PAPIAS OF HIERAPOLIS. - Lived around 130; author of a work in 5 books that also bore the title: 5 books of exposition of the words of the Lord (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., III, 39, 1). The expositions are based on the words (λόγια) of Jesus in the written Gospels, but expanded by the use of oral traditions, transmitted to P. through the "presbyters," that is, the teachers who transmitted the oral Christian tradition in a manner analogous to the rabbis.

P. declares that he would have been critical toward the various forms of oral traditions (39, 4), but he does not hide a certain preference for oral tradition (39, 4), a fact that perhaps reveals some Judaizing tendency in him. Indeed, one can observe that the millenarian traditions he accepts come from a Jewish milieu (v. Gry, in Revue Bibl., 53 [1946], p. 197 ff.). P. was, according to Irenaeus, Haer., V, 33, 4, a disciple of John the apostle, a contemporary of Polycarp (d. in 156); the objections raised by Eusebius against Irenaeus's statement (Hist. eccl., II, 39, 2-7) stem from the difficulty that in the preface P. mentions John twice (Eusebius, op. cit., II, 39, 4), which led Eusebius to distinguish two Johns, one the Apostle and the other the presbyter. P. would have listened only to the presbyter. Eusebius's hypothesis is untenable. In the preface John is mentioned in his double capacity as apostle and presbyter. But this does not mean that P. identified the Apostles with the presbyters (against Gutwenger). For Eusebius P. is a man of little intelligence (III, 39, 12), certainly because of his millenarianism. P. also knew, outside the canonical Gospels, the Gospel of the Hebrews and the first Epistles of St. John and St. Peter (III, 39, 17) and also the Apocalypse (frg. IV exposition of Apoc., 12, 7).

Erroneous, therefore, is Gutwenger's thesis that P. had written before the publication of this work. Important are the traditions of the presbyters that P. inserted in his book regarding the origin of the Gospel of St. Mark (Eusebius, op. cit., III, 39, 15) and of St. Matthew (III, 39, 16). P. had an influence on St. Irenaeus.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: the fragments of P. in F. X. Funk, Patres apostolici. I, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1901, p. 346 ff.; Th. Zahn, Forschungen zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, VI, Leipzig 1908, p. 109 ff.; J. Chapman, John the presbyter and the fourth Gospel, Oxford 1911; C. Lambot, Les presbytres et l'exégèse de Papias, in Rev. bénéd., 43 (1931), p. 116 ff.; N. I. Hommes, Het Testimonialboek, Amsterdam 1935, p. 230 ff.; E. Gutwenger, P. Eine chronologische Studie, in Zeitschr. für kathol. Theol., 69 (1947), p. 385 ff. (P. would have written around 90).

Erik Peterson

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Papias of Hierapolis

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