The Ei^miadzin Codex, accordingly, in the two most important questions of Gospel text makes deliberate departure from the received Armenian tradition, in both cases relying on authority which might conceivably go back indirectly to Papias himself. (1) Until about this date (A.D. 989) Armenian tradition followed the Sinaitic, or older Syriac, in omitting the Mark-Appendix. In the 10th cent, it begins to be inserted as in the Curetonian and Tatian, but with various scribal notes of its secondary character. Our codex is simply more exact and specific than others of its time in adding a datum which could never have gone with the Appendix, but must have been derived, like the comment of Vartan on the Pericope Adultene, from comparison of Eusebius, which in the Arm. spells the name ' Aristo ' and expressly designates him as 'Elder.' (2) It also goes beyond current Armenian tradition regard- ing Jn 8'-". Instead of attaching the story after Lk 21'", as the Gosp. ace. to the Hebrews pro- bably suggested, it adopts the position usually assigned it after Jn 7^-, with the marginal scholion in red ink t^s /loixaXi'Sos, and an expurgated and embellished text, which Eusebius enables us to identify as that of Papias. To infer from this, however, that the scribe John had actual access to Papias would be rash in the extreme. On the contrary, the evidence is only too convincing that his title is based simply on a comparison of the two Eusebian passages regarding 'Aristo,' with the further statements of his o%\n chief national historian, Moses of Chorene (400-450), regarding the Aristo of Pella quoted by Eusebius in HE iv. 6.
6. Aristo of Pella. — Uoses of Chorene (cf. Langlois, I.e.), in writing of the death and obsequies of Ardasches, king and national hero of Armenia, transcribes first the quotation of Eusebius from Aristo of Pella regarding Hadrian's devastation of Jerusalem, to explain how Aristo came to be attached to his (Ardasches') person as secretary ; for Ardasches had been sent by Hadrian into
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ARMY
Persia. He then continues, quoting jjrofessedlj' from 'the same historian,' an elaborate account of Ardasches' death and obsequies. The connexion of tliis supplementary quotation, however, is so awkwardly managed as to leave it quite ambiguous to whose person Aristo was attached as secretary. In the text it follows the statement tliat Hadrian 'established in Jeruisalem a community of pagans and Christians whose bishop was Mark. Langlols accordingly makes him secretary of Mark (cf. Eus. HE iv. 6). Zahn understands of Hadrian himself (!). The Ecmiadzin scribe .seems to have been of Langlois' opinion, and to have drawn the inference that this Aristo, secretary of Mark the bishop of Jerusalem under Hadrian, could be no other tlian ' the Elder Aristo ' of Eus. HE iii. 39, as well as the natural completer of ' Mark's' Gospel.
If the attribution of Mk 10'- -" to 'the Elder Aristo' be dismissed as untrustworthy, our know- ledge of the 'Aristion' from whom Papias de- rived (indirectly) his ' accounts of tlie Lord's sayings' is reduced to a minimum. Eusebius clearly did not identify him with Aristo of Pella, and from his silence Avould seem to have known nothing more about him than the statement of Papias that he was an elder, one of the ' disciples of the Apostles ' ; or, as his text of Papias would seem already to have read (by assimilation to the preceding), 'of the Lord.' Aristo of Pella, Eusebius certainly did not include in his chain of Christian writers, and save for the late and improbable statement of Maximus Confessor, all that we know of Aristo indicates that he does not belong there. He may, or may not, be the same as ' the cultured rhetorician Aristo of Gerasa.'
7. Conclusions. — The following may be taken as more or less probable conclusions from the fore- going data. (1) In the famous extract of Evisebius from Papias and the adjoining context (HE iii. 39), there is no warrant for substituting the reading 'ApltrTuv, the common form of the name, for the rarer form ' kpucrTlwv . The Syriac, followed by Arm., assimilates it to 'Aplaruv (6 XlcKKaio^), quoted a few paragraphs farther on by Eusebius himself (HE IV. 6), or perhaps merely falls into the ordinary spelling. The reverse process is inconceivable. Of this Aristion, Eusebius seems unable to relate any- thing beyond what he found in Papias. He cer- tainly did not regard him as identical with Aristo of Pella, whose narrative of the revolt of Bar Cochba was in his hands. Papias, however, knew of Aristion as a traditor (orally ; cf. ou yap iK tCiv j3i/3\(ui/, K.T.X.) of the teachings of the Apostles, him- self 'one of the disciples of these,' probably in Palestine, since Papias obtained his traditions (Eusebius to the contrary notwithstanding) only from ' those who came his way.' Aristion was still living at the period of Papias' (youthful ? /caXdj ifiyrifi6veva-a) inquiries.
(2) From this otherwise unknown 'Aristion' of Papias we must sharply distinguish ' Aristo of Pella,' the historian of the revolt of Bar Cochba, quoted by Eusebius. Had this been a Christian writer, it is inexijlicable that Eusebius, in sjjite of the avowed purjiose of his book, elsewliere so con- sistently followed, should have omitted all mention whatsoever of his works. The Viri Illust. of Jerome is equally silent.