WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) A 'NEW PAPIAN FRAGMENT

INTRODUCTION WHAT Papias said about Matthew and Mark (at least part of it) is well known and these snippets of information preserved by Eusebius, HE 2.15; 3.39.15-16, have suffered no lack of attention in Gospels study. But in neither of the two places where he explicitly mentions Papias' traditions about Matthew or Mark does Eusebius leave us with anything of what Papias might have said about Luke or John. The silence about John has been considered especially eloquent, for according to Irenaeus (and this was certainly believed by Eusebius), the Fourth Gospel had been written in Asia Minor by the apostle, who would have died almost certainly within Papias' own lifetime. Some have concluded from this that Papias did not know the Fourth Gospel. 1 But it is widely admitted today that he did, because there are traces of its use in one or more of the fragments attributed to Papias by others, 2 in one of the eschatological traditions mentioned by Irenaeus which he attributes to the Asian elders, 3 the source for which was almost certainly Papias, and because Eusebius tells us explicitly that Papias used 1 John. 4 This then throws the attention upon Eusebius himself. If Papias said something about John, why did Eusebius not record it?
1 E.g., B. Lindars, The Gospel of John, NCBC (Grand Rapids/London, 1972), p. 30; U. H. J. Kortner, Papias von Hierapolis (Gottingen, 1983), p. 197. Cf. G. Zuntz, 'Papiana', ZntW 82 (1991), 243-63, at 261, 'Papias hat das Vierte Evangelium, soviel wir wissen, nicht erwahnt; man darf zweifeln, ob er es gekannt hat.' P. Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristliche Literature (Berlin/New York, 1975), p. 457, thinks Papias knew but passed over the Fourth Gospel because he viewed it as heretical due to its use by gnostics. 2 See in particular the Armenian fragments published by F. Siegert, 'Unbeachtete Papiaszitate bei armenischen Schnftstellern', NTS 27 (1981), 605-14, now printed in J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, The Apostolic Fathers, rev. and ed. J. W. Holmes (Grand Rapids, 19922), Papian fragment n. 25, which refers to a comment Papias made on the aloe of John. 19:39. See Siegert, 608609. Also cf. the testimonies of Lightfoot/Harmer, nn 19, 20, 23, which contain, however, some questionable material. 3 Irenaeus, AH 5.36.1-2, cf. 2.22.5. 4 Eusebius, HE 3.39.17. In addition, M. Hengel, Die johanneische Frage. Ein Lo'sungsversuch, with a contribution by J. Frey (Tubingen, 1993), pp. 8687, thinks Papias' list of disciples of Jesus in HE 3.394 reflects knowledge of the first and last chapters of John.

Oxford University Press 1998 [Journal of Theological Studies, NS, Vol. 49, Pt. 2, October 1998]

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 583 One answer that has suggested itself to many is that Eusebius did not record it because he was embarrassed by it, because there was something in it he did not like and therefore decided to suppress. 5 That Eusebius should find something in Papias' work not to his liking is not at all improbable, given his estimate of Papias' chiliasm, and his intelligence {HE 3.39.12-13). In this paper, however, it will be argued that Eusebius was not entirely silent about Papias' witness to the origins of the Fourth Gospel, but that we in fact possess a paraphrase of that witness, preserving much of the vocabulary of the original. But before examining this 'new' Papian fragment, we may first remind ourselves of what we might expect to find in such a witness.
I. L E A D S FROM A U T H O R S D E P E N D E N T U P O N P A P I A S

Irenaeus tells us explicitly that he had read Papias' book, and there are reasons to believe that others in the second and third centuries had as well. From their comments on the origins of Matthew and Mark, several other authors are thought to have been dependent upon Papias' traditions, among them Clement of Alexandria, the author of the Muratorian Fragment, Origen and very probably Victorinus of Pettau. 6 It is not unreasonable to suppose then, that if Papias did say something about the genesis of John's Gospel, we might possess some semblance of his report in the words of those who had read him. If so, then Richard Bauckham will have a good case for his conclusion that the report must have included some notice of John being 'urged on' by others to write his Gospel, and must have involved some question of the order of events recorded as compared to the Synoptics. 7 The further contention made by both Bauckham and Martin
5 E.g., R. J. Bauckham, 'Papias and Polycrates on the Origin of the Fourth Gospel', JTS NS 44 (1993), 24-69, at 45-53; Hengel, Frage, p. 88. 6 For Victorinus, see J. Chapman, 'Papias on the Age of our Lord', JTS 9

(1908), 4261; J. Haussleiter, Victorim episcopi Petavionensis opera, CSEL 49

(Vienna/Leipzig, 1916), p. 154; F. Heard, 'Papias' Quotations from the New Testament', NTS 1 (1954-55) 13034, who all argue that Victorinus used Papias'
work. M. Dulaey, Victorin de Poetovio premier exegete latin, 2 vols. Collection des

Etudes Augustiniennes, SA 139 (Paris, 1993), I, pp. 272-78, is uncertain on the question. Bauckham, Origin, 64, acknowledges Victorinus' dependence upon Papias in his account of Mark's Gospel, but argues that this might have been indirect, mediated by Irenaeus, or that Victorinus might not have been dependent upon Papias in his account of John's Gospel. I also believe that Papias' account of the Gospels was known to Justin, but as Justin does not furnish the kind of explicit information about the origins of the Gospels which we see in these other writers, his knowledge of Papias would have to be argued for separately. But see note 32 below. 7 Bauckham, Origin, 53-63.

584

CHARLES E. HILL

Hengel that Papias had in fact attributed the Fourth Gospel to the mysterious John the Elder, remains to be proved, however, for it is not mentioned in any of the later sources. Here it will be useful to cite the testimonies in question.
Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon his breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia. (Irenaeus, AH 3.1.1) John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans... The disciple of the Lord therefore desiring to put an end to all such doctrines, and to establish the rule of truth in the Church ... thus commenced his teaching in the Gospel... (Irenaeus, AH 3.11.1) But that John, last of all, conscious that the outward facts had been set forth in the Gospels, was urged on (TTpoTpanrevTa) by his disciples (yvwpifjLwv), and, divinely moved by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel. (Clement, Hypotyposeis in Eus., HE 6.14.7) The fourth [book] of the Gospels is that of John [one] of the disciples. When his fellow-disciples and bishops urged (cohortantibus) [him], he said: 'Fast together with me today for three days and, what shall be revealed to each, let us tell [it] to each other'. On the same night it was revealed to Andrew, [one] of the Apostles, that, with all of them reviewing [it], John should describe all things in his own name. And so, although different beginnings (varia ... principia) might be taught in the separate books of the Gospels, nevertheless it makes no difference to the faith of believers, since all things in all [of them] are declared by the one sovereign Spiritconcerning his nativity, concerning [His] passion, concerning [His] resurrection, concerning [His] walk with His disciples, and concerning His double advent: the first in humility when He was despised, which has been; the second in royal power, glorious, which is to be. What marvel, then, if John so constantly brings forward particular [matters] (singuld) also in his Epistles, saying of himself: 'What we have seen with our eyes and have heard with [our] ears and our hands have handled, these things we have written to you.' For thus he declares that he was not only an eyewitness and hearer, but also a writer of all the wonderful things (mirabilium) of the Lord in order (per ordinem)? (Muratorian Fragment)
8 I am using the translation and the restored Latin text in D. J. Theron, Evidence of Tradition (Grand Rapids, 1957). For the view that the MF is a fourth-century work, see A. Sundberg, 'Canon Muratori: A Fourth-Century List', HTR 66 (1973), 141; G. M. Hahneman, The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon, OTM (Oxford, 1992). For criticism of this view and a reaffirmation of a late secondor early third-century date, see, E. Ferguson, 'Canon Muratori: Date and Provenance', Studia Patristica 17.2 (Oxford, 1982), pp. 67783; idem, 'Review of Geoffrey Mark Hahneman, The Muratonan Fragment and the Development of the Canon', jfTS NS 44 (1993), 696; P. Henne, 'La datation du canon de Muratori', RB 100 (1993), 54-75; W. Horbury, 'The Wisdom of Solomon in the Muratorian Fragment', JTS NS 45 (1994), 14959; C. E. Hill, 'The Debate over the Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon', WTJ 57 (1995), 437-52.

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE)

585

There is a report noted down in writing that John collected the written Gospels in his own lifetime in the reign of Nero, and approved of and recognized those of which the deceit of the devil had not taken possession; but refused and rejected those which he perceived were not truthful. (Origen, Horn. Lk. I, fr. g) 9 For when Valentinus [sic!], Cerinthus and Ebion and the others of the school of Satan were spread over the world, all the bishops came together to him (convenerunt ad ilium) from the most distant provinces and compelled him to write a testimony. (Victorinus, in Apoc. i I . I ) 1 0 The suggestion that John wrote at the urging of others (whether they were pupils, disciples of Jesus, apostles or bishops) is found in Clement of Alexandria, the MF, and Victorinus. It is, however, not mentioned by Irenaeus, who gives his own scanty information about that Gospel's origins very probably, in my opinion, from tradition received from Polycarp. Victorinus seems to have combined the account of Irenaeus and of one of these other authors (either Papias, Clement, or the fragmentist, or perhaps someone else). That the urging on of John by others might have come from Papias is perhaps made more likely because this same idea shows up in the tradition about Mark which Eusebius got from Clement and which he says was supported by Papias: Peter's hearers, it is said, requested from Mark a written account of Peter's reminiscences (HE 2.15.1; cf.

9 New Testament Apocrypha, trans. W. Schneemelcher, rev. edn., 2 vols. (Cambridge/Louisville, ET, 1991), vol. 1, p. 46. Greek text from M. Rauer, Ongenes Werke, vol. 9, GCS 49 (Berlin, 19592): Aoyos ear! TrapaypairTeos 'Iwdwrjv

Tt irepiovra f$C<ij k"ni Nepcuvos rd avyyeypafifieva evayyeXia ovva.ya.ytlv KO.1 TO. [LCV eyKplvat Kai aTTootaoQai, wv ovoev T] TOV Siaj3riAou eirifJovAij Kad-qiparo, TO. 8 a77oAe'aa0at Kai KaTapyfjaat, oaa /AT) TTJS aXydeias exopeva. ovveyvcu.
10 Bauckham, Origin, 63-65, is almost certainly correct in thinking that the words of Jerome in de vir. inlust. 9 and the Monarchian Prologue to John are not beholden directly to Papias, but only to Irenaeus and some other source (we know that Jerome knew Victorinus' commentary), the Prologue probably being dependent upon Jerome. For comparison they are cited here (in the translations given by Bauckham), though not treated. Jerome: 'John, the apostle whom Jesus most loved, the son of Zebedee and brother of James the apostle, whom Herod, after the Lord's passion, beheaded, was the last one to write a Gospel, at the request (rogatus) of the bishops of Asia, against Cerinthus and other heretics and especially against the then growing doctrine of the Ebionites, who asserted that Christ did not exist before Mary. For this reason he was compelled (compulsus est) also to announce his divine nativity.' Monarchian Prologue: 'When, however, after the death of Domitian, [John] was set free and returned from exile to Ephesus, and the seeds of the hereticsof Cerinthus, Ebion, and others who deny that Christ existed before Maryalready budded forth at that time, he was compelled (compulsus est) by almost all the bishops at that time in Asia and embassies from many churches to write about the divinity of Christ in a more profound way.'

