Latin Translation of Papias

[Secret Alias]

Where would I find Rufinus's Latin translation of Papias 's famous quotation of John on the relation between the gospel of Mark and Matthew? Thank you

[StephenGoranson]

An old edition:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id= ... &q1=papias

A new edition (out this year?):

Papias of Hierapolis: Exposition of Dominical Oracles
The Fragments, Testimonia, and Reception of a Second-Century Commentator
Edited by Stephen C. Carlson
Oxford Early Christian Texts

"The most comprehensive collection of Papias's fragments and testimonia
Offers detailed analysis of the important figures in the reception of Papias's work"

[Secret Alias]

Thank you. I really appreciate it.

[Secret Alias]

3.39.15 «καὶ τοῦθ' ὁ πρεσβύτερος ἔλεγεν· Μάρκος μὲν ἑρμηνευτὴς Πέτρου γενόμενος, ὅσα ἐμνημόνευσεν, ἀκριβῶς ἔγραψεν, οὐ μέντοι τάξει τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ κυρίου ἢ λεχθέντα ἢ πραχθέντα. οὔτε γὰρ ἤκουσεν τοῦ κυρίου οὔτε παρηκολούθησεν αὐτῷ, ὕστε ρον δὲ, ὡς ἔφην, Πέτρῳ· ὃς πρὸς τὰς χρείας ἐποιεῖτο τὰς διδασκαλίας, ἀλλ' οὐχ ὥσπερ σύνταξιν τῶν κυριακῶν ποιούμενος λογίων, ὥστε οὐδὲν ἥμαρτεν Μάρκος οὕτως ἔνια γράψας ὡς ἀπεμνημόνευσεν. ἑνὸς γὰρ ἐποιήσατο πρόνοιαν, τοῦ μηδὲν ὧν ἤκουσεν παραλιπεῖν ἢ ψεύσασθαί τι ἐν αὐτοῖς».

Etiam hoc , inquit ( Papias ) , presbyter narrabal , quod Marcus interpres fuerit Petri , et quæcunque meminerat ab eo dicia conscripserit . Non tamen per ordinem ea , quae a domino dicta sunt vel facta , digesserit ; quia non ipse auditor domini fuerit vel sectator , sed novissime , ut dixi , l'etro adhaesit ad usum ac ministerium praedicandi , non ad conscribendos domini sermones. Itaque nihil peccavit Marcus in eo quod ita quædam scripserit quasi qui sparsim audita recordarivideatur. Et hoc solum satis egit nequid ex auditis omitteret aut aliquid falsum scriberet

This also the presbyter said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord's discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely.

[Secret Alias]

I wonder whether τάξει/σύνταξιν preserve Papias as saying Matthew was preferred because he contextualized the gospel in the Jewish scriptures.

[Secret Alias]

τᾰ́ξῐς • (táxis) f (genitive τᾰ́ξεως or τᾰ́ξῐος); third declension

arrangement, ordering
battle array, order of battle
(military) rank, line of soldiers
post, place, position, rank
division, brigade, company, cohort
band, company
arrangement, disposition, manner, nature
assessment
order, good order
duty
order, class

[Secret Alias]

I can't shake that the Marcionite gospel starts looking a lot like Papias's Mark gospel. The first line in Book Three of Against Marcion:

Secundum vestigia pristini operis, quod amissum reformare perseveramus, iam hinc ordo de Christo, licet ex abundanti post decursam defensionem unicae divinitatis.

Continuing with my reconstruction of the work which was lost, and following its original lines, I have now to treat of the Christ, even though, by having completed my proof that divinity necessarily implies unity, I have rendered this superfluous. (Evans)

Following the track of my original treatise, the loss of which we are steadily proceeding to restore, we come now, in the order of our subject, to treat of Christ, although this be a work of supererogation, after the proof which we have gone through that there is but one only God. (Holmes)

But both authors have gone out of their way to complicate the straightforwardness of the original reference to 'ordo de Christo':

Continuing with my reconstruction of the work which was lost, and following its original lines, I have now to treat of the order of Christ, even though, by having completed my proof that divinity necessarily implies unity, I have rendered this superfluous.

