Introduction 📜
Schoedel writes about Papias (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, v. 5, p. 140):
According to Irenaeus, our earliest witness, Papias was “a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp, a man of primitive times,” who wrote a volume in “five books” (haer. 5.33.4; quoted by Eusebius Hist. Eccl. 3.39.1). Eusebius already doubted the reality of a connection between Papias and the apostle John on the grounds that Papias himself in the preface to his book distinguished the apostle John from John the presbyter and seems to have had significant contact only with John the presbyter and a certain Aristion (Hist. Eccl. 3.39.3-7). Eusebius’ skepticism was no doubt prompted by his distaste – perhaps a recently acquired distaste (Grant 1974) – for Papias’ chiliasm and his feeling that such a theology qualified Papias for the distinction of being “a man of exceedingly small intelligence” (Hist. Eccl. 3.39.13). Nevertheless Eusebius’ analysis of the preface is probably correct; and his further point that Papias’ chiliasm put him to the same camp as the Revelation of John is surely relevant. It is notable that Eusebius, in spite of his desire to discredit Papias, still places him as early as the reign of Trajan (A.D. 98-117); and although later dates (e.g., A.D. 130-140) have often been suggested by modern scholars, Bartlet’s date for Papias’ literary activity of about A.D. 100 has recently gained support (Schoedel 1967: 91-92; Kortner 1983: 89-94, 167-72, 225-26).
Schoedel writes about the comments of Papias (op. cit., v. 5, pp. 141-142):
What the fragments have to tell us about Mark and Matthew is information that Papias himself traces to “the presbyter” (Eus. Hist. Eccl. 3.39.15-16). Eusebius separates the statements about Mark and Matthew, but they may have originally followed one another and certainly seem closely related. Perhaps the simplest reading of the statement on Mark is that Mark served as Peter’s interpreter (possibly in the role of methurgaman, or oral translator) and wrote down what he heard Peter say of the words and deeds of Jesus and that his writing is defective in “order,” though not in accuracy or fullness of recollection, because Peter naturally referred to the Lord’s logia in a random manner. Some have suspected that Papias did not have in mind the gospel of Mark that we know, but the arguments are tenuous. On another point, Kurzinger has attempted to show that Papias was speaking not of translation from the native language of Peter but of presentation of the reports of Peter (an interpretation which he applies also to Papias’ statement about Matthew); but this seems to push a rhetorical approach to Papias’ terminology too far (Schoedel 1967: 107; Kortner 1983: 203-4). On the other hand, an interpretation in rhetorical terms is somewhat more likely when it comes to the suggestion that Papias meant to say that Peter spoke “in chria-style” rather than “as needs (chriai) dictated.” But the point that is debated more than any other is what Papias had in mind when he said that Mark did not write “in order.” It is perhaps most likely that Papias was measuring Mark by Matthew (who is said by Papias to have made “an ordered arrangement” of the materials) – or perhaps more generally by Papias’ own conception of what ought to be included in such an account – and that he had in mind completeness of information as well as “order” in the narrow sense of the term. In any event, Papias is defending Mark in spite of perceived deficiencies.
Papias attests the role that oral tradition continued to play in the first half of the second century. Papias himself preferred “the living voice” to what could be found in books. Nevertheless, Papias seems to have known the Gospels, and he provides the earliest tradition concerning the authorship of the Gospel of Mark. The testimony of Papias concerning Matthew is more problematic. Eusebius says that Papias also “made use of testimonies from the first letter of John and likewise from that of Peter” (Hist. Eccl. 3.39.17).
━━━
Did Papias know John the Apostle? 📜
No.
Papias likely knew a second John, John the Elder or “Presbyter”.
The quote we have of Papias with Eusebius however doesn’t actually say he personally knew John the elder; it says he inquired from those who followed the elders what the elders Aristion and John were saying. This sounds like secondhand information. However Eusebius only quotes a short paragraph and it is possible that elsewhere Papias made reference to more personal contact. But this is what we have. If John the elder and John of Patmos were the same person, then there is the evidence from the epistolary section of Revelation that John’s pastoral sphere included parts of Phrygia, with Laodicea located just a few miles from Hierapolis. This makes personal contact more likely, and there are some fragments of Papias that suggest a familiarity with Revelation.
