16
Jesus' incarnation (6.5; 10.5-10; 32.8-11; 47.3-5) and the citing of the Isaiah 7 passage in various forms
for its "prophecy" of Jesus' miraculous conception (8.5,6,13; 18.6-10; 26.6; 34.14-16). TA is also given to
citations of long Biblical passages and genealogies (17.5-17 and 35.9-27/Mat. 1:2-16; 27.7-28.24/Gen.
18:1-33; 28.25-44/Gen. 19:1-24; 49.15-29/Ezek. 16:1-39; 50.5-13/Isa. 60:1-10; 56.5-20/Dan. 7:1-14 as
a small sample!).
Unlike the introduction to ST, where the author claims to have witnessed the "debate" (I.1), TA
simply records the debate between a Christian "Timothy" and a Jewish "Aquila." Their personal names
actually drop out after 3.2 and they are referred to only as "the Christian" and "the Jew" until 57.16 and
19 where the newly ordained "Timothy" is mentioned and in 57.17 where the newly baptized Jew is
renamed "Theognotos." The title situates the events during the archbishopric of Cyril of Alexandria, who
was well known and has been called "the main architect of patristic Christology and bishop (412-444)."
33
While Lahey thinks that both the "Long Rescension" (LR) and the "Short Rescension" (SR) of
TA were written in the sixth century, he acknowledges that the work probably goes back to an actual
event that took place in Cyril's archbishopric.
34
But who was the author of the dialogue as written? In a
lengthy chapter of his dissertation, Robertson proposed that the author of TA was a certain Cosmas, a
scholar, lawyer, and virtual recluse with strong ties to the Alexandrian monastic communities, who wrote
various works of the contra Judaeos genre and also fostered debate with the Alexandrian Jewish
community.
35
Not all have been convinced by Robertson's suggestion. Lahey, however, advanced further
arguments supporting Robertson's suggestion and refined them to advocate Cosmas as the author of his
LR, while remaining non-committal on the authorship of the original TA and SR.
36
33
Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, 2nd ed. Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 310.
34
Lawrence Lanzi Lahey, "The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila: Critical Greek Text and English Translation of the
Short Rescension with an Introduction including a Source-critical Study" (Ph.D. Diss., University of Cambridge,
2000), 98.
35
Robert G. Robertson, "The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila: A Critical Text, Introduction to the Manuscript
Evidence, and an Inquiry into the Sources and Literary Relationships" (Th.D. Diss., Harvard University, 1986), 329-
385.
36
Lahey, "The Dialogue", 97-99.