Fragments of Papias 1

Now Irenaeus says these things.

Papias himself, however, in the preface to his treatises, makes it clear that he was in no way a hearer or an eyewitness of the holy apostles, but he teaches that he received the things of the faith from those who had been acquainted with them, in the words which he speaks:

But I will not hesitate to set down for you, alongside my interpretations, all that I once learned well from the elders and remembered well, confidently affirming their truth.

For I did not take pleasure, as most people do, in those who say many things, but in those who teach the truth; nor in those who recount the commandments of others, but in those who recount the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the truth itself.

For I did not suppose that what came from books would benefit me as much as what came from a living and abiding voice.

Here it is also worth noting that he twice numbers the name of John: the first he ranks together with Peter, James, Matthew, and the rest of the apostles, clearly indicating the evangelist; but the other John he sets apart in his account, placing him outside the number of the apostles, putting Aristion before him, and clearly naming him an elder.

So that by these things too the account is shown to be true, which states that two men in Asia bore the same name, and that there came to be two tombs in Ephesus, each of which is even now said to be John's.

To these things too it is necessary to give heed.

For it is likely that the second John—if one is unwilling to credit the first—was the one who saw the Revelation that is circulated under the name of John.

And the Papias now under discussion acknowledges that he received the words of the apostles from those who had followed them, but he says that he himself was a direct hearer of Aristion and of the elder John.

At any rate, having frequently mentioned them by name, he sets down their traditions in his writings.

And let these things too have been said by us not without profit.

It is worth appending to the sayings of Papias already cited some other words of his, in which he relates certain marvelous things and others, as having come to him from tradition.

Now that Philip the apostle resided at Hierapolis together with his daughters has been shown in what precedes (III); but that Papias, being of the same time as they, relates a marvelous story he received from the daughters of Philip, must now be noted.

For he relates that a resurrection of a dead person took place in his own time, and again another marvel concerning Justus surnamed Barsabbas, who drank a deadly poison and, by the grace of the Lord, suffered nothing harmful.

And this Justus, after the ascension of the Savior, the holy apostles, along with Matthias, set forward and prayed over, in place of the traitor Judas, for the lot that should complete their number; as somehow the writing of the Acts records:

"And they set forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias."

And the same man sets out other things as having come to him from unwritten tradition: certain strange parables of the Savior and teachings of his, and some other rather legendary matters.

Among these he says that there will be a period of a thousand years after the resurrection from the dead, when the kingdom of Christ will be set up in bodily form upon this very earth.

I suppose that he came to these notions through a misunderstanding of the apostolic accounts, not perceiving the things they said mystically in figures.

For he appears to have been very limited in understanding, as one might say in judging from his own words.

Yet he became responsible for the fact that very many of the churchmen after him held the same opinion as he did, putting forward the man's antiquity—as for instance Irenaeus, and whoever else has appeared holding similar views.

And he hands down in his own writing other accounts of the words of the Lord given by the aforesaid Aristion, and traditions of the elder John; to which we refer those who are eager to learn. And now we will necessarily add to his sayings already set forth a tradition which he has expounded concerning Mark, the writer of the Gospel, in these words:

"And the elder used to say this:

Mark, having become Peter's interpreter, wrote accurately all that he remembered, though not in order, of the things said or done by the Lord.

For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but later, as I said, he followed Peter, who used to give his teachings according to need, but not as though making an ordered arrangement of the Lord's oracles; so that Mark did nothing wrong in thus writing down some things just as he recalled them.

For he took forethought for one thing: to leave out nothing of what he had heard and to falsify nothing in them."

These things, then, have been related by Papias.

And concerning Matthew the following has been said:

"Matthew, then, composed the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as he was able."

And the same man has made use of testimonies from the former epistle of John and likewise from that of Peter; and he has set out also another story concerning a woman who was accused before the Lord of many sins, which the Gospel according to the Hebrews contains.

And let these things too be observed by us as necessary, in addition to what has been set out.

Of Pantaenus the priest of the Alexandrians, and of Ammonius the most wise, ancient and pre-synodal expositors, who understood the whole Hexaemeron as referring to Christ and the church.

Now the more ancient of the ecclesiastical expositors—I mean Philo the philosopher, contemporary of the apostles, and Papias the great, the disciple of John the evangelist, the man of Hierapolis,

and those around them, contemplated the things concerning paradise spiritually, referring them to the church of Christ.

Those who practiced guilelessness toward God they used to call children, as Papias also makes clear in the first book of the Expositions of the Lord's Sayings, and Clement of Alexandria in the Paedagogus.

These things he says, hinting, I think, at Papias who was then bishop of Hierapolis in Asia and who flourished together with the divine evangelist John.

For this Papias, in the fourth book of his Expositions of the Lord's Oracles, spoke of enjoyments through foods at the resurrection.

And Irenaeus of Lyons, in the fifth book Against Heresies, says the same thing and brings forward as witness of what he has said the aforementioned Papias.

Nevertheless, neither Papias, the bishop and martyr of Hierapolis, nor Irenaeus, the holy bishop of Lyons,

(does Stephanus accept) in what they say, that the kingdom of heaven consists in the enjoyment of certain perceptible foods.

In which, while making an enumeration of apostles, after Peter and John, Philip and Thomas and Matthew, he listed among the disciples of the Lord Aristion and another John, whom he also called an elder.

So that some suppose that the two small and catholic epistles which are circulated under the name of John belong to this John, because the ancients approve only the first.

And some, being deceived, also thought that the Revelation was his.

And Papias too is in error concerning the millennium, and from him Irenaeus also.

The aforesaid Papias related, as having received it from the daughters of Philip, that Barsabbas, who is also Justus, when put to the test by unbelievers and having drunk viper's venom in the name of Christ, was kept unharmed.

He relates other miracles as well, and especially the one concerning the mother of Manaim, who rose from the dead;

and concerning those raised from the dead by Christ, that they lived until the time of Hadrian.

For Papias, the bishop of Hierapolis, having been an eyewitness of this, asserts in the second book of the Lord's Oracles that he [John] was killed by Jews;

thus fulfilling, together with his brother, the prediction of Christ concerning them, and their own confession and agreement concerning this.

For the Lord, having said to them:

"Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?"—and when they readily assented and agreed—

for it is impossible that God should lie.

And so too the very learned Origen, in his commentary on Matthew (vol.),

confidently affirms that John bore witness [by martyrdom], indicating that he had learned this from the successors of the apostles.

And indeed the polymath Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History (III), says:

"Thomas was allotted Parthia, but John Asia, among whom he also resided and died at Ephesus."