CONSULTATIONES ZACCHAEI 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 forth the pagan arguments against the Christian religion, but is convinced of the truth of Christianity. Book II deals with the Trinity and refutes the errors of the Jews and heretics. Book III discusses the Christian life, virginity and monks, the Antichrist, and the Resurrection. The work, once attributed to Evagrius, 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 Florilegium Patristicum, Bonn 1935. But this attribution, already challenged by A. Reatz, was refuted by Axelson, Ein drittes Werk des Firmicus Maternus, Lund 1937. The author perhaps lived in Gaul in the fifth century. The polemic (I, 21) against the pagan doctrine that souls come from God and that, on returning, they will be purified in the fire of the ether, is directed against Porphyry (De repensi animae). In the fifth century Porphyry was carefully studied in Gaul (Claudianus Mamertus), and if at this time Sidonius Apollinaris produced a new edition of the Latin translation of Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana (v. Ep., VIII, 3, 1), it becomes clear why the author of the C. gave the name Apollonius to Zacchaeus’s philosophical opponent. The author was perhaps a monk, since he was very interested in 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).