Biography
Commemoration Day: August 31 (September 13) (Greek)
Very little is known about the life and person of this apologist. Blessed Jerome calls him "one of the most eloquent Athenian philosophers" ("On Illustrious Men", 20), Eusebius "a faithful follower of our religion" ("Church History", IV, 3, 3). Eusebius also reports that Aristides presented his Apology to the emperor Hadrian, and in the Chronicle he specifies the year, 125. According to Eusebius, at that time this work "was preserved by many". Martyrologies of the martyr Aristides are known.
Eusebius also mentions another Aristides, who should not be confused with the Athenian apologist. To him Julius Africanus (c. 160 – 237) addressed a letter on the harmony of the Gospel genealogies of Christ ("Church History", I, 7; VI, 31).
The Apology of Aristides was long considered lost. However, in 1878 a fragment of this work in Armenian was discovered in a 10th-century manuscript. Following this, in 1889 J. Rendel Harris found in the monastery of St. Catherine on Sinai a Syriac text of the full recension of the Apology of Aristides. Finally, A. Robinson discovered that the text of the Apology forms part of the well-known 7th-century work "The Life of Barlaam and Josaphat", as the speech of the hermit Nachor to king Abenner.
The texts found made it possible to form new judgments about the time when the Apology was written. The Syriac text has two titles: the first, "The Apology which the Athenian philosopher Aristides made before the emperor Hadrian concerning the worship of the Almighty God", and the second, "To the emperor Titus Hadrianus Antoninus, Augustus and Pius, from Marcianus Aristides, philosopher of Athens".
The emperor Antoninus, who after his adoption by the emperor Hadrian received the name Titus Aelius Hadrianus and was called Pius, reigned from 138 to 161. Harris, O. Bardenhewer, A. Harnack and I. V. Popov date the writing of the Apology to this period. The date of writing can then be narrowed down by the following points. First, the address does not mention Marcus Aurelius, who became co-ruler of Antoninus Pius in 147. Second, although the martyr Aristides complains of slanders against Christians, he does not speak of persecutions, which points to the beginning of the reign of Antoninus. And finally, the Apology of Aristides must have been written before the First Apology of the martyr Justin, since it is less developed theologically and shows no influence of it.
The Armenian manuscript with the Apology also contains the text of a homily "On the cry of the thief and the answer of the Crucified to him". The attribution of this homily to the martyr Aristides is disputed because of expressions and turns of phrase characteristic of anti-Nestorian polemics, and the absence of references to Aristides' authorship in ancient writers. Also connected with the name of Aristides is a fragment of a few lines from the so-called "Epistle of Aristides to All Philosophers". This quotation is found in an anti-Nestorian florilegium (a collection of quotations from the writings of the Fathers and teachers of the Church), and is most likely a free paraphrase of a thought from Aristides' Apology.