Primary source · Koine Greek (complete in Syriac)
The Apology of Aristides
Aristides the Philosopher, of Athens · c. AD 125
What this text is
A philosopher's brief for the emperor sorting mankind's worship — barbarians, Greeks, Jews, Christians — with the earliest outsider-facing sketch of Christian daily life. Lost until 1889, when the Syriac turned up at Sinai and the Greek was found embedded whole in a medieval novel.
Profile of Aristides of Athens →
Public-domain translations
D. M. Kay (ANF supplement, 1896)
The Christians know God and trust in him… they walk in all humility and kindness, and falsehood is not found among them, and they love one another. He who has gives to him who has not, without grudging; and when they see a stranger they bring him under their roof.
Manuscript witnesses
Sinai Syriac 16 (St Catherine's)
7th c.The Syriac translation found by Rendel Harris in 1889 — the recovery that restored the lost apology.
Barlaam and Joasaph (Greek transmission)
medievalThe Greek survives worked into the monastic novel as a court speech — recognized in 1891.
Armenian fragment (Venice)
10th c. copyPublished by the Mekhitarists in 1878, the first recovered piece.
Provenance
Athens, c. AD 125; lost, then recovered three ways in one decade
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- The Apology of Aristides (Texts and Studies I.1)J. Rendel Harris & J. Armitage Robinson, 1891The recovery edition of Syriac and Greek.
- Aristide: Apologie (SC 470)B. Pouderon & M.-J. Pierre, 2003The modern critical edition of all versions.