certain in the Fourth Gospel. In any case, the Fourth Gospel would not thereby intend to assert that Bar Jōnā should be translated “son of John (Jōhānān)”: this is maintained by K. T. Keim, F. H. Chase, F. Zorell, A. Merk, E. Kalt, Th. Innitzer, and others, but denied by G. Dalman, M.-J. Lagrange, H. L. Strack-P. Billerbeck, D. Buzy, W. Bauer, and others. If the form Ἰωάννου in the Fourth Gospel were critically certain, it would demonstrate not that Jōnān was understood as a derivative of Jōhānān, but only that B. I. was freely rendered into a very familiar equivalent with a Greek cadence, familiar to the ethnic-Christian mass of readers, just as the Greek name Σίμων is used as the equivalent of the Hebrew Sim'ōn. F. H. Chase admits as possible a double name (Jona-Jōhānān or Jonas-Jokumari) for the father of Simon Peter. H. Hirschberg, arguing from barjōnē, which in the Talmud would designate Jewish Christians (barjōn would mean “sicarius,” from bōrj “strength”), sees in these people the Ebionites, faithful disciples of Simon Peter, who would have named themselves after him objōnē, transforming B. I. into 'ābhī jōnāh (“father of the dove”).
BIBLI: K. Th. Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, II, Zurich 1870, p. 213; F. H. Chase, John, Father of Simon Peter, in J. Hastings, Dict. of the Bible, II, p. 676 ff. (cf. III, p. 756); G. Dalman, Grammatik des Jüdisch-palätiischen Arandisch, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1905, p. 179; F. Zorell, Novi Test. lexicon graecum, Paris 1911, p. 269, and 2nd ed., there 1931, col. 627; E. Klostermann, Die Evangelien (Handbuch zum N. T. di H. Lietzmann, 2), Tübingen 1910, p. 272; A. Merk, in Comm. in Ev. sec. Matth. di J. Knabenbauer, 3rd ed., there 1922, p. 54, n. 1; H.-L. Strack-P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum N. T. aus Talmud u. Midrach, I, Munich 1922, p. 730; M.-J. Lagrange, Ev. selon s. Matthieu, Paris 1922 (6th ed. 1948), p. 323; id., Ev. selon s. Jean, there 1925 (7th ed. 1947), p. 47 ff.; D. Buzy, Ev. selon s. Matthieu, in La S. te Bible di L. Pirot, IX, there 1934, p. 216; W. Bauer, Griechisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des N. T., Berlin 1937, col. 222; E. Kalt, Bibliisches Reallexikon, I, 2nd ed., Paderborn 1938, col. 195; H. Hirschberg, Simon Bariona and the Ebionites (Mt. 16, 17), in Journal of Bibl. Literature, 61 (1942), pp. 171-91; R. Marcus, A note on Bariona, ibid., p. 281; Th. Innitzer, Kommentar zur Leidens- und Verklärungsgeschichte Jesu C., 4th ed., Vienna 1948, p. 405. Antonino Romeo