586 CHARLES E. HILL 11 6.14.6). The underlying idea seems to be, as K. Stendahl has observed, that the Apostles did not take it upon themselves to write but were acceding to the requests of others. 12 The question of the proper order of events recorded in the Gospels, which is raised in Papias' account of the origin of Mark, is also visible in the MF's words about John. The MF speaks of 'different beginnings' 13 of the Gospels, and later declares that John's Gospel gives 'all the wonderful things of the Lord in order', which could well imply that someone else did not give them quite in order. The different beginnings are no serious problem to believers, he avers, as all four Gospels have the sovereign Spirit as their author and agree about the cardinal points in the gospel story. Another link between the MF and the excerpt from Papias' elder on Mark in HE 3.39.15 should be recognized. The elder remarks that Mark should not be criticized for 'writing down single points (Ivia) as he remembered them', for he 'had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him', but only set out to give a complete and faithful account of what he remembered of Peter's teaching. The author of the MF says it is not to be wondered at that John 'so constantly brings forward particular matters (singula)' in his Gospel and Epistles, for he was an eyewitness and hearer and a writer of all the marvellous things of the Lord in order. There is here not only a striking coincidence in vocabulary
" It is possible that the mention of the urging on of Mark by Peter's listeners goes back only to Clement and not to Papias. Clement himself is quoted to this effect by Eusebius in 6.14.6. When Eusebius mentions the story in 2.15.1-2 he only says that Papias supports (aufem^tapTupei) Clement and cites Papias' mention of Mark by Peter in his letter written from Rome (1 Pet. 5:13). However, we know from the quotation of Papias' elder in 3.39.15 that Papias reported (a) Mark's authorship of the Gospel, (b) that the Gospel was Mark's version of Peter's preaching. Both of these elements it has in common with the report summarized in 2.15.1-2. Further, Papias' elder refers to a previous comment of his which is not in the excerpt of 3.39.25, in which he had said that Mark followed Peter. The report of 2.15.1 contains this information, as also does Clement's quotation in 6.14.6. There is so much in common then between the report of Papias in 3.39.15 and that of Clement in 6.14.6 as to make it probable that Papias too had made some comment about Mark's writing coming as the result of a request from Peter's hearers. 12 K. Stendahl, 'The Apocalypse of John and the Epistles of Paul in the Muratorian Fragment', in V V Klassen and G. F. Snyder, (eds.), Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation. Essays in honor of Otto A. Piper (New York, 1962) pp. 239-45 at p. 241. 13 1 have accepted the translation of princtpia as 'beginnings', rather than 'elements', because the fragmentist goes on to speak of John's 'order' and because a concern for how the evangelists began their books is also evident in his account of Luke (ita et a nativitate lohannts incepit dicere).

WHAT PAP1AS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 587 (evia; singula), but also in the justification given for each author: Mark writing from memory cannot be faulted for writing particular points as he remembered them, for he had not heard the Lord (but was following Peter's ad hoc preaching); John naturally brings forth particular points 'in order', for he did see and hear the Lord. This can hardly be set down to mere coincidence and tends to confirm that the author of the MF is dependent, whether first or second hand, upon the tradition recorded by Papias. The concern about the proper 'order' of narrative material is not, however, present in Clement's account, at least in what Eusebius preserves of it. Nor is it present in Irenaeus in AH 3.1.1, where he relates summarily the origins of all four Gospels in a manner which must signify his knowledge of Papias. But it may well be present elsewhere in his work. Irenaeus shows that he is well aware of the 'different beginnings' of the four Gospels in AH 3.11.8, and he turns them to apologetic advantage, each beginning manifesting the peculiar character of each Gospel to be like the four faces of the cherubim on which the Lord is seated according to Ezek. 1:5-10 and Rev. 4:6-8. But a closer link to Papias, through the Asian elders, is visible in comments Irenaeus makes elsewhere which also pertain to the question of the 'order' of events in the Gospels. The Valentinians had taken what they regarded as the thirty years of Jesus' life to 'show forth the thirty silent Aeons of their system' (AH 2.22.1). This was based on their contention that after Jesus was baptized (being about thirty years old, according to Luke 3:23), he ministered for no more than one year before being crucified.14 But Irenaeus castigates them for not even taking note of the several Passovers mentioned in the Gospels (2.22.3). He says 'Gospels', but of course cites only the one Gospel which can provide this information, namely, John's. Irenaeus counts in this Gospel four Passovers, including the last one which coincided with Jesus' crucifixion.15 Therefore, Jesus did not die in his thirtieth year, and the Valentinians are refuted. He can cite the Gospel of John and the controversy that arose in Jesus' encounter with his critics, in which they denounced his claim to having known Abraham by referring to his young age, 'not yet fifty years old'. This, says Irenaeus, would not be said of a thirty-year-old, but requires that Jesus 'did not
14 This conclusion, amazingly, would also be stated by Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.21. The 'acceptable year of the Lord' of Isa. 61:1-2; Luke 4:18-19 being understood literally by the Valentinians and Clement as the one and only year of his post-baptismal ministry; figuratively for the whole length of his ministry by Irenaeus; and literally by Epiphanius for the first year of his ministry, 'a year without opposition' before the persecution started (Panar. 51.25.1). 15 Epiphanius, Panar. 51.22.2 counts only three.

588 CHARLES E. HILL then want much of being fifty years old' (John 8:57).I6 In support of this Irenaeus claims to have independent witness to the age of Jesus from 'the elders who were conversant with John', who 'testify that John had handed down these things' (Lat. adds 'to them'). This is usually taken to mean that these elders (perhaps John the Elder and Aristion) had some tradition they attributed to John which said that Jesus lived past forty17 (no exact age is ever specified by Irenaeus). This is certainly possible. But Irenaeus' words would also be compatible with the less difficult supposition that these witnesses had merely affirmed that Jesus' ministry actually began well before the 'one year' which can be read out of the Synoptics (thus allowing for a greater age for Jesus), that is, in support of the 'order' of John's Gospel. Thus viewed, we can see that Irenaeus is claiming from the 'elders', almost certainly as recorded somewhere by Papias, some kind of support for John's 'order', based on the recognition that John records a longer public ministry than is portrayed in the other three Gospels. This then provides a possible hint about the nature of Papias' comments about John's Gospel.
II. P A P I A S ON J O H N

1. The Fragment This brings us to our proposal that Eusebius actually did preserve the essence of what Papias said about the Fourth Gospel. It is contained, I think, in HE 3.24.5-13, where he gives us technically anonymous tradition concerning both Matthew and John. 5. Yet nevertheless of all the disciples of the Lord, only Matthew and John have left us their recollections (vTToixvrjjxaTa). A record preserves (xaTe'xei Ao'yoy) that they took to writing out of necessity (kndvayKes). 6. Matthew having first preached to Hebrews, and when he was on the point of going to others, supplied to those from whom he was sent through his writing the lack of his presence by handing down the Gospel according to himself, written in his native tongue. 7. And after Mark and
16 There is some evidence that Irenaeus later modified his view on the extent of Jesus' age. In the Demonstration 74 he indicates that the crucifixion took place under Claudius Caesar (4154), which would allow for Jesus being well into his forties, consistent with Irenaeus' position in AH 2.22. Dem. 99 refers to the AH as already written, but only three books may have been written by that time (O. Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur (Darmstadt, 1962 repr. of 1913 orig.) i, 409). But in AH 4.22.2 Irenaeus seems to say that Jesus taught only during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, who reigned only until AD 37. 17 Bauckham, Origin, 59, however, proposes that when Irenaeus says 'and all the elders who associated with John the disciple of the Lord in Asia testify' to an extended age of the Lord, the bishop is referring to the 'we' in John 21:24 ('we know that his testimony is true').

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 589 Luke had already made the publication of the Gospels according to them, John, it is said {<j>aoi), used all the time a proclamation (i<i)pvyiiaTi) which was not written down, and at last came to writing for the following cause. After the three Gospels which had been previously written had already been distributed to all, and even to himself, they say that he welcomed
(airo8eao6ai) them and testified to their truth (aXrjdeiav aiirols eTn/jiapTvprja-

avra),13 but that there was therefore only lacking to the Scripture (or writing) the account (SnjyTjmv) concerning things which had been done by Christ at first and at the beginning of the proclamation (K-rfpyy/xaTos). 8. The record (6 Xoyos) is certainly true. It is at least possible to see that the three evangelists had written down {avyyeypa<j>6ras) only the things done by the Saviour during one year after John the Baptist had been put in prison and that they stated this at the beginning of their narratives. [Eusebius goes on to produce the testimonies of Matt. 4:12; Mark 1:14; Luke 3:19-20.] 11. Now they say ((f>am) that on account of these things, the apostle John was exhorted (irapaKX-qdevTa) to hand down (irapaSovvai) in the Gospel according to himself the time passed over in silence by the first evangelists and the things which had been done by the Saviour at this time (that is, things before the imprisonment of the Baptist), and that he signified this when saying 'this beginning of marvels did Jesus' [John 2:11], and then by calling to mind (ixv-qixovevaavra) the Baptist in the midst of the acts of Jesus as still then baptizing at Aenon near Salem, plainly indicating this when he says 'for John was not yet cast into prison' [John 3:24]. 12. Thus John in the Scripture (or writing) of the Gospel according to him hands down (wapaSi'Sajaiv) the things done (npaxdevTa) by Christ when the Baptist had not yet been cast into prison, but the other three evangelists record (fj.vT]ixovevouaiv) the things after the Baptist had been shut up in prison. 13. If this be understood, no longer do the Gospels seem to disagree with one another, because that according to John contains the first things of the acts of Christ, but the rest the narrative of what happened to him at the end of the period. And fittingly John passed over the genealogy of our Saviour according to the flesh, because it had been already written out by Matthew and Luke, and began with the description of his divinity since this had been reserved for him by the Divine Spirit as for one greater than they. 19

