The Apology of Aristides + 

In 1889 Professor Rendel Harris discovered a Syriac version of the Apology of Aristides in St. Katharine’s Convent on Mt. Sinai. While engaged on a study of the new text Dr. Armitage Robinson was reminded of a passage in Barlaam and Ioasaph, and, on turning to the text made the interesting discovery, that the speech of Nachor (see here) was nothing but the Apology in a Greek dress, fitted, with some deftness, into its new context. For all details we will refer to Dr. Armitage Robinson’s work. We need only remind our readers here, that, according to Eusebius of Caesarea, the “Apology” was a defence of Christianity presented by Aristides, a philosopher of Athens, in 124 to the Emperor Hadrian, when on a visit to that city; that modern scholars have found some reasons for assigning the work to the reign of Antoninus Pius, but that beyond all question, it is an early and authentic Christian document. The tone is calm and reasonable and the appeal made is rather to common sense and plain facts than to subtleties of logic or to exalted emotion. + 