There are a few more fragments preserved by Andrew of Caesarea, Apollinaris of Laodicea, Agapius of Hierapolis, and paraphrasing allusions by George the Sinner and Philip of Side. Although there are reports of the book circulating in Europe as late as the Middle Ages, the above suggests it may have had a very limited circulation local to where Papias lived (Laodicea and Hierapolis) and Caesarea which had a large library (Eusebius and Andrew of Caesarea). Perhaps Irenaeus’ copy in Lyons survived in some form in the purported copies of Papias in Nîmes (France) in the 13th century, Stams (Austria) in the 14th century, and England in the 15th century, but these are just reports of what is now a lost book and it is possible that either these were pseudepigraphal or were copies of a book by a different Papias sometimes confused with the second century bishop.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3268790
https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA21263300&issn=00225185&it=r&linkaccess=abs&p=AONE&sid=googleScholar&sw=w&v=2.1&userGroupName=anon~bc28a2c3
Papias’ witness to the Gospel of John’s origins is paraphrased by Eusebius of Caesarea in his ‘Historia ecclesiastica’ 3.24.5-13. The passage has not been generally recognized as a paraphrase of a written source, and many scholars have drawn conclusions from Papias’ supposed silence concerning John. Evidence related to Papias’ writings on Luke is also discussed.
Bart Ehrman (Jesus Before the Gospels):
Specifically he spoke with people who had been “companions” of those whom he calls “elders” who had earlier been associates with the disciples of Jesus. And so Papias is not himself an eyewitness to Jesus’s life and does not know eyewitnesses. Writing many years later (as much as a century after Jesus’s death), indicates that he knew people who knew people who knew people who were with Jesus during his life.
What gospel is Papias talking about? (Bart Ehrman saiud not gMark) 📜
Pier Beatrice (NT, 2006) makes the very interesting suggestion that the reference is not to our Mark but the work otherwise known as the Preaching of Peter (Κήρυγμα Πέτρου) or the Teaching of Peter (Διδασκαλία Πέτρου, or Petri doctrina in Latin). This work was preserved in fragments by Clement of Alexandria and in a later recension in the Pseudo-Clementines (usually called Kerygmata Petrou in this context); F. Lapham in Peter: The Myth, the Man and the Writings: A Study of Early Petrine Text and Tradition (Sheffield, 2003) gives a helpful table showing that the versions in Clement and the Pseudo-Clementines are conceptually related (pp. 110-111). This is a work that purported to be the oral preaching of Peter written down in a book, which fits well with the claim by Papias that Mark wrote down what he remembered (ἐμνημόνευσεν) of Peter’s teachings (διδασκαλίας). There is also surprising early evidence of the Preaching of Peter that Beatrice discusses: (1) Origen (In Joannis 13.104) notes that the gnostic Heracleon in his commentary on John quoted from the Preaching of Peter c. 150-160 CE and the passage he quoted is similar to the one in Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 6.5) and the Pseudo-Clementines (Recognitions 5.14). (2) The Apology of Aristides written c. 124 CE also was dependent on the Preaching of Peter and its notion of τρίτῳ γένει (see Joseph Reagan’s The Preaching of Peter: The Beginning of Christian Apology, pp. 28, 78-79; University of Chicago, 1924). (3) The polemic against idols in the Epistle to Diognetus may also draw on the same source as discussed by Reagan. (4) Finally there is the agraphon in Ignatius, Smyrnaeans 3.2 that after the resurrection Jesus told Peter and those with him that he was not a bodiless demon (Λάβετε, ψηλαφήσατέ με καὶ ἴδετε, ὅτι οὐκ εἰμὶ δαιμόνιον ἀσώματον). According to Origen (De Principiis 1. praef 8), the statement Non sum daemonium incorporeum comes from a book called Petri doctrina.
Since Ignatius names Peter as one of recipients of this logion, Origen’s claim of the source of the quote is credible. If Ignatius did quote from the Preaching of Peter, this would place the work in the same period when Papias wrote. Also Jerome (De viris illustribus, 16) attributed the same quote to the Gospel according to the Hebrews and interestingly Eusebius notes that Papias drew his story of the woman accused of many sins from the Gospel according to the Hebrews (Didymus the Blind also attributed the story to other gospels and elsewhere mentioned the Gospel according to the Hebrews in another context), so the latter is definitely a gospel that Papias knew and used. The relationship between the Preaching of Peter and the Gospel according to the Hebrews is uncertain as both works survive only as fragments, but clearly Papias knew more gospels than just the canonical ones and it is possible that he attributed the Gospel according to the Hebrews to Mark (unless it is perhaps the work he attributed to Matthew).
