Primary source · Greek (with an Armenian version)

The Acts of Apollonius (with his Apologia)

The Roman court record, carrying Apollonius's own defense · trial AD 183–185; acta edited later

What this text is

The senator-philosopher's defense of the faith delivered, says Jerome, before the senate itself — the nearest thing to a Christian apology embedded in a Roman transcript. Lost for centuries after Eusebius, until the Armenian version surfaced (1874) and then the Greek (1895).

Profile of Apollonius the Martyr →

Public-domain translations

Working translation (from the Greek acta)

So far as it rests with me, I live gladly; yet death for the Lord's sake I do not fear: for a true word cannot be killed. (Acts of Apollonius 30, 38, condensed)

Manuscript witnesses

Paris, BnF gr. 1219 (the Greek acta)

11th–12th c.

The single Greek manuscript, identified and published in 1895.

EARLIEST WITNESS

Armenian version (Mekhitarist collection, Venice)

medieval copies of a 5th-c. version

The recension whose 1874 publication first restored the lost acta to scholarship.

KEY VERSION

Eusebius's notice (HE V.21)

c. 325

Records the trial, the volunteer accuser's broken legs, and the apologia 'which we have inserted in our collection' — a collection itself lost.

ANCIENT TESTIMONY

Provenance

Rome, before the praetorian prefect Perennis; Eusebius still read the apologia among his collection of ancient martyrdoms

Editions & scholarship

Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.

Figures named in this text (2)