Though this account in Eusebius is well known, it is not usually recognized that Eusebius is here paraphrasing a written account.20 Lawlor has made a study of Eusebius' use of Karix^ Aoyos, which Eusebius uses at the beginning of this account, and concludes that it normally signifies a written source.
Note the Johannine language employed in the depiction of John's action. My translation. H. Merkel, 'Friihchnstliche Autoren uber Johannes und die Synoptiker', in A. Denaux, (ed.), John and the Synoptics, BETL (Leuven, 1992), pp. 403408, at p. 406, says that the 'Ergangzungshypothese' expressed in the passage of Eusebius 'vielleicht nicht selbst gefunden, aber jedenfalls als erster aufgeschrieben hat'.
19 20 18

590 CHARLES E. H I L L In the majority of cases where Eusebius introduces a narrative with the words Xoyos (/<aT)e'xei, the document on which he relies is either indicated in the immediate context, or may be discovered by a search through the passages from previous writers scattered over his pages. Only a few instances of the phrase remain, in which it does not seem possible to name the document referred to, and in none of these is the use of documentary evidence excluded, or improbable. 21

Lawlor is concerned in particular with portions of the book of Hegesippus, which Eusebius often cited by name but also quoted or paraphrased anonymously, introduced by Xoyos (/<aT)e'xei. Lawlor even applied his findings to our text (3.24.5 ff.) in a footnote, but confined his comments to the information Eusebius passes on about Matthew: 'His assertion about St Matthew is scarcely more than a fair inference from extracts which he gives elsewhere from Papias (iii.39.16), Irenaeus (v.8.2), and Origen (vi.25.4). That it was made by Papias in so many words, in the passage of which no more than the two concluding sentences are now preserved (iii.39.16), is far from incredible'. 22 In other words Lawlor suggests that this information on Matthew from 3.24.56 has come more or less intact from the Papian account of which Eusebius gives only the last lines in 3.39.16. That the brief account in the latter passage is a mere extract and not all Papias recorded, seems likely enough on the surface, and gains probability from the observation that it begins with a conjunction (ouv), as if it were really the conclusion of something that had gone before.23 More support comes from the immediately preceding extract on Mark's Gospel. Here the elder is quoted as saying, 'For he had not heard the Lord, nor had he followed him, but later on, as I said (<is'i(j>y]v),followed Peter' (3.39.15). But in what Eusebius
21 H. J. Lawlor, Eusebiana. Essays on the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphili, C.264-J49 AD Bishop of Caesarea (Amsterdam, 1973 repr. of 1912 original), p. 22. See also the previous comments by J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers. Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp, 2 parts in 5 vols. (Grand Rapids, 19812 repr. of 188990 edn.), II, 1, p. 58, 'the expression is not confined to oral tradition but may include contemporary written authorities, and ... it implies authentic and trustworthy information'; F. J. A. Hort, Judaistic Christianity (Grand Rapids, 1980 repr. of 1894 r ' g ) . PP- I 7~74- This significance of the phrase is accepted also by P. Sellew, 'Eusebius and the Gospels', in H. W. Attndge and G. Hata, (eds.), Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism (Leiden, 1992), pp. 11038, at p. 119, though at p. 120 he seems to regard its occurrence in 3.24.5 as pertaining only to a record stating that Matthew wrote originally in Hebrew (for which Eusebius could claim Irenaeus and Origen as authorities). But what is claimed for the Xoyos is that Matthew and John took to writing out of some necessity, and the stories which follow naturally relate the substance of that Xoyos22 23

Lawlor, Eusebiana, p. 22. Bauckham, Origin, 46.

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 591 quotes, the elder has not previously said that Mark was not a personal follower of the Lord but only of Peter.24 We also know that what Eusebius records of Papias' comments on Mark in 3.39.15 is not all Papias said about Mark, for he gives additional information from Papias in 2.15.1-2. Obviously, whatever purpose Eusebius had in 3.39.15-16, it was not to give a complete accounting of all that Papias said about the origins of the Gospels. Lawlor's concrete suggestion that Eusebius' report about Matthew in 3.24.6 from a 'written record' comes in fact from Papias, from the same place he actually cites in 3.39.16, is then quite credible. Lawlor draws back, however, from what would seem the natural conclusion that the material which follows in 3.24 about John is also based on this written record.25 (The only scholar I have found who has previously taken such a position is Vernon Bartlet, who, unfortunately, employed relatively few arguments to support it.) 26 Lawlor fails to note that Eusebius attributes to this written record both his Matthean and Johannine traditions: 'A record preserves that they [Matthew and John] took to writing out of necessity'.27 And indeed the stories which follow bear out this claim, that both Matthew and John took to writing through some pressing need. Both accounts also stress the respective apostles' work of preaching (Krjpv^as of Matthew; KrjpvyfiaTi and Krjpvyfxaros of John) before they wrote. What is more, after introducing the accounts of both
24 J. B. Lightfoot, Essays on the Work Entitled Supernatural Religion (London/New York, 1893), p. 207. 25 Lawlor points to the use of </>aol, 'they say' (used in 3.24.7, 11), as evidence that this part of the tradition is oral. But this is hardly valid. See e.g., 2.15.1 where tjiaai is used when the written sources, Clement of Alexandria and Papias, are actually named in the context, and cf. Lawlor's own note 2 on p. 36, which identifies at least 1.12.1, 3, (cf. 13.11); 2.2.2 as using <f>aoi when there is a written work as the source, and 7.12 where Eusebius uses it as equivalent to Karexei Xoyos. Lawlor may be right in saying that '^oai is a favourite word of Eusebius for unwritten report' (36), but it is not so used exclusively. Sellew at any rate seems unjustified in contrasting it too sharply with Kare'xei Aoyos, regarding it as signifying 'oral legends' or written sources of questionable reputation (Eusebius and the Gospels, pp. 117-18, p. 121). From 2.2.4 't becomes clear that the source for <j>aoi in 2.2.2 is Tertullian's Apology 5. 26 V. Bartlet, 'Papias's "Exposition": Its Date and Contents', in H. G. Wood, (ed.), Amicitiae Corolla. A Volume of Essays Presented to James Rendel Harris, D. Litt. on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (London, 1933), pp. 1544. Bartlet perceptively, in my opinion, recognizes that Eusebius is reporting from Papias in 3.24, 'probably paraphrasing his wording but slightly' (260). It is regrettable that Bartlet's position has not received more attention. 27 Sellew, Eusebius and the Gospels, p. 121, also assumes that they are connected, and regards the tradition concerning John as a legend. It may of course be a legend, but this is not necessarily signified by Eusebius' use of i^oai, and it will have been legend already by the time of Eusebius' source.

592 CHARLES E. HILL Gospels with Karexei Adyoy, Eusebius follows the first excerpt about John with the words, Kai aXrjdijs ye 6 Xoyos ('and the record is surely true'), the Xoyos here naturally referring to the preceding one. Eusebius is definitely presenting this account of the origins of Matthew and John as from a single written source which we already have some reason to suspect was Papias. As to the contents of the fragment, it relates that after all three former Gospels had been published, John still used his unwritten proclamation; that he approved of these three Gospels; that he noted their omission of events from the earlier part of Jesus' ministry; that he was exhorted {jrapaKXiqdevTa, 3.24.n) by some to supply that lack by handing down in writing what was previously unwritten. This it gives as the motivation for his writing. 28 Do we have then in 3.24.5, 7-8, 11-13 the essence of Papias' tradition on the origin of the Fourth Gospel? A study of the contents and a comparison with Papias' accounts of the other Gospels and with the accounts of the Gospels by those who had read Papias will confirm, I believe, that we do. We may now examine the contents of this fragment more closely. 2. Parallels with Papias' Accounts of the Other Gospels. Words and ideas common to this fragment and the other Papian fragments on the Gospels are noticeable. The fragment used here by Eusebius relates how both Matthew and John came to write their Gospels 'out of necessity' and that John was exhorted (TTapa.K\r)6evTa, 3.24.11) by his hearers to hand down in writing what was previously unwritten and omitted from the first three Gospels. This, as we have seen, parallels what Clement, who had read Papias, says about Mark in a place where Eusebius says Clement is supported by the account of Papias:29 Peter's hearers exhorted (napaKXrjaeaiv, 2.15.1; cf. 6.14.6) Mark to leave them a memoir of what Peter taught. This seems to point to a thematic unity regarding at least the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John. There is an interest in showing that each writer did not take it upon himself to initiate the process but (besides being empowered by the Spirit, 3.24.3, 13) was impelled by an external call from his hearers as well. Each writer then had good cause; Matthew to leave behind to the Jewish Christians in Palestine a written record of Jesus' life before he departed on missionary travels, Mark, to
28 It is to be noted that this fragment does not mention the need arising from the advent of any heresies, as we see in Irenaeus and Victorinus. It can be argued that this aspect of Irenaeus' tradition has come from Polycarp. 29 See above, note 11.

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 593 satisfy the godly yearnings of the Christians in Rome for a permanent record of Peter's preaching, and John, to comply with the request to supplement the former Gospels with what they lacked particularly from the first years of Jesus' ministry. If the same source said very much about Luke (from 3.24.7 we surmise that it said something), it will be reasonable to suppose that some such explanation would have attended the information delivered about that Gospel. 30 The presentation of the written Gospels of Matthew and John in our fragment and of Mark in 3.39.15 as the setting down in writing of what was previously preached or taught by an apostle is also a point common to both accounts (3.24.6, 7; 39.15). In 2.15.1 Eusebius also relates the story of the origin of the Gospel of Mark, and calls Mark a recollection {v-no^vqjxaf^ of Peter's teaching, saying that his sources for the story were Clement of Alexandria and Papias. Possibly this reflected the wording of Clement, for in 6.14.6, where Eusebius cites Clement's testimony explicitly, the participle fA.efxvqfA.evov is used of Mark, as one who remembered what Peter had spoken, though the noun imofivrjfxa is not used. But here in 3.24.5 the noun is used, as Eusebius introduces the witness of his written source by saying that 'only Matthew and John have left us their recollections' (uTro/xi'T/^.aTa).32 Eusebius draws some conclusions, either his own based on the
See the Appendix, 'What Papias Said about Luke'. This word can have a fairly wide range of meanings. Lampe, PGL, lists: '1. memorial, reminder; 2. record; a. minutes; b. account; c. copy; d. petition; 3. commentary; 4. division, section, "book" of treatise'. See also A. van den Hoek, 'Techniques of Quotation in Clement of Alexandria. A View of Ancient Literary Working Methods', VC 50 (1996), 22343, at 225, who records the meaning 'note' or 'notebook', as well as a more literary 'memoranda'. Hegesippus gave this name to his book, on which see N. Hyldahl, 'Hegesipps Hypomnemata', Studia Theologica 14 (i960), 70-113. 32 This is of course reminiscent of the term Justin will use repeatedly for the Gospels, a-nojj.vrifj.ovvifj.aTa. See B. W. Bacon, 'Marcion, Papias, and "The Elders" ', JTS NS 23 (1922), 13460 at 154, 'Justin's use of Papias is made probable by his adoption of the very expression of Papias in speaking of the Gospel of Mark as the a.T!ofxvj)fiovvejiaTa of Peter. He reproduces in the same chapter we have just quoted (Dial, lxxxi) the very passage from Isaiah (Ixv 17 f) which Papias elaborated according to the explicit testimony of Irenaeus (Haer. V xxxiii 3, 4) and which in the Epideixts (lxi) he tells us was thus applied by "the Elders"'. R. G. Heard, 'The'ATrofivT)fj.ovvfj.aTain Papias, Justin and Irenaeus', NTS 1 (1954-55) 122-29, also argues that Justin got the term from Papias, though Hyldahl, Hegesipps Hypomnemata, 79, is doubtful of this. See also L. Abramowski, 'Die "Erinnerungen der Apostel" bei Justin', in P. Stuhlmacher, (ed.), Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, WUNT 28 (Tubingen, 1983) pp. 341-53; D. Hagner, 'The Sayings of Jesus in the Apostolic Fathers and Justin Martyr', in D. Wenham, (ed.), Gospel Perspectives. The Jesus Tradition outside the Gospels, vol. 5, (Sheffield, 1985), pp. 233-68.
31 30