Ehrman merely points out that the writing of Mark that Papias knew of does not in any way match the book we have titled the Gospel according to Mark. Papias describes an out of order sayings document, which the Gospel clearly isn’t. https://ehrmanblog.org/believing-papias-when-its-convenient/
Theodore of Mopsuestia: New Evidence for the Proposed Papian Fragment in Hist. eccl. 3.24.5-13 by Dean Furlong who argues the word τάξις “order” may be a reference to “without proper beginning or end.” In support of this, he cites Dionysius of Halicarnassus who is criticizing Thucydides “for his lack of order (τάξις) in omitting the beginning and ending of the narrative – https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0142064X16675269
Eusebius records Papias on the origins of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark but provides nothing comparable on John’s gospel, leading some scholars to conclude that Papias was silent concerning it. Others, however, suggest that Eusebius knew of Papias’s account of John’s gospel and chose not to record it. Charles Hill has argued at length that an unattributed passage in Eusebius’s Church History preserves the substance of Papias’s comments on John’s gospel. Richard Bauckham has raised objections to Hill’s hypothesis, arguing that while the problem of ‘order’ (τάξις) is common to Papias and the unattributed fragment, the solutions given by each are quite different. This study will provide a fresh analysis of the question, and will suggest new evidence in favour of Hill’s hypothesis from the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia.
━━━
Papias and Peter/Mark 📜
Casey describes Papias as having “drastically overplayed his hand”:
Problems arise with Papias’ use of the tradition that Mark heard Peter teach to establish the accuracy of the whole Gospel, despite the fact that it is not in the order of a historical outline. This indeed it is not, apart from the Cleansing of the Temple and the Passion narrative at the end. An undue proportion of confl ict stories are placed together (Mk 2.1–3.6). A high proportion of parables are placed together in Chapter 4, complete with the quite unconvincing theory that they were told to conceal the mystery of the kingdom of God (Mk 4.10- 12), a view contrary to the nature of Jesus’ ministry, but one which has an excellent setting in the life of Christians who found the parables diffi cult to understand. This wondrous theory is immediately followed by a secondary allegorical interpretation of the parable of the sower (Mk 4.14- 20), which cannot possibly have been derived from the teaching of Peter. A high proportion of Mark’s eschatological teaching is collected into Chapter 13, and some of that is evidently secondary too. It follows that Papias drastically overplayed his hand. While Mark may well have heard Peter teach, and this may have been the source of some of some of his perfectly accurate material, the whole of his Gospel cannot possibly have been derived from this source. Papias has produced a legitimating tradition. Faced with the fact that this Gospel was written by an unknown man called Marcus who never encountered the historical Jesus, he has sought to legitimate the accuracy of the whole of Mark’s Gospel by associating it as closely as he could with the leader of the Twelve during the historic ministry.
Nor has Papias provided a sound explanation as to why Mark’s material is not in a convincing historical order. Suppose that Mark heard Peter teach often enough for this to be his main source for the life and teaching of Jesus in his Gospel, why did he never ask Peter to provide him with the chronological outline which his Gospel so obviously lacks? Even if he did not actually write his Gospel until after Peter was martyred, anyone knowing that he had some intention of producing the first Gospel would surely have asked for any information that he did not possess, provided only that he saw a lot of Peter, and did not just hear him once or twice before he had decided to write. The associated tradition that Mark wrote in the centre of the Roman empire shows every sign of being secondary too. By the time of Irenaeus, the authenticity of 1 Peter was accepted, and at its end Peter, be this originally the famous apostle himself or a pseudonym, sends greetings from people in ‘Babylon’, a cipher for Rome, and from ‘Mark my son’ (1 Pet. 5.13). How easy it is to add in some details for the increasing witness of the Church Fathers! It is possible that this was a major cause of the tradition known to us from Papias. -Jesus of Nazareth pg 67
━━━
gMark and gMatthew with Papias 📜
Papias describes Mark as a sayings gospel that was written all out of order, and Matthew he claims originally wrote in Hebrew, of which our Matthew shows no signs. See: https://ehrmanblog.org/papias-and-the-eyewitnesses/
Schoedel writes about the comments of Papias (op. cit., v. 5, pp. 141-142):
What the fragments have to tell us about Mark and Matthew is information that Papias himself traces to “the presbyter” (Eus. Hist. Eccl. 3.39.15-16). Eusebius separates the statements about Mark and Matthew, but they may have originally followed one another and certainly seem closely related. Perhaps the simplest reading of the statement on Mark is that Mark served as Peter’s interpreter (possibly in the role of methurgaman, or oral translator) and wrote down what he heard Peter say of the words and deeds of Jesus and that his writing is defective in “order,” though not in accuracy or fullness of recollection, because Peter naturally referred to the Lord’s logia in a random manner. Some have suspected that Papias did not have in mind the gospel of Mark that we know, but the arguments are tenuous. On another point, Kurzinger has attempted to show that Papias was speaking not of translation from the native language of Peter but of presentation of the reports of Peter (an interpretation which he applies also to Papias’ statement about Matthew); but this seems to push a rhetorical approach to Papias’ terminology too far (Schoedel 1967: 107; Kortner 1983: 203-4). On the other hand, an interpretation in rhetorical terms is somewhat more likely when it comes to the suggestion that Papias meant to say that Peter spoke “in chria-style” rather than “as needs (chriai) dictated.” But the point that is debated more than any other is what Papias had in mind when he said that Mark did not write “in order.” It is perhaps most likely that Papias was measuring Mark by Matthew (who is said by Papias to have made “an ordered arrangement” of the materials) – or perhaps more generally by Papias’ own conception of what ought to be included in such an account – and that he had in mind completeness of information as well as “order” in the narrow sense of the term. In any event, Papias is defending Mark in spite of perceived deficiencies.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Eusebius summarizes what Papias claimed about his sources of knowledge about Jesus, a passage worth citing at length:
This Papias, whom we have just been discussing, acknowledges that he received the words of the apostles from those who had been their followers, and he indicates that he himself had listened to Aristion and the elder John. And so he often recalls them by name, and in his books he sets forth the traditions that they passed along. These remarks should also be of some use to us….
