§ 169. Papias.

Papias, a disciple of John¹³⁰¹ and friend of Polycarp, was bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, till towards the middle of the second century. According to a later tradition in the "Paschal Chronicle," he suffered martyrdom at Pergamon about the same time with Polycarp at Smyrna. As the death of the latter has recently been put back from 166 to 155, the date of Papias must undergo a similar change; and as his contemporary friend was at least 86 years old, Papias was probably born about a.d. 70, so that he may have known St. John, St. Philip the Evangelist, and other primitive disciples who survived the destruction of Jerusalem.

Papias was a pious, devout and learned student of the Scriptures, and a faithful traditionist, though somewhat credulous and of limited comprehension.¹³⁰² He carried the heavenly treasure in an earthen vessel. His associations give him considerable weight. He went to the primitive sources of the Christian faith. "I shall not regret," he says, "to subjoin to my interpretations [of the Lord’s Oracles], whatsoever I have at any time accurately ascertained and treasured up in my memory, as I have received it from the elders (para; tw'n presbutevrwn) and have recorded it to give additional confirmation to the truth, by my testimony. For I did not, like most men, delight in those who speak much, but in those who teach the truth; nor in those who record the commands of others [or new and strange commands], but in those who record the commands given by the Lord to our faith, and proceeding from truth itself. If then any one who had attended on the elders came, I made it a point to inquire what were the words of the elders; what Andrew, or what Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas, or James, or John, or Matthew, or any other of the disciples of our Lord; and what things Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I was of opinion that I could not derive so much benefit from books as from the living and abiding voice."¹³⁰³ He collected with great zeal the oral traditions of the apostles and their disciples respecting the discourses and works of Jesus, and published them in five books under the title: "Explanation of the Lord’s Discourses."¹³⁰⁴

Unfortunately this book, which still existed in the thirteenth century, is lost with the exception of valuable and interesting fragments preserved chiefly by Irenaeus and Eusebius. Among these are his testimonies concerning the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew and the Petrine Gospel of Mark, which figure so prominently in all the critical discussions on the origin of the Gospels.¹³⁰⁵ The episode on the woman taken in adultery which is found in some MSS. of John 7:53–8:11, or after Luke 21:38, has been traced to the same source and was perhaps to illustrate the word of Christ, John 8:15 ("I judge no man"); for Eusebius reports that Papias "set forth another narrative concerning a woman who was maliciously accused before the Lord of many sins, which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews."¹³⁰⁶ If so, we are indebted to him for the preservation of a precious fact which at once illustrates in a most striking manner our Saviour’s absolute purity in dealing with sin, and his tender compassion toward the sinner. Papias was an enthusiastic chiliast, and the famous parable of the fertility of the millennium which he puts in the Lord’s mouth and which Irenaeus accepted in good faith, may have been intended as an explanation of the Lord’s word concerning the fruit of the vine which he shall drink new in his Father’s kingdom, Matt. 26:29.¹³⁰⁷ His chiliasm is no proof of a Judaizing tendency, for it was the prevailing view in the second century. He also related two miracles, the resurrection of a dead man which took place at the time of Philip (the Evangelist), as he learned from his daughters, and the drinking of poison without harm by Justus Barsabas.

Papias proves the great value which was attached to the oral traditions of the apostles and their disciples in the second century. He stood on the threshold of a new period when the last witnesses of the apostolic age were fast disappearing, and when it seemed to be of the utmost importance to gather the remaining fragments of inspired wisdom which might throw light on the Lord’s teaching, and guard the church against error.

But he is also an important witness to the state of the canon before the middle of the second century. He knew the first two Gospels, and in all probability also the Gospel of John, for he quoted, as Eusebius expressly says, from the first Epistle of John, which is so much like the fourth Gospel in thought and style that they stand or fall as the works of one and the same author.¹³⁰⁸ He is one of the oldest witnesses to the inspiration and credibility of the Apocalypse of John, and commented on a part of it.¹³⁰⁹ He made use of the first Epistle of Peter, but is silent as far as we know concerning Paul and Luke. This has been variously explained from accident or Ignorance or dislike, but best from the nature of his design to collect only words of the Lord. Hermas and Justin Martyr likewise Ignore Paul, and yet knew his writings. That Papias was not hostile to the great apostle may be inferred from his intimacy with Polycarp, who lauds Paul in his Epistle.



Notes.



The relation of Papias to the Apostle John is still a disputed point. Irenaeus, the oldest witness and himself a pupil of Polycarp, calls Papias jIwavnnou me;n avkousth;", Polukavrpou de; eJtai'ro" (Adv. Haer. V. 33, 4). He must evidently mean here the Apostle John. Following him, Jerome and later writers (Maximus Confessor, Andrew of Crete and Anastasius Sinaita) call him a disciple of the Apostle John, and this view has been defended with much learning and acumen by Dr. Zahn (1866), and, independently of him, by Dr. Milligan (on John the Presbyter, in Cowper’s "Journal of Sacred Literature" for Oct., 1867, p. 106 sqq.), on the assumption of the identity of the Apostle John with "Presbyter John;" comp. 2 and 3 John, where the writer calls himself oJ presbuvtero". Riggenbach (on John the Ap. and John the Presbyter, in the "Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theologie," 1868, pp. 319–334), Hengstenberg, Leimbach, take the same view (also Schaff in History of the Apost. Ch., 1853, p. 421).

On the other hand, Eusebius (H. E. III. 39) infers that Papias distinguishes between John the Apostle and "the Presbyter John" (oJ presbuvtero" jIwavnnh") so called, and that he was a pupil of the Presbyter only. He bases the distinction on a fragment he quotes from the introduction to the "Explanation of the Lord’s Discourses," where Papias says that he ascertained the primitive traditions: tiv jAndreva" h] tiv Pevtro" ei\pen [in the past tense], h] tiv Fivlippo" h] tiv qwma'" h] jIavkwbo" h] tiv jIwavnnh" [the Apostle] h] Matqai'o", h] ti" e{tero" tw'n tou' kurivou maqhtw'n, a{ te jAristivwn kai; oJ presbuvtero" jIwavnnh", oiJ tou' kurivou [not tw'n ajpostovlwn] maqhtai;, levgousin [present tense]. Here two Johns seem to be clearly distinguished; but the Presbyter John, together with an unknown Aristion, is likewise called a disciple of the Lord (not of the Apostles). The distinction is maintained by Steitz, Tischendorf, Keim, Weiffenbach, Lüdemann, Donaldson, Westcott, and Lightfoot. In confirmation of this view, Eusebius states that two graves were shown at Ephesus bearing the name of John (III 39: duvo ejn jEfevsw/ genevsqai mnhvmata, kai; ejkavteron jIwavnnou ejti nu'n levgesqai). But Jerome, De Vir. ill. c. 9, suggests, that both graves were only memories of the Apostle. Beyond this, nothing whatever is known of this mysterious Presbyter John, and it was a purely critical conjecture of the anti-millennarian Dionysius of Alexandria that he was the author of the Apocalypse (Euseb. VII. 25). The substance of the mediaeval legend of "Prester John" was undoubtedly derived from another source.

In any case, it is certainly possible that Papias, like his friend Polycarp, may have seen and heard the aged apostle who lived to the close of the first or the beginning of the second century. It is therefore unnecessary to charge Irenaeus with an error either of name or memory. It is more likely that Eusebius misunderstood Papias, and is responsible for a fictitious John, who has introduced so much confusion into the question of the authorship of the Johannean Apocalypse.