less ai)plicable to the discourses of tlie Fourth (Jospel, where, even if traditional lagia are em-
1 turn Uithe word handed down by tradition from the beginning'
At a muvh laU^r time the term t« /.iyio. is applietl to NT S<rip- ture general!} in the same sense as to the OT (Ignatius, ad Sm</rn. iii. (longer form in the interjxilated niatterj). .S<« In general
i Grimm-Thayer, Lexicon, s.v. kcynt, and l.igblfoot, CmUernp. Rev. for Aug. 1876, p. 399 ff. On I'apias' use aee Hall, Papias,
! 1899, p. 242.
2. The morh'.rn n.se of the term 'logia' is partly (a) conformed to the Patristic application to the precei)ts of Jesus conceived sis ' brief and pithy apothegms' (Justin M. Apol. xiv.) of sacred authority; partly (/>) designates a comnilation, or compilations, antecedent to or parallel with the canonical Gosj)els, supposed to have l>een entitled or called to. \6yia ; cf. the use of 'Hible' (Lat. BiJ)lm = Ta. jiijiXia.), to mean ' the (sacred) books' of the Canon.
(a) Of the former (correct) use it is enough to say that science has no Iwttcr <lesignalion for llie ajwthegms of Jesus in the form wherein tradition has transmitted them, whether in the Synoptic Gospels or as uncanonical ngrnpha. The connota- tion of sacredness in the designation logiov, if we ha\ e regard to the later peritnl of transmii-sion, is not inai»prot)riate. The cherislu'd utterances of Jesus soon obtained such currency independently of our Gospels (Ac 2(y'\ Clem. Kom. rid Cor. xiii. 1, xlvii. 7, Polyc. ad Phil. vii. 2) as rightly to deserve it. The term is appropriate therefore to the sacred aiK)thegms of Jesus as preserved in the Synoptic (iospels or independently. As against the simj)le \6yoi, it is probably a later form in\olving tacit comparison with the (sacred) pre<;epts of the OT. It is less common than \6yoi, and ceitainly much "ess ai)plic
Jospel, wl
Ixxlied, dialogue, the favourite form for philosophic and religious exjKtsition, predominates, and the traditionary interest is sulH)rdiiiated to that of exi>ounding the Evangelist's (^hristology.
(b) The use of ' Logia' or 'the Logia' to designate a certain tyj)e of (ios[)el -composition is open to serious objection. Tlie discovery by (irenfell and Hunt of papyri of the 2nd or 3rd century, in which Sayings attributed to Jesus are agglutmated with no more of narrative framework than the bare words, ' Jesus saith ' (\iyei IijcroCj), proves that such compilations actually circulated, fuKilling a func- tion similar to tiie Pirke Aboth, or ' Sayings of the Fathers' in the contemiwrary and earlier Syna- gogue. Hut the later discovered superscription of the Oxyrhynchus collection itself (published HK)4) condemns the editors' hasty api)lication of the title X6yLa'\ri<Tod to the fragment or 1897, by using the simple \6yoi (oi roloi ol \6yoi, k.t.X). * There is, in fact, absolutely no evidence that any Iwok ever received the title \6yia, though there is a certain signifi- cance in the use of the word by I'apias and I'oly- carj) interchangeably with \6yoi to designate the precepts of Jesus, whether in literary emlKxliment or otherwise. For Papias tiiese precepts are ' com- mandments delivered by the Lord to the faith ' (dvroXai ttj tI<tt(i SeSo/j^vai), and hence comj)arable with ' the oracles of God committed to Israel ' {f-iria- Teijdr}<rav to. Xirfia. roO dtov, Ro •S''^) ; but lie refers to just the same precepts as \6yot., when in a con- nected clause he declares that Peter hful no design of making a .?y»<«^//H« of the 'sayings' (oi'x Cxnrep a'vvTa^iv tQjv KvpiaKwv iroioi''/xfco5 \6ywv). Indeed, in all the earlier evidence we possess of the forniation of such .fi/nf'ifjmntn , the expression used is always \6yo(, and never X67ia. Thus, besides the references already given to Acts, Clem. Rom. ad Cor., and I'olycarp ad Phil., the Pastoral Ej)istles have two references to 'wholesome words' (iryiafcocrfj
* This of course is ungranimatical. The editors pro|)ose to delete the first «.'. Professor Swete prefers to read cZtoi for «' rae, (see EzpT XV. [1904J p. 490).
46
LOGIA
LOGIA
\6yoL) which are more closely defined as ' sayings of the faith ' {\6yoi ttjs Trtcrrews, cf. Papias, evroXal rrj TriareL dedo/jL^vai) ' of the excellent teaching,' and even explicitly as ' the sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ' {oi \6yoi rrjs Trtcrrews Kal ttjs KoXfii didacrKoKias, oi vyiaivovTe)! \6yoi oi rod Kvpiov 7]fj.u>v 'Irjaov XptoToi;, Kal T] /car' evcrepeiav didaaKoXia, k.t.X., 1 Ti 4^ 6^).
More important for its bearing on the question of the name to be applied to the Mattha?an si/ntngma are the structural plienomena of the canonical Mt., to be discussed later. At present Ave note only that, apart from t!ie Markan nar- rative outline, the mam framework of this Gospel consists of live great agglutinated discourses, each marked of!" by tlie resumption of tlie narrative in a stereotyped formula, ' And it came to pass when Jesus liad finished these words.' In this formula the expression \6yoi is varied only by the expres- sions 'parables' and 'directions to the Twelve,' where the context requires (IP 13^^), while the final group concludes : ' And it came to pass when Jesus had finished all these words ' (7rd;'Tas tovs \6yovs TovTovs, Mt 26'), in spite of the fact that the nar- rative continues : ' he said to his disciples.'
In view of this earlier evidence it is manifestly unwarrantalile to infer from the use by Papias of the term Xoyia alongside of \6yoi, that ' he refers to three documents, (1) St. Mark's version of St. Peter's teaching, (2) an anonymous collection of Sayinqs of the Lord, (3) the Login of St. Matthew' (K. Lake, Hihhert Journ. iii. 2 [Jan. 1905], p. 337). Papias is defining his authority for ' the com- mandments given by the Lord to the faith.' If he refers to these now, with 1 Ti 4" 6^, as ' sayings,' of whicli Peter might liave made a syntagma but did not, and now, witli Polycarp ad Phil, vii., as ' oracles,' of which Matthew did make a syntagma, the difference is only that in tlie latter embodi- ment they seemed to him comparable with the ' oracles of God ' given to Israel (Ac 7^^ Ro 3^ He 512, 1 P 4").