594 CHARLES E HILL source, or as repeating the conclusions drawn already in his source, in 3.24.8-10, supporting the truth of the report by adverting to Matt. 4:12; Mark 1:14, and Luke 3:19-20, which demonstrate that each of the Synoptics begins its major account of Jesus' ministry from the time after the Baptist's imprisonment. But Eusebius then returns to his source in 3.24.11 and includes as evidently from it the references to John 2:11 and 3:24. That is, 'they say' both that John was asked to relate what the former evangelists had left out from the beginnings of Jesus' ministry, and that John signified this when he said 'this beginning of marvels did Jesus', and when he said, 'for John was not yet cast into prison'. This latter element in fact forms a parallel to what Eusebius elsewhere tells us that Papias related about Peter. In 2.15.2 Eusebius cites Papias as saying 'that Peter mentions Mark in his first Epistle, and that he composed this in Rome itself, which they say that he himself indicates,33 referring to the city metaphorically as Babylon, in the words, "the elect one in Babylon greets you, and Marcus my son" [1 Pet 3:1s]'. 34 In other words, Papias 'ratified' or at least gave implicit legitimacy to the Gospel of Mark from another authoritative document, 1 Peter, where Peter himself mentions Mark. 35 In like manner, we observe that Papias will have supported his story of how John came to write his Gospel with 'ratification' from the Gospel itself, confirming that it was written to record many of the Lord's deeds which occurred before John's imprisonment. 36 It is also exceedingly probable that, as Lightfoot and Bauckham have suggested, the testimonies from 1 John which Eusebius says Papias used (3.39.17) were also appended in Papias' account in support of the Fourth Gospel, in this same manner, as 1 Peter 3:15 was used to support Mark's Gospel. 37 That this is precisely what the MF does must support the probability that it was done earlier by Papias.
Cf.CTTy/xatVeifTe TOUT' CLVTOV in 2.1 5.2 w i t h auro r e TOUT' kiriaT]n.TJvaadai in 3 . 2 4 . 1 1 .

This does appear to be the continuation of his mention of Papias, and not a reference back to information he has gleaned from Clement (pace Sellew, Eusebius
and the Gospels, p . 117): KXrffitjs ev <EKTW TOJP '' Y-noTimutaecuv napaTedetTai TTJV loTopiav, ovveTTi[LapTvpi Se aitTW xai 6 'IepanoXiTTjs eTTiaKonos ovofiaTi fla-nias, rov Se MdpKov IAVrj[J.Ol'VlV TOV YltTpOV kv TTf TTpOTp<L 7TlOToAfl . . .

34

As Origen would later do in his Comm. Matt., Eus. HE 6.25.5. The validity of this explanation of the Fourth Gospel's differences is of course not the issue here. At best it is seriously inadequate to explain more than a part of the problem. But it does show some fairly shrewd insight in pointing, for instance, to John's mention of the 'beginning' of Jesus' signs as signifying a point in time earlier than his first signs as recorded in the other Gospels, and as noting the temporal consequences of John's observation in John 3:24 that the Baptist had not yet been cast into prison. 37 Lightfoot, SR, 206; Bauckham, Origin, 47, 55.
36

35

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 595 This interest in emphasizing the supplemental nature of John's Gospel38 fits with the concern for the 'order' of the events in Mark's Gospel evident in the report of Papias' elder in 3.39.15. Mark wrote accurately 'all that he remembered, not, indeed, in order, of the things said or done by the Lord'; in this he was simply following Peter's style, who taught according to need, 'not making, as it were, an arrangement of the Lord's oracles'. John, on the other hand, it is implied in our fragment, gave things in order, even naming the first of the Lord's signs (John 2:11) (3.24.11). Three times in the short space of 3.39.15 (Papias' account of Mark), there occurs a distinctive feature of the elder's style in the periphrastic use of -rrotelv in the middle voice with an accompanying noun. 39 The same feature turns up here in 3.24.7 where Eusebius is paraphrasing his source: 'But Mark and Luke having already made the publication (rqv eKSocriv -rrTToi.r)p.eva>vw) of the Gospels according to them ..." The elder quoted by Papias in 3.39.15 also has a distinctive way of speaking about the contents of the Gospels. A great deal of attention has been given to his mention of the Lord's Adyia, which he says Mark and Matthew contained. This has sometimes obscured the fact that this presbyter also speaks of the Gospel of Mark as recording 'the things said or done by the Lord' (rd vnd TOV Kvptov r) Ae^^eVTa 7 } npaxdevTa), using here the aorist passive participle. 41 The source used by Eusebius in 3.24 uses the same notation. The passive participle, aorist or perfect, of npaaaoj for the deeds of Jesus in the Gospels occurs no less than four times in Eusebius' paraphrase and summary of this source {-npaxdivra in 3.24.12; 77E7TpayfxeVa or tTtirpayixivoiv in 3.24.7, 8, n ) . 4 2 Related
38 The view of John's Gospel as supplementary to the other three became a commonplace among later patristic theologians. See M. Wiles, The Spiritual Gospel. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Early Church (Cambridge,

i960), pp.

11,

13-21 ovvra^iv ... 7roiovfAvos', iTronjoaTO npovotav. This feature

7rotLTO TOLS bioaoKaAias',

occurs t w e n t y - o n e times in t h e N e w T e s t a m e n t , mostly in L u k e a n d Paul, a n d only once in t h e J o h a n n i n e literature ( J o h n 14:23). 40 T h i s phrase at least is not typical of Eusebius' o w n speech. T h e word exSdois, edition or publication, occurs four times in t h e Historia ecclesiastica a n d sixty-two times in all of Eusebius' works. In n o other instance is it found as the object of muffr. 41 T h i s fact is often ignored by those w h o wish t o see in this f r a g m e n t a reference merely to a 'sayings collection' w i t h o u t plot o r n a r r a t i v e .
42

Also, in d e s c r i b i n g the work of t h e o t h e r evangelists E u s e b i u s r e p o r t s in

3.24.10 what Luke recorded 'before beginning the Acts of Jesus' ( TOV VTJOOO npdgewv) in Luke 3:19, 20. In ending his reflections on the information provided by this source, Eusebius says, 'If this be understood the Gospels no longer appear to disagree, because that according to John contains the first of the acts of Christ (TOW TOV XpioroD npdcwv) and the others the narrative of what he did at the end of the period' (3.24.13).

596 CHARLES E. HILL to this is a rather peculiar way of referring to the contents of the Gospels as 'the acts of Jesus' or 'the acts of Christ' (3.24.10 TWV
TOV 'Irjaov npdewv', 11, ribv 'ITJOOV rrpd^ewv', 13, TWV TOV XpiOTOv

npd^eoiv). In all the writings of Eusebius, 'acts of Jesus' turns up only two more times; 'acts of Christ' never, 'acts and teachings of the Saviour' once. In Dem. evang. 3.5.67, we read, 'And note what a remarkable thing it is that they all agreed in every point in their account of the acts of Jesus'. And later in Dem. evang. 3.5.89 where he is alluding to tradition, 'Mark, being his friend and companion, is said to have recorded the accounts of Peter about the acts of Jesus'. As we know, the earliest authority for this tradition about Mark is Papias' elder, whom Eusebius quoted in HE 3.39.15. But it is only in HE 3.24.10, 11 that Eusebius speaks of the 'acts of Jesus'. We suspect that the words of the elder had already been brought to Eusebius' mind here in Dem. evang. 3.5.89, for in the previous chapter (3.4.49) Eusebius had used a distinctive phrase in reference to the Gospels which we can with certitude ascribe to the elder, T < X XexB^ura Kai irpaxOevTathe only occurrence of these two participles apart from HE 3.39.15 in Eusebius' works. 43 From a comparison with the other Papian fragments on the Gospels preserved by Eusebius, then, there is strong support for regarding Eusebius' source in 3.24.513 as being Papias' tradition about the Fourth Gospel. We may now establish this further by pointing to parallels with those writers who were dependent upon Papias in their accounts of Matthew and Mark. 3. Parallels with Authors Who Knew Papias' Work. (a) Writing by request. We noted above that a comparison of those authors who evidently knew Papias' comments on the Fourth Gospel would suggest that his original account might have contained some indication of John's writing at the request of others. In HE 3.24.11 what 'they say' carries the same notice that John was urged on (TrapaKX-qdevTa) to write his Gospel, that he 'took to writing out of necessity (eTrdvayKes)' (3.24.5) and did not simply take it upon himself, that we find in Clement (npoTpanevTa, HE 6.14.7), t n e MF (cohortantibus), and later in Victorinus. The identities of the requesters (Clement: TWV yvcopi^cov; MF: condiscipulis (including the Apostle Andrew), et episcopis; Victorinus: episcopi) and the circumstances surrounding the request fluctuate in the later accounts. Eusebius offers no help on their identities,
* The statistical information was gained by using the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 597 perhaps suggesting some ambiguity in the original account.44 The MF's more elaborate version, containing details unparalleled in any other writer who knew Papias, probably represents significant expansions on Papias' simpler account. (b) Order in the Gospels. Bauckham's deduction that Papias must have said something about John's 'order' is also confirmed by this fragment, at least partially. All accounts (Papias and those early writers who knew his work) profess themselves to be aware of differences between John's and the other three Gospels, and the question of 'order' is present here in 3.24 as it is in Papias' account of Mark (3.39.15) and in the MF. The latter states that John 'was not only an eyewitness and hearer, but also a writer of all the wonderful things of the Lord in order (per ordinem)'. This last statement from the MF will confirm in an impressive way that its author was familiar with the tradition about John's Gospel which lies behind Eusebius' account in HE 3.24.513. Eusebius' source claimed that the difference in order, justifying the Fourth Gospel, is indicated by John himself in John 2:11 and 3:24. But the citation of John 2:11 in HE 3.24.11 is unconventional. Eusebius' source says, 'this beginning of marvels did Jesus'. The word for marvels is TOJI' TrapaSo^ojv, instead of TCOV o-qiAticov, which occurs in all the Greek manuscripts of John's Gospel. Eusebius cites John 2:11 in two other places in his writings, in each of which45 he preserves the o-qpeCwv of the original.46 It appears that the reading TWV napaSo^cov then was the wording in Eusebius' source. In the New Testament the word TrapdSogos is used only in Luke 5:26, where it describes the strange or marvellous things the crowds saw at the hands of Jesus. The Vulgate translates TrapdSogos in Luke 5:26 with mirabilium. This peculiar variation in our fragment must be related to the statement in the MF about John, 'For thus he declares that he was not only an eyewitness and hearer, but also a writer of all the wonderful things {mirabilium) of the Lord in order (per ordinem)'. This striking coincidence can only reinforce the conclusion that the author of the MF, who we have already seen was dependent upon Papias'
44 Clement's word, yvuipijioi., is also used by Eusebius when introducing the work of Papias. After stating that Papias had not seen the Apostles, he says 'he had received the articles of the faith from those known to them ( T eKciVoi? yvcopifj.uii'Y (HE 3 . 3 9 . 2 ) . 45 Dem. evang. 9.8.7; Comm. in Isaiam 1.54, according to the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. 46 It is also interesting to note that though napd$oos is not uncommon in Eusebius, he uses it for the marvels described by Papias in 3.39.8, some done by Apostles. And in the introduction to the account in question, 3.24.3, he uses the compound 7rapaSo|o7roi<J> to describe the wonder-working power of the Apostles.

