The Ante-Nicene Church · AD 180–313

Aristides

fl. c. AD 220s (death unrecorded) · Correspondent of Julius Africanus · Palestine or Syria

The Ante-Nicene Church

Who Aristides was

The man to whom Julius Africanus addressed his letter on the discrepancy between the two genealogies of Christ — the earliest surviving attempt to reconcile Matthew and Luke, and the source of the levirate-marriage solution the church used for centuries. He is known only from the address. Distinct from Aristides of Athens the apologist, who wrote a hundred years earlier and is already in the archive; the collision is on the name alone and the archive flags it hard.

Verified single attestation

Named once, by a source inside the horizon, as the addressee or named party of a surviving work; no other ancient source names him.

Common questions

When was Aristides active?

Aristides is dated fl. c. AD 220s (death unrecorded) in the archive, which places Aristides in the Ante-Nicene Church (AD 180–313). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.

Which early sources mention Aristides?

Aristides is named in 1 primary-source passage catalogued here, drawn from Sextus Julius Africanus. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was Aristides from?

The archive associates Aristides with Palestine or Syria.

Who were Aristides’ contemporaries?

The archive links Aristides to 2 other figures, including Sextus Julius Africanus and Aristides of Athens. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.

Primary-source mentions (1)

Every passage below is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

The Letter to Aristides on the genealogies, quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History I.7

c. AD 325
[Africanus writes to Aristides to resolve the apparent disagreement between the genealogies in Matthew and Luke.]
Sextus Julius Africanus · Letter to Aristides (Eusebius HE I.7) · source text

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