3. Origin of Variants. — 'Aristo' is not simply 'the Greek name Aristion badly spelt' (Cony- beare. I.e. p. 243), nor even should it in strictness be called 'an equivalent {gleichbedeutende) form of the same proper name' (Hilgenfeld, Ztschr. f. wissenschaft. Thcol. 1875 ii. p. 256, 1883 i. p. 13, 1894 p. 626). It is at least the more usual, if not more correct form, and 'occurs very frequently in ancient writers. It has been calculated that about thirty persons of this name may be distinguished.' But ismith's Diet, of Greek and Roman Biogr., tlie authority for the statement just made (i. p. 310), knows of but two occurrences of the form ' Aris- tion,' once as the nickname of the adventurer Athenion (B.C. 87), once as designating a surgeon of small repute c. 150 B.C. In Jewisli literature only the form 'Aristo ' occurs (Jos. Ant. xix. 353 [ed. Xiese]). Pape (s.v. 'ApKrHuv) adds four others from Antiph. vi. 12, .'Esch. lI\aTan-6s 3. 162, Plut. Num. 9, and Pausanias. Patristic literature knows only the form 'Aristo' in Christian le^'end (Acta Barn. xiv. ed. Tisch. p. 69, knows a Chris- tian host Aristo in Cyprus ; Acta Petri, ed. Lipsius, p. 51, 14-53. 13, one in Puteoli ; Constit. Apost. \n. 46, ed. Lagarde, p. 228, 21, gives to tlie lirst and third bishops of Smyrna the name Aristo). The form ' Aristion ' is unknown. Eusebius himself (HE iv. 6) draws his account of the devastation of Judaea in the insurrection against Hadrian (132- 135) from a certain ArLsto of I'ella. This Mriter, accordingly, would be a contemporary of Papias in lx)sition to be referred to as a tradifor of Apostolic teaching. To speak of .him and ' the Elder John,' if by the latter were meant John the elder of the Jerusalem Church (Ens. HE iv. 5 ; cf. Schlatter, Kirchc Jerusalems, 1898, p. 40), whose death is dated by Epiplianius (Ha:r. Ixvi. 20) in the 19th year of Trajan, as 'disciples of the Apostles,' would involve no greater looseness or exaggeration tlian we should expect in Asia c. 150 a.D. But as Eusebius "ives no account of Aristo's writings, although maliing it a principal object of his work to describe early Christian authorities, it is pro- bable that Aristo of Pella was not a Christian, but a Jewish or (more probably) pagan writer. To this supposition there is but one serious objection,
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the Paschal Chronicle may admittedly be di;,_ garded as merely reproducing Eusebius. ]Maximus Confessor, however, in his scholion on the T/icol. Mystira of Areopagiticus (c. i. p. 17, ed. Cor<Ier). undoubtedly refers to the same ' Aristo of Pelhi ' ("Apio-Tui/i Tcp lleXXoiv) as author of the Christian Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus, basing his state-
ment on 'the sixth book of the Hijiwtyposcis of Clement of Alexandria,' who seems to have referred to this 'Jason' as 'mentioned by (I. Sj- avayp6.\fai) Luke' (Ac 17'""). Only, while the Dtahgiie is known to Celsus (c. 167), Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Jerome, if not to jjseudo- Barnabas and Justin Martyr, and even probably survives in more or less altered form in the Alter- catio ilimonis ct Theo2)hili (TU I. iii. p. llSfT. ; P. Corssen, Altcrcatio S. ct Th. 1890), it is known to none of these as the work of Aristo, nor do any of the later quotations, references, or other evidences indicate that the work in question contained SiTr,ri<rei^ tuv toO Kvpiou Xoyuv (Eus. I.e.). If the name ' Aristo ' was ever properly connected with the Dialogue, it circulated only anonymously after A.D. 200, and without the introductory narra- tive portion which it may have once possessed. The late and nnsup]iorted statement of Maximus is tlierefore much more likely to be due to some misunderstanding of the Hypotyposeis, especially as Ave have the explicit quotation of the same Aristo of Pella by Moses of Chorene (400-450?) extending to considerable length beyond the por- tion quoted by Eusebius, accompanied by the statement that ArLsto was secretary of Ardasches, king of Armenia, when the latter was sent by Hadrian into I'ersia (Langlois, Coll. des. Hist, do rArmenie, i. p. 391ft-., cf. ii. HO, n. 3, and Le Vaillant de Florival, Hist. Arm. ii. 57). Hamack (TU i. 2, p. 125) and Zalin, it is true, reject Moses' quotation as a fabrication ; but it contains no- thing ' fabulous,' and is defended with reason by Hilgenfeld (Zts. f. w. Th. 1S83, p. 811'.). Besides this, Steplien of Byzantium, who knows of no Aristo of Pella, mentions an Aristo of Gerasa (less than 25 miles distant) simply as an dareios p-^iap.
Our conclusion must be that, while direct acquaintance with Papias is quite conceivable, the valiant form 'Aristo' in Syiiac and Armenian sources is best accounted for by a mistaken identiti- cation of this Aristo of HE iv. 6 with the ' Elder Aristion ' of HE iii. 39 and Moses of Chorene.
i. The Appendix of Ma rL.— The most important addition to our data, regarding Aristo was made by Conybeare's discovery at Ei;miadzin in 1S93 of an Armenian SIS. of the Ciospels dat«d A.D. 989, in which the longer ending of Mark (Mk 16"-=") has the separate title in red ink, corresponding to the other Gospel titles : ' From the Elcler Aristo ' (Expositor, Oct. 1893, pp. 241-254). This repre- sentation, though late, Conybeare takes to be based on very early authority (Expositor, Dec. 1895, pp. 401-421), appealing to the internal evi- dence of the verses in question. Undeniably the reference in Mk 16"* to drinking of poison with impunity must have literary connexion with I'apias' anecdote regarding Justus Barsabbas (Eus. HE iii. 39), whatever the source. Conybeare's citation of a gloss ' against the name Aristion ' in a BofUeian 12th cent, codex of Rufinus' translation of this passage, which referred to this story of the poison cup, A\as even (to tlie discoverer's eye) a designation by the unknown glossator of Aristion as author of this story. But, besides the precarious- ness of this inference, it would scarcely be possible to write a gloss 'against the naii'ie Aristion' which would not be eqiially ' against the name of the Elder John' immediately adjoining ; and as medifeval legend reported the story of the iraison cup of John {i.e. the Apostle, identihed with the Elder in the glossator's period) this would seem to be the more natural reference and meaning of the gloss.