598 CHARLES E. HILL 47 statements on Mark, must have also known the account on John which Eusebius uses in 3.24.1i : It might be thought that the concern for the right order expressed by Papias' elder in 3.39.15 is not exactly the same as the concern met by the tradition that John wrote to supplement the other Gospels, as recorded by Eusebius from his source in 3.24. The latter could be read as a statement that the previous Gospels only omitted certain things (particularly the events at the beginning of Jesus' ministry) and not that they were somehow deficient in 'order'. But the passing reference to 'order' in the elder's words about Mark in 3.39.15 is not altogether perspicuous. Scholars have disagreed whether it has to do with chronological or with literary arrangement, or with something else. Here it seems that the MF provides a key. The author, as we have just seen, distinguishes John as an eye and ear witness who wrote 'all the wonderful things of the Lord in order' {per ordinem) (cf. John 2:11), as Bauckham says, 'per ordinem, surely corresponding to rd^t in Papias'.48 The MF then is clearly working with Papias' concern for the 'order' relative to the different Gospels. His solution to the perceived problem is hinted at in his reference to John being 'a writer of all the wonderful things of the Lord in order', which must be related to John's apparent 'ordering' of at least two of Jesus' early miracles'this beginning of his signs Jesus did at Cana in Galilee' (2:11); 'This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee' (4:54). That this then relates to the non-synoptic, extra material given in John's account, and particularly to 'first' things recorded in the Gospels is confirmed by a statement he had made earlier in his account of the origin of John's Gospel when he says, 'although different beginnings {varia ... principia) might be taught in the separate books of the Gospels, nevertheless it makes no difference to the faith of believers ...'. This concern is seen also in his account of Luke (the only other substantial gospel account remaining in the fragment), where the author of the MF also makes a point about where Luke 'began (incepit) his story', that is, 'from the birth of John'. Though we do not have this author's words about Mark, it should also be remembered that the Gospel of Mark itself begins, 'The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God' (Mark 1:1) and then launches abruptly into an account of the ministry of John the Baptist,49 omitting all reference to Jesus' birth and early life. All of
See above. Bauckham, Origin, 55. As Irenaeus says, 'Mark, on the other hand, commences with [a reference to] the prophetical spirit coming down from on high to men, saying, "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Esaias the prophet",pointing to
48 49 47

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE)

599

this leads to the conclusion that the concern about 'order' in the Gospels relative to each other has much to do with the different ways the Gospels commence and the material their authors chose to include at the beginnings of their respective accounts. At least it was by focusing attention on these beginnings that the M F a n d presumably its source dealt with the problem of 'order'. This explanation appears to furnish the link between the elder's words about Mark in HE 3.39.15 and Eusebius' source in 3.24 on the matter of the evangelists' 'order'. For the source used by Eusebius in 3.24 also expands on the significance of the different beginnings of the Gospels,50
Now they say that on account of these things, the apostle John was exhorted to hand down in the Gospel according to himself the time passed over in silence by the first evangelists and the things which had been done by the Saviour at this time (that is, things before the imprisonment of the Baptist), and that he signified this when saying 'this beginning of marvels did Jesus' [John 2:11], and then by calling to mind the Baptist in the midst of the acts of Jesus as still then baptizing at Aenon near Salem, plainly indicating this when he says 'for John was not yet cast into prison' [John 3:24].

All this Eusebius summarizes from his source. This source, like the MF, alluded to John 2:11 as furnishing a notice by John himself about the 'order' or arrangement of his material. Here, in Eusebius' source, it is explicit that this problem of 'order' is being dealt with by a discussion of the beginnings of the Gospel and specifically with the observation that John was asked to write about things which took place earlier in the ministry of Jesus (hence the 'first' marvel at Cana). One more matter relating to the different beginnings of the Gospels is preserved by Eusebius here, and that is John's omission of the Lord's genealogy recorded by Matthew and Luke and his decision to begin (andp^aadai.) instead 'with the description of his divinity' (3.24.13). It is of course possible that in Papias' full account the abbreviated disclaimer which now survives about Mark's not writing in order (ov pevroi rdei) 'the things said or done by the Lord' may have had reference to more than what we have uncovered here. But we are on safe ground, on the basis of the MF, in concluding that the comparison of rageis had to do at least with the inevitable discontinuities in arrangement
the winged aspect of the Gospel; and on this account he made a compendious and cursory (ai avvropov KCLI Traparpi^ovaav) narrative, for such is the prophetical character' (AH 3.11.8). Though Irenaeus relates Mark's style to the 'prophetic character' and not to its nature as a transcription of Peter's preaching, his description is very compatible with the words of the elder quoted by Papias in HE 3.39.15. vvrop.ov means concise, brief, or short; iraparpexovaav can mean running, outrunning, overtaking, or, passing over, omitting. 50 The connection noticed by Bartlet, Paptas's 'Exposition', 27.

600 CHARLES E. HILL brought about by, or exemplified in, the different ways the evangelists chose to commence their treatments of 'the acts of Jesus'. And on the basis of the source used by Eusebius in 3.24.5-13 we can say that this also involved the contention that John intentionally wrote to include a phase of Jesus' public ministry which antedated the substance of the accounts given in the other Gospels.51 That Eusebius' source in 3.24, by offering this explanation, was indeed dealing with what was easily perceived as a disagreement between John and the other Gospels is probably indicated when Eusebius interjects, 'If this be understood the gospels no longer appear to disagree (Sdai 8ia<j)u>velv aAA-r/AoisO' (3.24.13). This understanding of the concern over rd^is as having to do particularly with (or at least as being dealt with by) the different beginnings of the Gospels and with John's supplementation of the others also offers a plausible explanation of Irenaeus' statement about the age of Jesus for which he claims support from the Asian elders. As we have seen above, all Irenaeus may have needed from the independent witness of 'the elders' was simply an affirmation that Jesus' ministry actually began well before the 'one year' which seemingly formed the basis of the synoptic accounts. And this may easily have been ascertained from the fragment which Eusebius paraphrases in 3.24.713, which makes the point that John recorded the deeds of the Lord which took place between his baptism and the Baptist's imprisonment, in other words, deeds which were left out of the other Gospels. What may have been in the 'elders' witness' was simply a defence of the order of events in John based partly on the claim that John had recorded events from the early ministry of John which had been omitted by the other evangelists, thus confirming that the ministry of Jesus was in reality substantially longer than is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is for this much that Irenaeus could claim the support of the elders cited from Papias. In this light it is interesting to observe that Irenaeus says these Asian elders 'testify ... that John handed down (irapaSeScoKevai)'52 something which would imply the relatively advanced age of the Lord, while in Eusebius' report, 'they say' that John 'was asked to hand down (napaSovvai) in his Gospel the period passed over in silence by the former evangelists ..." (3.24.11), and he goes on to conclude, 'thus John in the course of his Gospel hands down (napaSiScuaiv) what Christ did before the Baptist had
51 Resulting in different first miracles, first disciple-calling stories, possibly the different placement of the temple-cleansing, and in John's omission of such things as the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus, his childhood, the temptation in the wilderness, etc. 52 Greek from Eusebius, HE 3.23.3.