If I am right this concept of the 'order of Christ' goes back to a Greek original. But where does this concept of 'the order of Christ' come from? Well in the last lines of the previous book we read:

The change which time brought about is nothing to be wondered at: God subsequently became more gentle, in proportion as things had become subdued, having been at first more strict when they were unsubdued. So Marcion's antitheses make it easier to explain how the Creator's order was by Christ rather refashioned than repudiated, restored rather than rejected (Ita per antitheses facilius ostendi potest ordo creatoris a Christo refonnatus quam repercussus et redditus potius quam exclusus): especially so when you make your good god exempt from every bitterness of feeling, and, in that case, from hostility to the Creator. If that is the case how can the antitheses prove he has been in opposition to one or another aspect of the Creator's character? To sum up: I shall by means of these antitheses recognize in Christ my own jealous God. He did in the beginning by his own right, by a hostility which was rational and therefore good, provide beforehand for the maturity and fuller ripeness of the things which were his. His antitheses are in conformity with his own world: for it is composed and regulated by elements contrary to each other, yet in perfect proportion. Therefore, most thoughtless Marcion, you ought rather to have shown that there is one god of light and another of darkness: after that you would have found it easier to persuade us that there is one god of kindness and another of severity. In any case, the antithesis, or opposition, will belong to that God in whose world it is to be found.

[Secret Alias]

So the author of Against Marcion can't help but acknowledge Marcion's 'antitheses' (a gospel written by Marcion?) attest to a merciful kind god that doesn't appear at all like the God of the 'Old Testament' (who is just and vindictive). But the author says that we can understand this change in terms of an underlying unity:

God subsequently became more gentle, in proportion as things had become subdued, having been at first more strict when they were unsubdued

This sounds like a Valentinian commentary on the primeval chaos unleashed by Sophia's sin. Then he immediately says:

So Marcion's antitheses make it easier to explain how the Creator's order was by Christ rather refashioned than repudiated, restored rather than rejected

The idea here is that as time went by one god - rather than two powers as in contemporary Jewish thought - changed from just to merciful.

To sum up: I shall by means of these antitheses recognize in Christ my own jealous God. He did in the beginning by his own right, by a hostility which was rational and therefore good, provide beforehand for the maturity and fuller ripeness of the things which were his. His antitheses are in conformity with his own world: for it is composed and regulated by elements contrary to each other, yet in perfect proportion. Therefore, most thoughtless Marcion, you ought rather to have shown that there is one god of light and another of darkness: after that you would have found it easier to persuade us that there is one god of kindness and another of severity. In any case, the antithesis, or opposition, will belong to that God in whose world it is to be found.

I've always thought that the reference to "you ought rather to have shown that there is one god of light and another of darkness" to the fact that the treatise was written in Latin at the beginning of the fourth century when Mani was at his zenith. Perhaps I am wrong. Whatever the case there is this underlying notion of the just Creator 'repenting' of his persecution of Jesus in Armenian Marcionism. As such it must have been present in the Marcionism at the time Against Marcion was written.

The point is that when the author says "we can use Marcion's antitheses' to help explain the Creator, he is in fact doing exactly that. He's taking what was previously known as an 'Armenian Marcionite myth' of the repentance of the Creator and using it to say that there was never a Christ who was not the Creator. But that doesn't make sense. In the Marcionite myth the Creator repents from using the Law to kill Christ. Yet there are still two gods - the god of justice and the god of mercy. The fact that Marcion allows for the Creator to improve doesn't mean that there aren't two gods.

[Secret Alias]

What however is Marcion's antitheses? It is generally supposed that there was a work appended to the gospel. My friend Daniel Mahar speculated that the antitheses might be preserved in the last chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

Paul uses the word “order” (τάξις) twice in his letters,1 and appeals to the eschatological “order” once by another name (τάγμα),2 Paul prefers the figure of the “body” (σῶμα) and his premier treatment of this figure is 1 Cor 12. Speaking to the Corinthian community in crisis, Paul reminds his charges that “just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one, so it is with Christ.”3 The Corinthian church is “the body of Christ and individually members of it.”4 This body of Christ relies on each of its individual members—the foot, the hand, the eye, the ear—to perform its appointed task, for “God has so arranged the body…that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.”5 The health of the body of Christ, therefore, relies on the harmonious orchestration of difference. On this model, unity requires differentiation. Moving from the figure of the body and its members to the constituency of the Corinthian community, Paul describes how God appointed apostles, prophets, teachers, “deeds of power, gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, [and] various kinds of tongues.”6

(1) 1 Cor 14:40: “All things should be done decently and in order [κατὰ τάξιν]”; Col 2.5: “I rejoice to see your order [τάξιν] and the firmness of your faith in Christ.” In addition, however, the various verbs formed from this same root are well attested in his letters, especially 1 Corinthians, attesting to his interest in the maintenance of order: τάσσω: Rom. 13:1; διατάσσω: 1 Cor 7:17, 9:14, 11:34, 16:1; Gal 3:19; Titus 1:5; ἐπιτάσσω: Philem 8.
(2) 1 Cor 15:23: “Each in his own order” (ἓκαστος δὲ ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι).
(3) 1 Cor 12:12.
(4) 1 Cor 12:27.
(5) 1 Cor 12:24–5.
(6) 1 Cor 12:28.