CONSULTATIONES ZACCHAE ET APOLLONII. - Title of an anonymous book which, in the form of a dispute between a Christian and the pagan philosopher Apollonius, contains a kind of summary (the text says: corpus credulitatis, pp. 7, 12, 91, 21, ed. G. Morin) of the Christian faith.
The work consists of three books. In Book I Apollonius sets out the pagan arguments against the Christian religion, but is convinced of the Christian truth. Book II deals with the Trinity and refutes the errors of the Jews and of the heretics. Book III speaks of the Christian life, of virginity and of monks, of the Antichrist and of the Resurrection. The work, once attributed to Evagrius, the author of the Alternatio Simonis Iudaei et Theophili christiani, was attributed by Morin to Firmicus Maternus (Historisches Jahrbuch, 37 [1916], pp. 229-66) and was also published by him under the name of Firmicus in fasc. xxxix of the Florilegium Patristicum, Bonn 1935. But this attribution, already contested by A. Reatz, was refuted by Axelson, Ein drittes Werk des Firmicus Maternus, Lund 1937. The author perhaps lived in the 5th century in Gaul. The polemic (I, 21), against the pagan doctrine that souls come from God and that, on returning, they will be purged in the fire of the ether, is directed against Porphyry (De regressu animae). In the 5th century Porphyry was carefully studied in Gaul (Claudianus Mamertus), and if at this time Sidonius Apollinaris makes a new edition of the Latin translation of Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana (v. Ep., VIII, 3, 1), one understands why the author of the C. gave the name of Apollonius to the philosopher who is the opponent of Zacchaeus. The author was perhaps a monk, because he is very interested in the monastic life (v. F. Cavallera, Un exposé sur la vie spirituelle et monastique au IVe siècle, in Rev. d'ascétique et de mystique, 16 [1935], pp. 132-46).
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Erik Peterson