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 601 been thrown into prison ..." (3.24.12). To put it another way, both Irenaeus' Asian elders and Eusebius' unnamed source are credited with saying that John 'handed down' something that would prove that Jesus' ministry lasted well beyond his thirtieth year. And there is more. Eusebius sums up the witness of his source by saying that John recorded what Jesus did before the 'one year after John the Baptist had been put in prison* which was related by 'the three evangelists' (3.24.8). The mention of the 'one year' in 'the three evangelists' at the very least indicates a comparison between the Synoptics and John which recognized a contrast between them on the length of Jesus' ministry. Would this comparison have been made only by Eusebius, or was it already contained in his source? Eusebius knew of the controversy Irenaeus had dealt with, for in the preceding chapter (HE 3.23.3), he had cited Irenaeus from this very passage, though without giving any notice of the issue Irenaeus was there addressing. But, interestingly, Irenaeus' discussion does not mark the beginning of the synoptic 'year' with the Baptist's arrest, but with Jesus' baptism, as this was crucial to the Valentinian view Irenaeus was hoping to confound (AH 2.22.1, 5). Eusebius seems then to have got the measurement of the synoptical year from his immediate source in 3.24, a source which is not privy to the debate with the Valentinians. And, the relevance of a synoptical year in the context of his source would have been natural in its effort to show that John recorded more of the 'first' things from the beginning of Jesus' ministry, before the arrest of the Baptist.53 It is thus very plausible that Irenaeus got his ammunition against the Valentinians from an earlier source which had commented upon the different lengths of Jesus' ministry discernible in the Gospels, pointing out that John's had supplemented the other three with a narrative of early years omitted by the others. The matter of the varying arrangements of events in John as opposed to the Synoptics must be seen then as strong evidence that Eusebius' source in 3.24.513 was Papias, who was in turn probably passing on an earlier witness. We may now also have a better understanding of the nature of the elder's comment on Mark's 'order' in 3.39.15. One result is that any suspicion that the elder's comments about Mark and Matthew in 3.39.15-16 were intended
53 Nor is it improbable that Eusebius is in fact leading us to the very source which Irenaeus also alluded to when he cited the authority of the Asian elders in AH 2.22.5. Eusebius often shows that he has tracked down the references made by Christian writers to their own earlier sources. We can see this in his citing of Irenaeus' references to Papias' work (3.39.1, 13), Polycarp's epistle (4.14.89), Ignatius' epistles (3.36.12). He also cites Polycarp's reference to Ignatius' letters (3-36.I3)-

602 CHARLES E. HILL to disparage them, on this or some other basis54 has to be reconsidered. The source, as Eusebius summarizes it, explicitly says that John 'welcomed them and testified to their truth', 55 finding fault only in their omission of some important events at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. That all the writers known to be dependent upon Papias also regard the last Gospel as only complementary to the first three therefore appears as no surprise. (c) The Evangelists as 'Publishers'. The fragment cited in 3.24 uses the word eK&6ois for the 'publication' of the Gospels of Mark and Luke. We noted that its author used it as the object of the verb -noielv in the middle voice. Not the noun, but the verb IKSI'SOJ/XI is used in the sense of 'publish' by Irenaeus in AH 3.1.1, where he is recounting the various origins of the Gospels, in the very place where his knowledge of Papias' notes on Matthew and Mark is most evident. He uses the term here specifically of John: 'Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who had even rested on his breast, himself also gave forth (etjeScoKev) the Gospel, while he was living at Ephesus in Asia'.56 One might think that the words e/cSdais and e/<Si'8cu^t would be quite commonly used for the publication of books and that this coincidence would be of little consequence. Yet with all Eusebius says about authors and their books in the Ecclesiastical History, it is a bit surprising to note that the only other use of either word in this sense occurs in a citation from Origen, where that writer relates what he had learned 'from tradition' about the four Gospels (Comm. Matt. 1). Of Matthew, he says that he 'published (l/cSeSoi/coVa) it for those who from Judaism came to believe, composed as it was in the Hebrew language' (HE 6.25.4). This account too shows signs of familiarity both with Papias' words in HE 3.39.15, and with Eusebius' source in 3.24.5. (d) The Number and Order of the Gospels. Both the fragment in HE 3.24.7 and all the writers dependent upon Papias who specify any order, place John chronologically last of the four Gospels.57 (In fact, I do not know of any ancient source which deviates from this.) All also have Matthew (at least an assumed Hebrew or
54 E.g., Hengel, Frage, p. 85, 'Umgekehrt konnen wir die Herkunft der papianischen Notizen iiber das Markus-und Matthausevangelium aus der Uberlieferung des Presbyters nur dann begreifen, wenn wir ihre kritische Tendenz gegeniiber diesen alteren Evangelien erkennen'. 5 h-noheao8ai fj.ev <f>aoiv} aXijOeiav avrols knifiapTvpijaavTa, expressed, b y the way, in very 'Johannine' language. 56 The Greek here is preserved in Eusebius, HE 5.8.4. 57 Irenaeus in AH 3.1.1; the MF; Clement in his Hypot (HE 6.14.7); Origen in his Comm. Matt. (HE 6 25.6); and of course Eusebius, who, before introducing his selection from Papias on Matthew and John says, 'it was reasonable for the ancients to reckon it in the fourth place after the other three' (3.24.2).

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 603 Aramaic original) chronologically first. But what was the relative chronological order of Mark and Luke? In describing the witness of his source in 3.24, Eusebius mentions Mark first and Luke second. Irenaeus also places Mark before Luke in his brief catalogue in AH 3.1.1, where he seems to be dependent upon Papias, though when he goes on to treat the testimonies of the gospel writers at length in the succeeding chapters, he inverts their order. The Muratorian Fragment, which also appears to be dependent upon Papias' discussions, definitely places Mark before Luke, numbers Luke as 'the third' and John as 'the fourth'. Origen too, clearly places the four in the order Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in his Commentary on Matthew (Eus. HE 6.25.46), where he also seems to be dependent upon the testimony of Papias. But Eusebius tells us that Clement in his Hypotyposeis alleged that the first two Gospels written were the ones with the genealogies, that is, Matthew and Luke, and it is in this passage where Clement too seems dependent ultimately on the tradition first provided by Papias.58 We seem to have, then, Irenaeus, the MF, Origen, and
58 Denis Farkasfalvy, 'The Presbyters' Witness on the Order of the Gospels as Reported by Clement of Alexandria', CBQ 54 (1992), 26070, has recently argued that Clement's source, 'the elders', made no such ordering of the four Gospels at all, and that Clement did not quote them as such, but that the ordering was a misinterpretation of Eusebius, made in light of the controversies of Eusebius' day. Farkasfalvy thinks the original reference of 'the elders', who said 'the Gospels with genealogies to have been written beforehand', was to the Marcionite version of Luke and/or the Ebionite version of Matthew, both of which had cut out the accounts of the ancestry, birth and infancy of Jesus. The intent of the presbyters then would have been to give guidance as to which versions of Matthew and Luke were the originals. But (a) this requires that the context of the original comment was faithfully reported by Clement but was completely misunderstood or distorted by Eusebius. Though not impossible, this would be a rather blatant mistake regarding a statement in a book that was still readily accessible in Eusebius' day. (6) We do have in the summary of Clement a definite indication that John, at least, was last in order It would not be out of character then if other indications of chronology were present as well, (c) If the original intention was to distinguish true from false Gospels on the basis of their beginning or not beginning with 'genealogies' (in Farkasfalvy's understanding, infancy narratives), there would still be a need to comment on Mark and John, neither of which have them. Farkasfalvy recognizes this and ends by posing the question whether these two Gospels too must have come under suspicion for not including infancy narratives. In which case, these two Gospels would after all become reasonable referents for the chronological comparison recorded by Clement from the 'elders'. (</) Much of Farkasfalvy's argumentation is based upon a resolute insistence that any 'elders' 'who lived at least a generation before Clement ... could not have been concerned with the order of the four Gospels' (264), for this would also imply the existence of a 'closed fourfold Gospel canon', something Farkasfalvy considers to be 'altogether impossible' (265). But if in fact the prevalence of these four Gospels was greater among the Church's leaders than Farkasfalvy is prepared to allow, there will be no reason to rule out an ancient account of the order of the Gospels as impossible in principle.

604 CHARLES E. HILL apparently Eusebius as well, against Clement, while each of these seems to know the traditions passed on by Fapias. It is possible that Clement simply got this aspect of his tradition from another source besides Papias. Yet it is instructive to observe the basis for Clement's ordering. Eusebius writes, 'And again in the same books Clement has inserted a tradition of the primitive elders with regard to the order of the Gospels, as follows. He said that those Gospels were first written which include the genealogies ...'. But why would the genealogies59 be any kind of determining factor, unless this also involved the question of why the other Gospels did not give Jesus' genealogy, and the answer that, since the genealogy had already been given, twice, there was no need for the last Gospels to record it? This, it turns out, is precisely one of the conclusions Eusebius either draws himself or reports was drawn by the source he has utilized in 3.24.13, for the Gospel of John: 'and fittingly John passed over the genealogy of our Saviour according to the flesh, because it had been already written out by Matthew and Luke, and began with the description of his divinity since this had been reserved for him by the Divine Spirit as for one greater than they'. It is entirely possible, then, that this point was made in the source (Papias), but only explicitly for the Fourth Gospel.60 Clement then may have applied the same logic to Mark's Gospel and determined that it too followed those Gospels which already recorded the Lord's ancestry.61 At any rate, the coincidence between Clement
59 Whether taken strictly to mean the lists given by Matthew and Luke of Jesus' ancestors, or taken, as with Farkasfalvy, Presbyters' Witness, 266-67, t o mean 'infancy narratives'. 60 It is interesting to note that in a fragment on the origins of the Gospels at the end of Ephraim's Commentary on the Diatessaron (see the versions quoted in Latin translation by Aland in his Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum (Stuttgart, 1976), p. 544), it is said of John, and of John alone, that he came 'and, having found much announced by those who wrote the genealogies of the Son of Man, he wrote that he was not just a man but "in the beginning was the Word" ' (English translation of Farkasfalvy, Presbyters' Witness, 266). If this source is dependent upon Eusebius' extract from Clement, or even upon Clement himself, it is curious why Mark too is not included. It would appear that this witness goes back either to Eusebius' account in 3.24.13 or to the source on which Eusebius is dependent here. They share the same indication that John wrote in awareness of the earlier Gospels which contained the genealogies, and the same reference to John's commencement of his Gospel with a declaration of the divinity of Christ. This fragment is very likely not from Ephraim and unfortunately its exact provenance is unknown See Farkasfalvy's comments, Presbyters' Witness, 266-67, n - r 461 Interestingly, H. Merkel, 'Clemens Alexandrinus uber die Reihenfolge der Evangelien', ETL 60 (1984), 38285 makes a good case that Clement's source at this point did not relate this conclusion to Mark at all, but concerned a comparison between Matthew, Luke, and John. Merkel thinks the plural 'presbyters' in 6.14.5 denotes two independent sources, one for the tradition related on Mark in 6.14.6 (developed from Papias), and another unnamed source. What Merkel sees as two

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 605 and what is most probably to be attributed to Eusebius' source in 3.24.13 with regard at least to John and the genealogy of Jesus forms one more link between this source and the later writers who used Papias' accounts of the Gospels. A Greek fragment of Origen's Homilies on Luke on Luke I : I 6 2 also shows important similarities with our fragment.63 Here he refers to 'a report noted down in writing that John collected the written Gospels in his own lifetime in the reign of Nero, and approved of and recognized those of which the deceit of the devil had not taken possession; but refused and rejected those which he perceived were not truthful'. We know of no other written source from the period before Origen which mentions that John knew and approved of the previous three Gospels, Origen and Eusebius' source even sharing the word (nrohi^aaOai (HE 3.24-7).64 Though each states it a bit differently, Eusebius' source and Origen also agree that John's evaluation of the previous canonical Gospels involved a testimony to their truthfulness: Eusebius, 'he welcomed them and testified to their truth'; Origen, 'but refused and rejected those which he perceived were not truthful'. Origen's source alleged that John's ratification of the Gospels took place already in the time of Nero. Eusebius, however, does not record this. But it is significant that Eusebius' source said John 'used all the time an unwritten
preaching' (rov ndvTa xpovov aypa<f>w Kxpr}^ivov K-qp&yp,ari) and that

he only took to writing 'at last' (reXos). Eusebius' source too then assumed at least a considerable gap between the first three Gospels and John. It is likely then that Origen's 'written report' is either the portion of Papias' work from which Eusebius' excerpt was taken, or was based on it.65 (e) 'Inspiration'. Though Eusebius' summary and discussion of
independent accounts, fused by Clement, may be well explained if the two accounts are simply two parts of Papias' account of the four Gospels, one which dealt with John in relation to Matthew and Mark (6.14.5 which would correspond roughly to what Eusebius records in 3.24.13), and one which dealt with Mark (6.14.6 which would correspond to 3.39.15). 62 H. Crouzel, F. Fourier, P. Perichon, Origene, Homilies sur S. Luc Texte latin et fragments grecs: introduction el notes S C 87 ( P a n s , 1962), p . 8 i , place t h e

homehes on Luke in Caesarea in 23334.

