THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
so frequently, the former attempted to force the authorship upon the presbyter John.
The later critics have concluded that Papias did not know the unmentioned books, and that therefore the Fourth Gospel did not yet exist; that Papias must have heard John in his early years, yet when he wrote this book he either 5. Later knew nothing of the Fourth Gospel or Critics and did not care to know. Here is an arguthe Fourth mentum e silentio, to which the follow- Gospel. ing may be opposed: (1) the fact that citations made from another point of view do not mention the Fourth Gospel does not argue that Papias did not know the Gospel itself and cite from it; (2) from the circumstance that Eusebius does not mention that Papias knew two Gospels only and that he does not mention that Papias used the two Gospels, it can not be concluded that the latter knew and used not the other two. And to this argumentum e silentio and to the other that in vindicating so strenuously the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, Eusebius would without hesitation have snatched up the mention of it in all the vast work of Papias, may be rejoined in similar kind, that in all the writings of the early Church Eusebius is the solitary one who sets up the presumption of a presbyter John, though the person so designated is too prominent in Papias to meet with such universal silence. Nay, rather Eusebius cites from the great work of Papias not what is in accord with the Gospels, but rather what is foreign and untrustworthy in order to depreciate the value of the writings. This suggests another important consideration. In Hist, eccl., III., xxiv. (Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., i. 154) he authenticates the Gospel as well as I John positively, " as accepted beyond dispute both now and in ancient times." In view of such a universal acceptance, he omits to mention the earlier witnesses just as he almost never produces citations for accepted writings. There is no wonder, then, that he did not cite Papias to the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, and he would not have accepted him if his work had abounded in citations. But it would have fitted the purpose of Eusebius if Papias had used only the Gospel to the Hebrews, Matthew, and Mark, and had made no mention of Luke and John. He would by no means have neglected to announce it in order to lay a new premise for the limitation and one-sidedness of Papias. And how preeminently could he have used this advantage to declare the alleged discipleship of Papias to the apostle, supported as it is by Irenaeus, to be inconceivable: " Papias does not even know the Gospel of John and he is said to have been his disciple I " Nay, silence of Eusebius on the manner of employment by Papias of the four Gospels, and especially of the last, can not be otherwise taken than that Papias used them all and, indirectly, that the Fourth Gospel is authentic. There is also an attempt to establish the acquaintance of Papias with the Gospel of John by internal evidence. A certain utterance by elders in Asia Minor in which John xiv. 2 is cited seems to bear the character of Papias' view and Scripture interpretation so as to be included under Papianistic fragments without hesita-
tion; and Dorner thinks it not unlikely that the use which that utterance made of the work of Papias constituted the source from which Irenseus derived his testimony. To this, Corssen would deduce from the acquaintance of Papias with I John, as reported by Eusebius, that he knew also the Fourth Gospel. The order of the names of the apostles in the fragment corresponds to that in the first chapter of John; the words " from the truth itself " are characteristically Johannine; the peculiar word of Christ reported by the elders and retained by Irena?us corresponds to John xiv. 1above all the statement in Papias' work that Christ taught at a later age than that of thirty, which appears to point to Papias having known John viii. 57.
There remains yet a consideration of the fragments preserved elsewhere than in Eusebius. From the first book of Papias, Maximus in his scholia to Dionysii Areopagitce de ccelesti hierarchia, ii. 32 (Antwerp, 1634) has preserved the notice, " they called them children who practised guilelessness toward God," a custom for which he cites Clement of Alexandria as well as Papias for authority
6. Other (possibly attached to Christ's words Fragments in Matt, xviii. 3, xix. 14). In the of Papias. chronicle compiled by Georgius Hamartolos, in the ninth century, it is stated as represented in the second book of Papias that John the brother of James was killed by the Jews at Ephesus, and, for substantiation, reference is made to Christ's prophecies (Matt. xx. 22 sqq.; Mark x. 38) and to the commentary on Matthew by Origen {Opera, iii. 719 sqq.). But the passage from which the citation is made is preserved and contains no such statement, and the tradition is generally discredited because so contrary to the representations of the Fathers. This reference was used, however, by Hausrath to deny that John sojourned in Asia Minor but that he suffered martyrdom with James the Just at Jerusalem 62 a.d. Irenaeus communicates a saying of Christ received from the elders who knew John, the authenticity of which he supports by Papias from the fourth book of his work (ut sup., V., xxxiii. 3, 4; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 562-563). This passage pictures the blessedness of believers in the millennium. Maximus Confessor also refers it to the fourth book of Papias directly (ut sup., vii.); and Eusebius refers to it indirectly (Hist, eccl., iii. 39; Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., i. 170-173) where he asserts that Papias accepted the teaching of chiliasm in a sensual way and misunderstood the statements of the apostles in that he failed to recognize the parabolical and mystical sense of the words, and blames him for leading Irenseus and other writers of the Church astray. Other fragments are recognized by a certain preference of Papias for typical-allegorical Scriptural interpretation; cf. Anastasius Sinaita, Anagogicarum contemplationum in Hexaemeron, i.; ed. M. de La Bigne, Bibliothecce veterum patrum, i. 223 (Paris, 1609); also, Eng. transl., ANF, i. 155. A fragment that treats of the final illness of Judas Iscariot and that departs from Matthew and Luke belongs to the fourth book; cf. Catena in Acta Sanctorum Apostolorum, ed. J. A. Cramer, p. 12 sqq. (Oxford, 1838), and Theophy-