(b) Papias' relation to ' the Elders,' t/ie prime wit- nesses to the meaning of the Oracles. — So much for the true text of such Oracles of the Lord as he chooses for comment. But what guarantee can he otter that his own exegesis of their meaning is pre- ferable to that of other Christian teachers about him, abler perhaps than himself? This is the question to which the chief citation made by Eusebius is a reply. Its substance is as follows. He is far from piquing himself on his own insight or ingenuity in evolving, at no slight length, plausible views as to the meaning of such Oracles as may seem obscure even to a careful reader. His one object being to reach the true meaning of Him who was the Truth incarnate, lie has no false shame in supporting his own ' interpretation ' by such authoritative traditions as he had collected in years gone by — traditions derived from the men of the first Christian generation, particularly per- sonal disciples of the Master Himself. His zeal in collecting such authentic oral comments, even at second-hand, Avas due, he explains, to the feeling that the vivA voce method of continuous trans- mission Avas more helpful, for reaching the true sense of the Lord's Oracles, than any books bear- ing on their elucidation. But before proceeding to draAV further inferences from Papias' preface, so far as cited by Eusebius, Ave Avill quote the passage {HE iii. 39) to Avhich Ave OAve our knoAv- ledge of it —
' But I will not scruple to set down for thee everything, too, that once on a time I learned right well from the Elders and right well bore in mind — in juxtaposition with the ( = my own) interpretations, so confirming their truth. For I used not to delight, like the many, in those wont to have so much to say (by way of comment), but in those wont to teach things that are true ; nor yet in those accustomed to bear in mind the pre- cepts of other masters (ra; aXXorpioi; itroXx;), but in those (wont to bear in mind) such as have been given once for all from the Lord to faith and reach (us) from the Truth itself as source («t' ai/Tii; rra.pa.yiMou.iia,; \al. oi;] Tvj; xXyfieia.;). But if haply one also who had been a companion of the Elders came (my way), I used to make careful inquiry into the discourses of the Elders — what had been said by Andrew, or what by Peter, or what by Philip, or what by Thomas or by James, or what by John or Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples, and what things Aristion and the Elder John, disciples of the Lord, have to say (Xiyouo-n). For I did not conceive that the contents of (the) books [of com- ment] assisted me as much as vivd voce communications pre- served continuously (t* rra-pk ^ao-ri; (ftuvii; xai /.t-ivoixrvi;).'
The exact exegesis of this famous passage is still an open question. Much depends on the re- lation of the clause, 'But if haply one also Avho had been a companion of the Elders ( = the Avorthies of the first generation, e.g. "disciples of the Lord," as also above) came my Avay,' to Avhat immediately precedes. If it expresses a less direct contact Avith the Elders, then Papias virtually claims himself to have heard some Apostles or personal disciples of Christ. But if, as seems preferable, it expresses a more direct relation, Eusebius' reading of the passage Avill hold, and Papias implicitly resigns all claim to have heard any Apostle, and so John in particular. In favour of the former alternative may be urged Eusebius' obvious desire to dissociate Papias from the Apostles, as also the positive statement of not a feAv later readers of Papias, Avho must have knoAvn of Eusebius' challenge, and so been the more careful in their OAvn
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reading of Papias' meaning (with the full con- text l»efore them). In particular, one might cite ' the witness of Apollinaris, bishop of Papias' own Hierapolis,* within half a century of the date of his predecessor's writing, when he calls him ' Papias, the disciple of John.' Besides, was Eusebius en- titled to assume that Iremeus, in calling Papias ' a hearer of John and a comrade of Polycarp,' — whom Irenaeus elsewhere explicitly makes fi disciple of Apostles and of John in particular, — was draw- ing on this passage at all, seeing that it does not itself suggest the second of the two descriptions here given ? Nevertheless Eusebius' exegesis of the passage, viz. that Papias had heard ' from the Elders ' only indirectlj-, though in certain cases at only one remove, best suits the extract as a whole. Nor does Papias' date dej^nd very much on ac- ceptance of the one view rather than the other. In either case he may well have been rather older than Polycarp (whose birth was as early as A.D. 69j, though, unlike him, he was won to Christ's Gospel only after the death of His last Apostle. Yet even at that date tvvo of HLs personal disciples, Aristion and the Elder John, were still living, most likely in Ephesus or its neighbourhood, some- where about A.D. 100.
(c) Dote of Papias writing. — Against the above result nothing can be said on the score of the date of Papias' b<x>k. Not only does irenaeus regard it as the work of ' a primitive worthy ' (dpxalbs dr^p), but Eusebius himself classes Papias with Polycarp, Ignatius, Clement (in this order), and others of the next generation after the Apostles (iii. 36 itiit., 37 init., and ad fin.), all of whom he regarded as flourishing under Trajan (A.D. 98-117). Accord- ingly he deals with Papias before going on to de- scribe events at the end of Trajan's reign (iv. 2), and the accession of Hadrian in 117, in connexion with whom he refers to the Apology of Quadratus. There is no external eHdence, therefore, apart from a confusion long ago cleared up by Light- foot, to lead us to assign to Papia<' Exposition a date later than about A.D. 115. Many scholars, indeed, point to the sentence, 'Touching those raised from the dead by the Christ, that they lived until Hadrian,' follo^ving immediately on some Papian matter in an epitome (Cod. Barocc. 142), as though it also were based on Papias, so that his work must be at least as late as Hadrian's reign. But the epitome is really based on Eusebius (\s-ith a few touches added directly from Papias in this connexion), and here passes on from Papias in Euseb. iii 39 to Quadratus as cited in iv. 2, as the very form of the sentence, ' Touching . . . that they lived . . .,' suggests.