63 Some doubts have been expressed about this fragment. H. Merkel says, Tauthenticite ne m'en parait pas tout a fait certaine' (H. Merkel, La pluralite des

Evangiles comme probleme theologique et exegetique dans VEglise anctenne, vers. franc,
par J.-L. Maier (Berne, el al., 1978), x, n. 31. 64 In the light of this, it will seem possible that this is the Greek word lying behind the MF's report that Andrew and the others should 'recognize' (recognoscentibus) John's Gospel. 65 Otherwise we would have two early and independent witnesses to John's 'canonizing' activity with respect to the earlier Gospels.

606 CHARLES E. HILL his source in 3.24 has to do with the human origins of the Gospels and particularly with John, there is not lacking a reference to John's being in some sense an agent of the Spirit. John began his Gospel with the description of Christ's divinity 'since this had been reserved for him by the Divine Spirit as for one greater than they' (3.24.13). This is not directly attributed to his source, however, and may be Eusebius' own expression. The account in 3.24.513 mainly concerns John alone, but in introducing this section on the writings of John, points out that Christ's apostles did not present his teachings in persuasive or artistic language, 'but used only the proof of the Spirit of God which worked with them, and the wonder-working power of Christ which was consummated through them' (3.24.3). This too we can only safely attribute to Eusebius, not his source. Yet we find that some of those who likewise knew Papias' account on the Gospels also refer to John's inspiration, and sometimes include a broader statement concerning all the church's Gospels. Irenaeus says that the gospel has been given 'under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit' (AH 3.11.8). In a similar way the Muratorian Fragment contains a general reference applying to all four Gospels, that 'all things in all of them are declared (dedarata sint) by the one sovereign Spiritconcerning his nativity, concerning his passion, concerning his resurrection, concerning his walk with his disciples, and concerning his double advent'. As summarized by Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria is also said to have reported from ancient tradition that 'John, last of all, conscious that the outward facts had been set forth in the Gospels, was urged on by his disciples and divinely moved by the Spirit (nvev^ari 6eo<f>opT]devTa), composed a spiritual Gospel' (HE 6.14.7). This does not deny a role for the Spirit in the origins of the other Gospels (Clement has just affirmed, for instance, that Peter had proclaimed the Gospel 'by the Spirit' (irvevfjiari) in Rome before Mark wrote it down (HE 6.14.6)). But Clement's tradition about John's special endowment by the Spirit to compose his 'spiritual Gospel', is similar to what Eusebius says in 3.24.13 about John, whether this was his own conclusion, or whether it too was represented in some way in his source. It is very likely then, though not quite certain, that the source Eusebius used in 3.24.5-13 also made some mention of John's endowment by the Spirit in writing his Gospel.

4. Alternative Sources? The accumulated weight of these correspondences, I think, is enough to establish as a practical certainty that Eusebius has preserved for us the substance and much of the actual terminology

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 607 of Papias' account of the origin of the Gospel of John. But it is incumbent upon us to ask whether Eusebius' source could have been someone other than Papias. Sanday mentions the possibility of Hippolytus, who wrote against Gaius and those whom Epiphanius styles the 'Alogoi'66 (if they are separate from Gaius, which is very doubtful), though he admits that this is 'only a guess'. 67 There is at least one significant parallel with Epiphanius' report about the Alogoi, which is generally believed to have been based on the work of Hippolytus. As does the report cited by Eusebius, Epiphanius notes that the synoptic gospels give 'an accurate account of the time after John's imprisonment' (Panar. 51.21.18) while John relates several events which took place before it (John 3.24; Panar. 51.21.24). Yet this observation would already be known to Epiphanius from Eusebius' historia ecclesiastica 3.24.513, and would even have been available in Hippolytus' day from Papias' work, if we are correct. And besides the fact that there is no other evidence that Eusebius had seen Hippolytus' treatise in which he refutes Gaius {HE 6.20.2-3; 22.1 ), 68 other features in the Epiphanian account dealing with the Alogoi portray a debate of somewhat different terms and character. The Alogian charges, that John has omitted the birth, the flight into Egypt and the return to Nazareth, and that he gives a different chronology after the baptism of Jesus, not mentioning the forty days' temptation or the return to Galilee, are not addressed by the simpler explanation in Eusebius' source, which says that John's Gospel 'relates what Christ did before the Baptist had been thrown into prison, but the other three evangelists narrate the events after the imprisonment of the Baptist' (3.24.12). Nor does Eusebius' source show any signs of a controversy about who wrote the Fourth Gospel, or a concern with Cerinthus or any other heretics, both of which lay at the basis of the charges of Gaius and the Alogi. The fragment used by Eusebius addresses the kind of questionconsistency with other well-used Gospelswhich might have accompanied from the outset any Gospel published as late as c. AD 90100. Sanday suggests as more likely that Eusebius' source in 3.24 is
66
67

Epiphanius, Panar. 51.4.5-12; 17.11-18.1, etc.

W . Sanday, The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford, 1905), p . 69, ' I t

would be only a guess to suppose that it came from Hippolytus, at the time of his controversy with Cams'. 68 On one of his visits to the Christian library in Jerusalem he had come across some works of Hippolytus, of whose provenance he is unsure. Eusebius' list of Hippolytus' works known to him does not include his work against Gaius, or the work on Revelation of which this is thought to have been a part (HE 6.20.2-3; 22.1).

608 CHARLES E. HILL Clement of Alexandria, based on some similarities between Clement's statement quoted by Eusebius (HE 6.14.7) and the fragment.69 But there is a problem here in that Eusebius explicitly quotes Clement's tradition on the origin of the Fourth Gospel in 6.14.7, and, though there are important points of similarity, it is unquestionably a different account from the one he cites in 3.24. If the fragment in 3.24 is also from Clement we should expect part of it to be reproduced in 6.14.7, where Eusebius has as his stated purpose to give Clement's tradition about John. Though there are enough points of contact to suggest a literary relationship, Clement's account in the Hypotyposeis lacks several important aspects of Eusebius' source. It has nothing about John approving of the previous Gospels (3.24.7); nothing about his remarking on their omission of acts of Christ 'at first and at the beginning of the preaching' (3.24.7); nothing about the request for John to write having to do with filling this gap (3.24.11); nothing about John's indicating this by calling the Cana sign 'the beginning of miracles' in John 2:11 and by mentioning the Baptist's continuing ministry before his imprisonment in John 3:24 (3.24.11). The similarities are instead much more consistent with the view that Clement, who knew Papias' account, was condensing and selectively summarizing what he knew of John's origins, based largely on the account we now have in Eusebius, HE 3.24. After all, Eusebius explicitly states that Clement's information here is something he related as 'a tradition of the primitive elders' (6.14.5) as Sanday perceptively says, 'probably, if not altogether identical with the group drawn upon by Papias, yet at least in part identical with it'. 70 Could Origen be a possibility? Origen's account of the discrepancies between John and the Synoptics, at least in his Commentary on John, book 10, certainly has little in common with the harmonizing approach of Eusebius' source in 3.24.5-13. But some of his other comments on the Gospels show that he probably had come into contact with a copy of Papias' books at some point. It is in fact most probable that the copy Eusebius used was housed in the
69 He lists the following similarities (Criticism, 69-70), '1. The Gospel is the work of St John the Apostlefor there is no doubt that he is intended. 2. It was written towards the end of his life, after the publication of the other three. 3. The three Gospels were in the hands of the Apostle, and he had read and up to a certain point approved of them. 4. What he himself undertook to write was a Gospel, not a biography; the difference is important. 5. In contrast with the other Gospels it was recognized as being in a special sense "a spiritual Gospel".' But to about the same extent all of these but the last (which Sanday admits later (73) may have been Clement's own coinage) are also paralleled in Irenaeus and the MF. 70 Sanday, Criticism, 73

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 609 great library at Caesarea which Origen had founded with his personal holdings. A fragment from Origen's Commentary on Matthew, written sometime after 244, preserved by Eusebius (HE 6.25) relates what Origen says he had learned 'by tradition'. This account not only agrees with Papias in the common belief in a Hebrew original of Matthew, but follows its mention of Mark writing his Gospel 'according to the instruction of Peter', with a supporting reference to Peter's acknowledgement of Mark in his General Epistle (1 Pet. 5:13), just as we know Papias had done earlier (HE 2.15.2). Learning 'by tradition' could easily be a way of referring to an account of Papias, who is quoting another earlier witness who is either unnamed or is of no particular personal reputation. But unfortunately, all Origen has to say about John's Gospel in this passage is that it was written 'after them all'. Origen elsewhere shows his acceptance of the tradition that John migrated from Palestine to Asia and ministered there until his death at Ephesus, though he might have got this from Irenaeus or Clement, or by now from common tradition. 71 Yet, as we have pointed out above, there is one other excursus on the origin of John found in a fragment of his Homilies on Luke on Luke 1:1 which shows important similarities to the source cited by Eusebius in 3.24. Here he refers to 'a report noted down in writing that John collected the written Gospels in his own lifetime in the reign of Nero, and approved of and recognized those of which the deceit of the devil had not taken possession; but refused and rejected those which he perceived were not truthful'. We noted above that the report referred to shares with Eusebius' source the information that John knew and approved (aTroSetjaodai) of the previous three Gospels and bore some kind of testimony to their truthfulness. It is clear in any case that Eusebius' report in 3.24 could not have been taken merely from this fragment from Origen. First, we cannot be sure Eusebius was aware that Origen had said this, for when it came time to give Origen's views on the origins of the four Gospels, including John, in HE 6.25 he does not use it. Second, Eusebius' extract in 3.24.5-13 has information about Matthew in particular that is absent from the account of Origen in his homily on Luke 1:1. This means that Eusebius' source could be the same as Origen's, but he will have got it from the common source itself, not from Origen. Third, the source used by Eusebius obviously contained much more even about the Gospel of John than is related by Origen (though Origen's source also contained a reference to the reign of Nero which Eusebius
" From his Comm. Gen., preserved by Eusebius, HE 3.1.1.