And he sets forth other matters that came to him from the unwritten tradition, including some bizarre parables of the Savior, his teachings, and several other more legendary accounts….
And in his own book he passes along other accounts of the sayings of the Lord from Aristion, whom we have already mentioned, as well as traditions from the elder John. We have referred knowledgeable readers to these and now feel constrained to add to these reports already quoted from him a tradition that he gives about Mark, who wrote the Gospel. These are his words:
And this is what the elder used to say,
“When Mark was the interpreter [or translator] of Peter, he wrote down accurately everything that he recalled of the Lord’s words and deeds—but not in order. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied him; but later, as I indicated, he accompanied Peter, who used to adapt his teachings for the needs at hand, not arranging, as it were, an orderly composition of the Lord’s sayings. And so Mark did nothing wrong by writing some of the matters as he remembered them. For he was intent on just one purpose: to leave out nothing that he heard or to include any falsehood among them.”
So that is what Papias says about Mark. And this is what he says about Matthew:
“And so Matthew composed the sayings in the Hebrew tongue, and each one interpreted [or translated] them to the best of his ability.”
And he set forth another account about a woman who was falsely accused of many sins before the Lord,3 which is also found in the Gospel according to the Hebrews…. [Eusebius, Church History 3.39]
This is such a valuable report because Eusebius is quoting, and then commenting on, the actual words of Papias. Papias explicitly states that he had access to people who knew the apostles of Jesus or at least the companions of the apostles (the “elders”: it is hard to know from his statement if he is calling the companions of the apostles the elders or if the elders were those who knew the companions. Eusebius thinks it is the first option). When these people would come to his city of Hierapolis in Asia Minor, Papias, as leader of the church, would interview them about what they knew about Jesus and his apostles. Many conservative Christian scholars use this statement to prove that what Papias says is historically accurate (especially about Mark and Matthew), but that is going beyond what the evidence gives us. Still, on one point there can be no doubt. Papias may pass on some legendary traditions about Jesus, but he is quite specific—and there is no reason to think he is telling a bald-faced lie—that he knows people who knew the apostles (or the apostles’ companions). This is not eyewitness testimony to the life of Jesus, but it is getting very close to that.
In any event, Papias does not seem to provide us with the kind of information we can place a lot of confidence in. I should point out, in this connection, that scholars have almost uniformly rejected just about everything else that Papias is recorded to have said in the surviving references to his work. Consider another piece of fourth-hand information:
*Thus the elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, remembered hearing him say how the Lord used to teach about those times, saying:
“The days are coming when vines will come forth, each with ten thousand boughs; and on a single bough will be ten thousand branches. And indeed, on a single branch will be ten thousand shoots and on every shoot ten thousand clusters; and in every cluster will be ten thousand grapes, and every grape, when pressed, will yield twenty-five measures of wine. And when any of the saints grabs hold of a cluster, another will cry out, ‘I am better, take me, bless the lord through me.’”
(Eusebius, Church History 3.39.1)
No one thinks that Jesus really said this. Or that John the disciple of Jesus said that Jesus said this. Did the elders who knew John really say this?
If scholars are inclined to discount what Papias says in virtually every other instance, why is it that they sometimes appeal to his witness in order to show that we have an early tradition that links Matthew to one of our Gospels, and Mark to another?
It’s theological motivation.
By this result, Papias seems to pass on stories that he has heard, and he attributes them to people who knew other people who said so. But when he can be checked, he appears to be wrong. Can he be trusted in the places that he cannot be checked? If you have a friend who is consistently wrong when he gives directions to places you are familiar with, do you trust him when he gives directions for someplace you’ve never been? (Jesus, Interrupted, pp. 109-110)
And so Papias is not himself an eyewitness to Jesus’s life and does not know eyewitnesses. Writing many years later (as much as a century after Jesus’s death), he indicates that he knew people who knew people who knew people who were with Jesus during his life. So it’s not like having firsthand information, or anything close to it.