The ' Oracles ' were probably a collection of sayings of our Lord, together with some kind of historical setting.
There is a tendency amon^ modern critics to fix a later date than formerly for the writmgs of Papias. His WTitten work seems not to have been produced till about the age of sixty. The change in the date is owing to the discovery of a fragment, purporting to contain statements by Papias, that was published by De Boor in 1888. It dates from the 7th or 8th cent., and is in tum probably based on the Chronicle of Philip of SMi^c. A.D. 430). Amon^ other matters it relates that those individuals who had been raised from the dead by Christ survived ' till the time of Hadrian.' Hadrian reigned 117-138, which compels us to fix a date for Papias' work not earlier than 140-160 (so Har- nack, Drummond, and Schmicdel. Sanday in his most recent work. The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, includes ,the date of Papias among the ' unsolved problems '). The date of his mar- tyrdom is also very uncertain.
Eusebius says that Papias ' evidently was a man of very mean capacity, as one may say, judging from liis statements ' (HE \\\. 39). This judgment must be considered strictly in connexion with the context. Eusebius is speakinjj of his millenarian notions, and of the unimaginative way in which he interpreted the figurative language of the Apostolic writings. These defects do not reflect on his accu- racy in matters of fact, but rather indicate a literal - ness and exactness which may at times be painful, but are yet a source of strength in the present dis-
(i. ) Papias is best known by the famous extract from the Preface to his work which is preserved by Eusebius :
' I will not hesitate to place before vou, alonf; with niv inter- pretations (of the Oracles of the Lord), everything that 1 care- fully learned, and carefully remembered in time past from the elders, and I can guarantee its truth. For 1 take no pleasure, as do the many, in those who have so very nnmh to say, but in those who teach the truth : nor in those who relate command- ments foreign (to the mind of the Lord), but in those (wbo record) such as were given to the faith by the Lord, and found on the truth itself. Moreover, if I met with anyone on aiij occasion who had attended the elders, I used to inquire alxml, the words of the elders ; what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip, or what Thomas, or James or .John or Matthew, or any other of the disciples of the Lord said, and what Aristion and the elder John, disciples of the Lord, say. For I was not inclined to suppose that statements made by the books would
much as the utterances i
ng and abiding
Several questions of moment are raised by these words of Papias.
(a) Wlio are the elders or presbyters of whom, he speaks ? — They clearly include the Apostles them- selves, and Papias derives his information from their friends, i.e. those who not merely 'had fol- lowed them ' in the literal sense, but had ' attended to' {Trapi]Ko\overiKuis) their words. He is in search of direct oral tradition about the ' Oracles.' At the same time he mentions two, Aristion and John, who are not Apostles, and whom he regards as 'presbyters' or elders. He also designates the whole group as 'disciples of the Lord.' In the case of Aristion and the Presbyter John, ol /ioflijTai is found only in one ]MS, and the preferable reading is to omit the article. In the first case, the use of the article with nadrjrCiv means ' the disciples ' specially known as such, and the key to the use of the term ' disciple ' in the second case, is found in the state- ment of Ac 6', where all those who were mem- bers of the first Christian community are called 'disciples.' The 'Elders,' then, .signify all those men who were members of the [primitive Christian Church who may or may not have followed the Lord Himself.
Irenseus has said that Papias was ' a hearer of John,' by whom he evidently means the Apostle. This would place him in im- mediate contact with the Apostolic circle. If, however, we are to rely only on the statements in the Preface, it is plain that Eusebius must be right when, in opposition to Irenseus, he says that * Papias certainly does not declare that he himself was a hearer and eye-witness to the holy Apostles.' Yet even with the later date assigned to Papias, there is no chronological impossibility in his having known the Apostle ; and it must not be forgotten that Irenffius was not necessarily dependent solely on the words of the Preface, but may have had other statements of Papias, or the living tradition of the Church, on which to found his assertion. If the position has to be surrendered that Papias was a 'hearer of John,' it is at least certain that he put him- self in the most favourable position to hear clearlj' ' the living and abiding voice ' of Apostolic times, conveyed to him through the ' friends ' of the Elders.