It is a vain vnah that we had more than the few hundred words which Eusebius has preserved. With only these fragments, it is misleading and arbitrary to argue from the silence of Pai)ias as to what he knew of the four Gospels or the Epistles of St. Paul. The passage preserved by Eusebius is taken from the fourth booK of the Exposition.^ of Papias, — Irenieus having informed us that Papias had written live such Looks, — in which he con- firms his interpretations by his own reminiscences of the speech of those that had known the apostles. It is worthy of special regard that the earliest witnesses and disciples of our Lord are cited in the Eusebian fragment of Papias in the very order in whicli they are referred to in the Fourth Gospel. Eusebius does not cite passages from Papias in proof of the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel. He adopts this course upon the principle which ha follows everywhere, viz. to mention very little concerning tlie entirely undisputed books, but to bring confirmation from var'ius sources of those which had, upon any ground, been rejected or dis-
• .similarly, Zahn and Hamack.
t The only other trace of the book, ' The Exposition *f th« Oracles of our Lord,' is in an inventory of the books in posses, sion of the cathedral of Nismes, dated A.D. 1218.
JOHN, GOSPEL OF
JOHN, GOSPEL OF
699
puted. In like manner he makes no reference to any of tlio quotations indisputably made by Irenipus or Origen from the GoHpcI. The silence here is a proof tliat I'apias made abundant use of the Gosjiel rather than the reverse. The refer- ences to I'apias' use of 1 Peter and 1 John support a fuitber sugf;estion, that Papias was familiar with the Gospels of Mark (the interpreter of Peter) and John the Divine. Eu.sebius does not refrain (in bis Chronicon ail Olymp. 220) from speaking of ' Papias the Hieropolitan, and Polycarp Bp. of Smyrna, as being known to be hearers of John the Dii'ine and Apostle, as is declared by Irena-us and others.'
This particular passage raises no question about John ' the elder,' of wliose existence there is no proof except this .solitary comment of Eusebius upon an obscure fragment of Papias. The present writer has discu.ssed the subject fully in Introd. to Gospel in Pulpit Com. ; see also Salmon, art. 'Joannes I'resby tcros, ' in Diet. Chr. liiug. ; Farrar in Expos. (ISSI) 2nd Ser. ii. 321 ; Haussleiter in Theol. Lit.-blatt, Sept. 25, 18'JG ; and Gwatkin in Contemp. liev., Feb. 1897 (cf. Expos. Times, viii. 1897, pp. 338, 410). Westcott, Lightfoot, and Gwatkin hold to the Eusebian suggestion. Dclll' advocated the existence of a discijile not John the Apostle, but possibly John the Presbyter, wlio is credited with the authorship of the Gospel, wlio was the disciple whom Jesus loved, and wlio knew more of the esoteric teaching than any of tlie Twelve. But the entire story of the second John is due, as many liold, to the inaccurate interpre- tation by Eusebius of the saying of Papias.
(5) In conjunction with Pajiiiis, it is well here to recount the testimonv of Poi.ycari', Up. of Sraj'rna, who may be safely credited with carrying the evidence for the existence of the Gospel back to the lifetime of St. John. The letter of Irenieus to Klorinus, preserved by Eusebius, HE v. 20, is charged with proof of liis own personal remem- brances of Polycarp. Ireiucus recounts his ways, his ' jiersonal intimacy with John and with the rest who had known the Lord.' 'The miracles and doctrine of the Lord were told by Polycarp, in consistency with the Holy Scriptures, as he re- ceived them from the eye-witnesses of the Doctrine of Salvation.' These 'Holy Scriptures' to which Irena^us refers were no other than the Gospels, — including the Fourth, — from which he made hun- dreds of citations in his great work. The hi.storical character of Polycarp's visit to Home, and of his martyrdom, has withstood all criticism. The memorable exclamation, ' Eighty and six years have I sen'ed Christ,' limits the interval between the martyrdom and birth of Polycarp. The pains- taking researches of Waddington (independently conlirmed by Lightfoot) give A.l>. 155 as the date of the martyrdom, and therefore A.D. 09 a-s that of the birth, and pos.sibly the baptism, of this venerable link between the apostles and the sub- ai-ostolic Church. This would allow for Polycarp's having attftined thirty years before the death of John. It is almost impossible to believe that IreiiuMis blundered so extravagantly n.s not to have found out, in the strength of his vigorous man- hoo<l, whether it was St. John himself, or another, of whom Polycarj) spoke to him, in days so well remembered. The brief Epistle of Polycarp to the Phillppians contains an uuiiiistakahle citation of 1 .III I-': 'For every one who does not confess that Jesus Christ baa come in the llesh is Anti- christ, and whoso does not confess the testimony of the Cross is of the devil.' The hypothesis of Vdlkiiiar, that the author of the 1st E^i. was quot- ing fiom PoIj'car|i, is surely discredited by the assurance that Papias also maile use of 1 Jn. The authenticity of Polycarp's letter has been placed
beyond quest-on by the researches of Lightfoot {Contemp. Jicview, 1877, and Apost. Fathers, pt. II. vols. i. and iii.). Dale, in his Living Christ and Four Gospels, developed a striking argument from the absence of mysticism and the lack of origin- ality displayed V>y Polycarp, in addition to tlie fact that John, whom he knew, must have written the Gospel which he accepted, and taught his disciples to regard as Holy Scri{>ture. Even the contrast between the tone, the teaching, and the chronology of the Synoptics, and the Fourth Gospel, certainly strengtliens the conclu.sion. This contrast has been greatly exaggerated, but nothing is more likely to have prevented a widespread hesitation as to the authenticity of the Gospel, on account of this contrast, than the assurance of such a man as Polycarp.