Papias

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MrMacSon
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Papias

Post by MrMacSon »

.
Are our only [pre-Nicene] accounts about/of Papias -


and the Old Latin (anti-Marcionite) prologue of John - http://www.textexcavation.com/papias.html#fragment19 ???




Adolf von Harnack's 1893 Geschichte der Altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1893) 1:69, refers to

  • 'the Church History of the Nicephorus Call.' (III, 20 cf. 2:18); below, white text box;
    which I presume is the Historia Ecclesiastica1 of Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos* (Νικηφόρος Κάλλιστος Ξανθόπουλος*), of Constantinople, "the last of the Greek ecclesiastical historians", who lived around 1320.
    • * Latinized as Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopulus
1. ... an ecclesiastical history, beginning with the time of Christ, that survives in one manuscript. The original, complete text continued through to 911 in twenty-three books; however, the last five books have since been lost. The surviving eighteen books take the story of church history up to 610. Xanthopoulos's project was unusual in that no historians had written in the genre of ecclesiastical history since late antiquity, and his efforts seem to have failed to revive the genre ... https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/gu ... D8BA0183EE

From the Church History of the Nicephorus Call. (III, 20 cf. 2:18) it can hardly be concluded that he even knew Papias’s work; his words “Papias … left behind many treatises; but only five of his are spoken of, which are inscribed the interpretation of the Lord’s oracles”, should not be taken at face value. Perhaps the following four Western references are to be taken more seriously, if we knew just absolutely nothing about a translation of Papias in Latin:
  1. Ménard (s. Keil i. Fabr.-Harless Bibl. VII p. 153) in [the Civil and Church History and Literature of the city of Nismes] (Paris 1750 4:67) has copied the index of the inventory of the sacristy of the church of Nismes, which an unknown person included around the year 1218. Here is the comment: “Item: I discovered in a cloister a book of Papias, a book of the Lord’s words.”
    .
  2. Bickell has published in ZKT 3:800ff. the catalog of the library of the monastery of Stams, which was drawn up in the year 1341. Here is the notice: “Discourses of St. Benedict and of St. Bernard. – Different discourses. – Papias with different discourses.” I searched for this manuscript a week in Stams, but I did not find it.
    .
  3. Tritheim, de scriptor. eccl. 9 writes: “Papias, hearer and also disciple of St. John, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia, most steady propagator and defender of the Christian faith, disciple and diligent follower of the holy apostles wrote works whose authority must not be rejected. From which a noted work, separated in five volumes, which he designated thus: Explanation of the Lord’s Sayings, five books. We have not seen others that he wrote.
    .
  4. Witzel writes in a letter to Beatus Rhenanus (in the year 1534, s. Texte u. Unters. 1, 1 p. 107): “You gave us Eusebius, and after that Tertullian. It remains that you in equal elegance give Justin martyr, Papias and Ignatius composed in Greek.”

Papias’s fragments were repeatedly collected, first by Halloix. cf. Gebhardt’s and my edition of the PP. App. Opp. 1, 2 (edit. 2) p. 87sq.

http://hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2003/11/ ... -ages.html

Last edited by MrMacSon on Mon Dec 10, 2018 3:24 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Papias

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"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Re: Papias

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Peter Kirby wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 3:17 pm http://peterkirby.com/putting-papias-in-order.html

^ sources for Papias
Cheers Peter. I saw the full list at Ben's Papias textexcavation page, but was hoping to discern earliest (ante-Nicene] sources (and have edited my OP to that effect).
Last edited by MrMacSon on Mon Dec 10, 2018 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Papias

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MrMacSon wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 3:24 pm
Peter Kirby wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 3:17 pm http://peterkirby.com/putting-papias-in-order.html

^ sources for Papias
Cheers Peter. I saw the full list at Ben's Papias textexcavation page, but was hoping to discern earliest (ant-Nicene] sources (and have edited my OP to that effect).
Irenaeus is the only "ante Nicene" source. Eusebus would be Nicene era, but he has already put his own spin upon it, whereas I don't believe Irenaeus had. Anyone else would be post Nicene, and put even more spin on the data they claim to be relaying. That does not mean the spin doctors are making everything up, but they are spinning things to "de-mil" the sayings Papias relayed, as what Papias thought they relayed were no longer acceptable.

