RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Paphnutius Papias
the first Christian period, it could nevertheless not be identical with the name of the second rank of the church office, but must refer to an upper traditional rank with Papias as well as with Irenseus; but with this difference, that, as early as the time of Irenaeus, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Papias were presbyteroi, while in that of Papias only one traditional rank intervened between him and Christ. Therefore in the sense of Papias, presbyteroi is rendered " Apostolic Fathers " in contrast with those of the succeeding rank who might call themselves brethren.
The contents of the work of Papias are not so uncertain, being explanations of the words of the Lord. Under the term logia, Papias did not only include the sayings of Christ; but, with reference to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, 3. Contents the acts are included as well. Besides of the Work. Matthew and Mark, he knew also the Gospel to the Hebrews, and he made use of I John and I Peter. It will remain uncertain whether he knew Luke; or, what is more probable, whether he knew and employed all five gospels as the basis of his work, supplemented from other sources. His purpose was not so much to complement, from oral sources, the words of the Lord as laid down in the Gospels as to obtain material for the elucidation of the words of Jesus. The first source was his own memory of what he had heard from the apostles, Aristion, and other first disciples. The second source was indirect: he inquired of the pupils of the first disciples wherever he met them what of the words of Jesus these had reported, and from a time when disciple and pupil dwelt in personal association; and also of pupils of Aristion and John while they were yet alive. From the present tense (legousi) it is deducible that Papias commenced to gather his material before the end of the first century. The necessity for making inquiry presented itself whenever pupils of John and Aristion chanced to come to Hierapolis. The recurrence of the name of John in the fragment is met by the explanation that reports from the Jerusalem period of John's life required the aorist, eipon; while those of the Ephesian period require the present, legousi. Eusebius endeavors to make eipon refer to the followers of the apostles, and legousi to contemporaries of Papias; namely, Aristion and the presbyter John, thus removing the latter farther from the apostles, notwithstanding that the titles presbyteros and presbyteroi are the same in form and that Irenseus may have joined the two in Hcer., IV., xxvii. 1 (Eng. transl., ANF, i. 498), and xxxii. 1 (Eng. transl., ANF, i. 507).
It is uncertain whether the material obtained from oral tradition consisted merely of elucidations of the words of Jesus or included such words themselves; but the former is the more probable. It is also problematical whether the first clause of the fragment was not preceded by an adversative clause, as if the succeeding oral traditions were contrasted with preceding written ones; or the Lord's own words of elucidation preceding were contrasted with those of others following; or if the sources themselves are discussed. Evidently, Papias placed special value upon the oral tradition held in living remembrance by eye-witnesses, the word VIII.— 22
" abide " being in constant use. Besides this, Eusebius imparts very little of the work of Papias, evidently because the explanations of logia furnished nothing for his historical pur- 4. Papias' pose; excepting where he quoted some Method of the illustrations by which Papias and had illumined his explanations. Such Testimony, were the accounts of a daughter of Philip raised from the dead, one Justus Barsabas drinking poison without harm, certain parables and didactic words not found in the Gospels, and the mention of a woman in the Gospel to the Hebrews, who was accused before the Lord. From what has been said, what is important is that he constructed and elucidated sayings of Jesus; the question is not whether he knew all the canonical Gospels and how he employed them. One fragment shows that he knew Matthew and Mark; the same is found in Irenaeus, and Eusebius reproduces it with the statement that Papias referred it to the presbyter John. It reports that Mark was the interpreter of Peter and that he wrote down from memory, exactly, though not in the original order, all that Peter had related of the words and the deeds of the Lord; and that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, which each one translated the best he could. These two references have been the subject of a vast amount of discussion since the time of Schleiermacher. Eusebius was concerned to communicate from Papias the origin of these two Gospels, from a sufficient reason, which must have been external and not internal; for the manner in which Papias used this and other Gospels is of no interest to him. Perhaps, by his silence as to Papias' testimony to other Gospels, he would suggest that Papias knew no other. Eusebius, indeed, asserts the use of other sources but explicitly only I John, I Peter, and the Gospel to the Hebrews, as written sources. His purpose in doing this is obviously to support his view that the first epistle of each only is genuine, while the second of each is not, and the third of John is doubtful. In the same passage, Eusebius places the Gospel to the Hebrews among the antilegomena. But, if the object of Eusebius is, with reference to the selection of excerpts, to expose the untrustworthiness of Papias; and, on the other hand, it is his purpose, with reference to his investigations and communications concerning presbyter John, to set him forth as another than the apostle, then, the deductions which have been made from the silence of Papias as to the Fourth Gospel have been rather precipitate. It is not Papias who is silent, but Eusebius, and not only concerning the Fourth Gospel, but also the Acts, the Pauline Epistles, and the Epistle of James, no doubt because these contributed nothing to that phase of Papias which he had in mind to represent. Eusebius does not state expressly that Papias knew and used the Apocalypse, but this is implied when he refers to the chiliastic utterances of Papias and condemns him for taking the mystical sense of the words literally. On the same ground Andreas of Csesarea calls upon Papias as his chief authority for the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse. It might be concluded from Eusebius that because Papias used the Apocalypse
Papias