Aristides’ Apology
The Apology of Aristides the Philosopher
Aristides of Athens
Found in a Sinai monastery, and then found again inside a novel.
- Catch rate
- 80 / 255
- Base research
- 150
- Stat total
- 248
Base stats
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Seventeen chapters, entire — the earliest complete Christian apology anyone has.
Aristides argues from the sky and then, at length, from a congregation. The second half is the one that lands, and it is mostly a list of what these people actually do.
Three witnesses in three languages — Syriac, Greek and Armenian — agreeing. Very few second-century texts defend that well.
Rediscovered in 1889 and much less famous than it should be.
Cited for this book
Presented to the Emperor Hadrian around 125, and lost for seventeen centuries. J. Rendel Harris found the complete text in Syriac in a manuscript at St Catherine’s on Sinai in 1889; while his edition was in the press, J. Armitage Robinson realised the Greek had been in print the whole time, sitting inside Barlaam and Josaphat, a medieval monastic novel about a prince of India. Two recoveries, two years, and a book older than anything else of its kind.
Development
A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.
Moves learned
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | Which of Them Has the Truth | History | Argument | 58 | 100% | 20 |
| 15 | Gods Under Guard | Rationality | Argument | 74 | 100% | 15 |
| 18 | Chapter… | Bible | Scripture | — | — | 12 |
| 22 | They Fast Two or Three Days | Ethics | Argument | 86 | 100% | 10 |
| 26 | As If Setting Out | Eschatology | Argument | 72 | 100% | 15 |
| 30 | A New People | History | Argument | 80 | 100% | 10 |