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Re: Papias

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DCHindley wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 4:37 pm Irenaeus is the only "ante Nicene" source.
I was thinking that as I hit 'submit' & shortly after, and also thought, knowing my luck, Eusebius' H.E. would 've been finished ~330+ AD/CE; but

Andrew Louth has argued that the Church History was first published in 313 CE.[4] In its present form, the work was brought to a conclusion before the death of Crispus (July 326), and, since book x is dedicated to Paulinus, Archbishop of Tyre, who died before 325, at the end of 323 or in 324. This work required the most comprehensive preparatory studies, and it must have occupied him for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Hi ... Chronology

I agree Eusebius would [have] already put his own spin upon it. I'd say those Wikipedia dates are probably optimistically early (unless the likes of Lactantius and Pamphilus already had a lot of 'stuff' already 'laid out').
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Re: Papias

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MrMacSon wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 3:24 pm hoping to discern earliest (ante-Nicene] sources (and have edited my OP to that effect).
I see. I think your list is correct.

If we're sticking to actual references to Papias and the text of his books, next in time would be post-Nicene (325) but pre-Chalcedonian (451). Maybe you're not strictly interested in them, but it's still useful to have an awareness. Overall I believe they have a lot of value, since I don't believe the texts of Papias were much more valid as texts in the early fourth century, although we could put a question to any individual source for reasons other than date. Indeed I do that here - I will not list here those texts that look like they may be dependent on Irenaeus and Eusebius or who refer to Papias without providing any quotations or who refer to Papias in conjunction with references to other early Christian authorities (without additional specificity in referring individually to Papias). I will also omit "hypothetical" allusions here.

In this category: Apollinaris of Laodicea [Wikipedia: died 382], Philip of Side [Wikipedia: ca. 380 - after 431].

After that, we have the texts between Chalcedon (451) and the last of the seven ecumenical councils (787), just after late antiquity.

In this category: John of Scythopolis, Scholia on The Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite 2.5 [Wikipedia: ca. 536–550], Andrew of Caesarea, On the Apocalypse Book 12.34 f. [Wikipedia: ca. 563 – 637].

This gives us a longer list of seven primary sources, which do not all enjoy the same temporal priority:
  1. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 5.33.3-4 [century II]
  2. Preface to John, Vat. Reg. lat 14 [century II - III]
  3. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 2.15 and 3.39 [century IV]
  4. Apollinarius, A catena compiled by Cramer vol 3 p12 [century IV]
  5. Philip of Side, History of Christianity, fragment from codex Baroccianus 142 in the Bodleian Library [century V]
  6. John of Scythopolis, Scholia on The Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite 2.5 [century VI]
  7. Andrew of Caesarea, On the Apocalypse Book 12.34 f. [century VII]
The additional potential yield of extending our frame of reference to consider quotes of later date are these bits:

Papias, Book 4

Judas did not die by hanging, but lived on, having been cut down before he was suffocated. And the acts of the apostles show this, that falling head long he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. This fact is related more clearly by Papias, the disciple of John, and the fourth book of the Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord as follows:

Judas walked about in this world a terrible example of impiety; his flesh swollen to such an extent that, where hay wagon can pass with ease, he was not able to pass, no, not even the mass of his head merely. They say that his eyelids swelled to such an extent that he could not see the light at all, while as for his eyes they were not visible even by a physician looking through an instrument, so far have they sunk from the surface.

His genitals appeared entirely disfigured, nauseous and large. When he carried himself about discharge and worms flowed from his entire body through his private areas only, on account of his outrages. After many agonies and punishments, he died in his own place. And on account of this the place is desolate and uninhabited even now. And to this day no one is able to go by that place, except if they block their noses with their hands. Such judgment was spread through his body and upon the earth.

-Apollinarius, A catena compiled by Cramer vol 3 p12

Papias, Book 1 (some overlap with Eusebius)

Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, who was a disciple of John the Divine, and a companion of Polycarp, wrote five books of Oracles of the Lord, wherein, when giving a list of the Apostles, after Peter and John, Philip and Thomas and Matthew he included among the disciples of the Lord Aristion and a second John, whom also he called `The Elder.’ So some think that this John is the author of the two short and catholic Epistles, which are published in the name of John; and he gives as the reason that the primitive (fathers) only accept the first epistle. Some too have wrongly considered the Apocalypse also to be his (i.e. the Elder John’s) work. Papias too is in error about the Millennium, and from him Irenaeus also.

-Philip of Side, History of Christianity, fragment from codex Baroccianus 142 in the Bodleian Library

Papias, Book 2 (for the first sentence, anyway)

Papias in his second book says that John the Divine and James his brother were killed by the Jews.

The aforesaid Papias stated on the authority of the daughters of Philip that Barsabas, who is also called Justus, when challenged by the unbelievers drank serpent’s poison in the name of the Lord, and was shielded from all harm. He makes also other marvelous statements, and particularly about the mother of Manaim who was raised from the dead. As for those who were raised from the dead by Christ, (he states) that they survived till the time of Hadrian.

-Philip of Side, History of Christianity, fragment from codex Baroccianus 142 in the Bodleian Library

Papias, Book 1

Those who practised guilelessness towards God they used to call children, as Papias also shows in the first book of the Expositions of the Lord, and Clement of Alexandria in the Paedagogue.
-John of Scythopolis, Scholia on The Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite 2.5

(Note: John of Scythopolis was a Byzantine theologian and lawyer and is speculated to have written some or all of these scholia on behalf of Maximus the Confessor, which I guess would be a case of ghost writing if it were so? Thus the note - "Corderius' edition also attributes the entirety of the scholia to a single author — Maximus the Confessor — but this attribution has long been questioned. In 1940, Hans Urs von Balthasar attempted to resolve the question of authorship" - and the attribution to Maximus the Confessor on TextExcavation.)

Papias, (Book ?)

And Papias has thus word for word: “some of them, that is, the divine Angels of old, [130] he gave (authority) to rule over the earth and commanded (them) to rule well.” And then says the following: “And it happened that their arrangement came to nothing.”

[Rev. 12:9] And the great dragon was thrown (down), the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown to the earth, and his angels were thrown (down).
– Andrew of Caesarea, On the Apocalypse Book 12.34

The references that I can find put the date of this commentary on Revelation by Andrew of Caesarea as 611 CE (seventh century). But TextExcavation has it as "Century XIV" for reasons that aren't clear to me.

The passage continues in different Greek and Armenian versions (quoted here & elsewhere).
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Re: Papias

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Peter Kirby wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 6:45 pmThe references that I can find put the date of this commentary on Revelation by Andrew of Caesarea as 611 CE (seventh century). But TextExcavation has it as "Century XIV" for reasons that aren't clear to me.
Nor to me. Just a silly mistake on the part of my past self, I would wager.
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Re: Papias

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Peter Kirby wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 6:45 pm
MrMacSon wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 3:24 pm hoping to discern earliest (ante-Nicene] sources (and have edited my OP to that effect).
I see. I think your list is correct.
Cheers Peter.


Peter Kirby wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 6:45 pm If we're sticking to actual references to Papias and the text of his books, next in time would be post-Nicene (325) but pre-Chalcedonian (451). Maybe you're not strictly interested in them, but it's still useful to have an awareness.
I'm certainly interested in what might be reliable accounts of actual text in his books ...


Peter Kirby wrote: Mon Dec 10, 2018 6:45 pm
... I do that here - I will not list here those texts that look like they may be dependent on Irenaeus and Eusebius or who refer to Papias without providing any quotations or who refer to Papias in conjunction with references to other early Christian authorities (without additional specificity in referring individually to Papias). I will also omit "hypothetical" allusions here.

In this category ...

This gives us a longer list of seven sources, which do not all enjoy the same temporal priority:
  • Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 5.33.3-4 [century II]
  • Preface to John, Vat. Reg. lat 14 [century II - III]
  • Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 2.15 and 3.39 [century IV]
  • Apollinarius, A catena compiled by Cramer vol 3 p12 [century IV]
  • Philip of Side, History of Christianity, fragment from codex Baroccianus 142 in the Bodleian Library [century V]
  • John of Scythopolis, Scholia on The Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite 2.5 [century VI]
  • Andrew of Caesarea, On the Apocalypse Book 12.34 f. [century VII]
Thank you!
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Re: Papias

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As I have said in multiple places recently, I have doubts that the writings of Papias contained explanations of the sayings of Jesus. I don't believe we have, in the limited quotations available, any such example, which I find somewhat curious.
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Re: Papias

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Papias in his second book says that John the Divine and James his brother were killed by the Jews.

The aforesaid Papias stated on the authority of the daughters of Philip that Barsabas, who is also called Justus, when challenged by the unbelievers drank serpent’s poison in the name of the Lord, and was shielded from all harm. He makes also other marvelous statements, and particularly about the mother of Manaim who was raised from the dead. As for those who were raised from the dead by Christ, (he states) that they survived till the time of Hadrian.
I've heard some doubt the accuracy of this because the title "the divine" is anachronistic for Papias, but could that have just been a clarifying detail added by Phillip of Side?
The metric to judge if one is a good exegete: the way he/she deals with Barabbas.

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