610 CHARLES E. HILL may have omitted). In short, there is no known passage or collection of passages in the writings of Origen from which Eusebius could have built up the report he cites in 3.24.513. But is it possible that what we have in this section is, let us say, simply Eusebius' own creative amalgamation of several earlier sources? Only as a last resort should such a theory be proposed, for a) he attributes the information on Matthew and John to the same source, and b) there is a clear unity of thought and vocabulary which characterizes the whole account on Matthew and John, a unity which just happens to resemble Papias' account of Mark in 2.15.2 and 3.39.15. And if his source was a unified account but written by someone after the age of Papias, it seems that its author must have known Clement's Hypotyposeis, the Muratorian Fragment, Origen's Commentary on Matthew and his Homilies on Luke, and probably Irenaeus' Against Heresies (or else possibly Hippolytus' Heads against Gains). From Clement's Hypotyposeis, he must have got the idea that John did not record Jesus' genealogy because it had already been set out by Matthew and Mark, and the understanding of John's Gospel as partaking of a special commission from the Spirit to exceed the other evangelists in insight into Jesus' divinity. From this work, or else from the MF, he must have got some story of John being requested or compelled by others to write his Gospel, though he will have invented as the context for that urging that it had to do with the desire to supplement the earlier Gospels with deeds done by Jesus before John's imprisonment. This motive will have been taken, presumably, from Irenaeus' refutation of Ptolemy, where the bishop (citing the testimony of Asian elders!) stresses that Jesus' ministry in John is recorded as being at least three years long, instead of the one year which could be mistakenly read out of the previous Gospels. But, in contrast to Irenaeus, our author will have begun the synoptical 'year' not from the baptism of Jesus but from the imprisonment of John. Also from the MF he must have taken the term Trapd8ooi for the wondrous works of Jesus and have unconsciously substituted this word for the word o-qpela when he cited John 2:11. From Origen's Commentary on Matthew he must have got the information that Matthew's Aramaic Gospel was written expressly for 'those who from Judaism came to believe', though he will have invented a context for this as well, that it was at the point of Matthew's leaving these Jewish believers, who were sending him out to evangelize in other parts of the world. From Origen's Homilies on Luke, or from the written source he mentions, this author must have derived the information that John knew and approved of the

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 611 previous three Gospels. And in all this our mystery author will have chanced to express himself in a style which has several seemingly innocent links, both in vocabulary and in apologetic concern, with the words of the 'elder' on Matthew and Mark as collected by Papias and recorded by Eusebius in 2.15.1-2 and 3.39.15-16, though he must have done this before Eusebius had conveniently catalogued these excerpts. In my opinion this strains credibility well past the breaking-point. If on the other hand this fragment is, as Eusebius' form of citation indicates, a single, unified document, and if it is in fact from Papias, it explains in a very economical fashion many of the statements of those we know were familiar with his account of the other Gospels. It is suggested here then not merely that Eusebius' account in HE 3.24.5-13 is adapted from Papias but that it is scarcely possible to conceive of it as coming from anyone else. 5. Eusebius and His Papian Material. Thus we also now have an explanation for how Eusebius, when relating Papias' tradition about Mark and Matthew in 3.39.15-16, could have omitted his tradition about John. That is, he had already given it in 3.24.5-13, though without citing Papias' name. It is important to keep in mind that in 3.39.1516 Eusebius is not setting out to give a systematic report either of the origins of all four Gospels, 72 or of all that Papias said on that subject. His larger intent is here to report on a time during the reign of Trajan when there still survived some, particularly in Asia, who were in the first rank of the apostolic succession (3.36.1; 37.1, 4; 38.1; 39.1). These included Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp. In this period he also puts Papias, though he has to make clear to his readers that, despite a misstatement by Irenaeus, Papias was himself not an actual hearer of the Apostles, but gathered his traditions from those who had been hearers of the Apostles, or from their followers (3.39.2-8). At the end of his report on Papias he pauses, almost incidentally, to append (irpoa^TJao^ev) an interesting and important story from Papias about Mark, and gives a portion of
Sellew says, 'Eusebius' comments on the gospels in the History appear to be haphazardly arranged and in fact are poorly coordinated with each other'; 'As Eusebius recounts what he knows or believes has happened during the reigns of succeeding emperors, as correlated, when possible, with the successions of bishops ... he will mention various tidbits of information about particular figures' acceptance or use of potentially scriptural writings'; Eusebius' discussions of various canonical matters 'are all included circumstantially, as it were, only as they may seem relevant to a particular age or dominant imperial or ecclesiastical figure'
(Eusebius and the Gospels, p. 113).
72

612 CHARLES E HILL his testimony on Matthew. Unfortunately for us, he felt no necessity to be complete here even on what he records of these two Gospels, let alone on what Papias might have said about the others. We know this because in 2.15.2 he had recorded a part of Papias' testimony about Mark which does not show up in 3-39-I5Nor was it Eusebius' purpose earlier in 3.24.513, where he summarizes Papias' witness without naming Papias, to establish the Fourth Gospel by the testimony of all the ancients by name. It must be remembered that in Eusebius' mind there was no controversy over John's Gospel, as he says in 3.24.1, and therefore no pressing need to name the 'ancients' who witnessed to it, as he says he will have to do later for the disputed second and third Letters of John and the Apocalypse (3.24.18). In the course of relating the history of the early reign of Trajan in 3.24 he naturally mentions the Apostle John who, according to Irenaeus, lived until that time. Eusebius therefore pauses at that point to remark only on the 'undoubted writings of this apostle' (3.24.1), that is, on his Gospel and First Epistle (though our extract concerns only the Gospel), leaving 2 and 3 John and the Apocalypse till the proper time (3.24.18). That Eusebius leaves out the name of his source here is no great problem. As Lawlor has said, usually when Eusebius uses an unnamed written source indicated by (/car^ei Xoyos, 'the document on which he relies is either indicated in the immediate context, or may be discovered by a search through the passages from previous writers scattered over his pages'. 73 And so it is here. For at the end of his remarks on the Fourth Gospel, Eusebius reminds his readers parenthetically that he had already given them the cause for the Gospel according to Mark. 74 This refers to his statements in 2.15, where he had explicitly named his sources as being Clement of Alexandria and Papias. We may defer to Bartlet at this point. 75 That he should here have used Papias's evidence on the point without naming him is exactly what we should expect, not only from his disinclination to cite one of whose judgment in certain respects he had a slighting opinion, but also from the actual analogy of his previous account (ii, 15) of the historical origin of Mark's Gospel. This he states in a form which he attributes explicitly to Clement of Alexandria, adding, 'And the bishop of Hierapolis, by name Papias, joins him in additional testimony.' And
Lawlor, Eusebiana, p. 22. This leads to his short digression on the origin of Luke, which is strictly speaking out of place but provides a measure of completeness, for he has nowgiven summary descriptions, in 2.15.1-12, and 3.24.5-17, of the genesis of all four Gospels. 75 Bartlet, Papias's 'Exposition', p. 26.
74 73

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 613 there he would have been glad to leave Papias's witness on the point, had it not been for the fact that it bore on another matter which had exercised the Church's mind not a little; to wit, the differences in order and contents between its Gospels. So he has to return to Papias on Mark (in iii. 39) in connection with that problem ...
III. I M P O R T OF THE ' N E W ' P A P I A N F R A G M E N T

We must now consider some of the implications of the restoration of Papias' witness about the Fourth Gospel. 1. The Role of John the Elder Strong similarities in form and in vocabulary between this account and that which is attributed to 'the Elder' in 3.39.15-16 make it probable that Papias' own source for the information on Matthew and John in 3.24 is the same 'elder', with little doubt the notorious John the Elder. It might be argued that Papias has so taken over the witness of the elder in 3.39.15 as to express it in his own idiom, so that the lexical connections between this and Papias' accounts of the other Gospels go back no further than Papias himself. But in any event, 3.39.15 is a tradition attributed to the elder, and even the conceptual similarities with the new material would make it very likely, even apart from the philological correspondences, that the same source lies behind the report adopted by Eusebius in 3.24.513.75 If Papias' source is indeed John the Elder, this then would supply the ultimate proof that this man had nothing to do with the authorship of the Fourth Gospel,77 for he describes John, obviously, as a person distinct from himself. At last, however, we may be able to ascribe to the legacy of the Elder John some value in helping to answer the Johannine Question. 2. Johannine Authorship Consequently, this will further confirm that the John who is the subject of this fragment's witness could only be the apostle. The
76 The apostles not taking it upon themselves to write but acceding to requests; the attempt to bolster or 'ratify' the gospels, at least Mark and John, by appeal to portions of the apostle's writing which were supposed to 'confirm' the story told of its origin; relating the written form to oral preaching or teaching of one of the apostles; and characterizing the written gospels as uirofurq^ara, are similarities 3.24.513 shares with precisely this citation from the elder in 3.39.15. 77 Much more on this subject must be said. The case advanced lately by M. Hengel and R. J. Bauckham for John the Elder as author of part or all of the Johannine literature deserves close attention to a large amount of data. This paper does not pretend to be an adequate answer to their very learned arguments. Full consideration of their thesis is planned for a forthcoming volume.

614 CHARLES E. HILL fragment presents John as a personal disciple of Jesus, pairing him with Matthew as the only two 'disciples of the Lord' 78 who left an account of their vno^v-qfiara, and assuming that this man would be uniquely qualified to pronounce on whether the previous Gospels were 'true* and complete. Crediting his source, Eusebius says: 'they say accordingly that for this reason the apostle John was asked to hand down in the Gospel according to him ..." (3.24.11). There is thus good reason to believe that the word 'apostle' was used in the source, but even if this cannot be assured, there remains no doubt that it was the son of Zebedee who was intended. It has long been apparent to many scholars that Papias must have said something about John's Gospel. From comparing the testimonies of those who were dependent upon Papias we would be led to conjecture, as Bauckham has, that Papias might have said something about John being urged by others to write his Gospel. This we have confirmed from our fragment. By such a comparison we might also conjecture, again with Bauckham, that Papias must have said something about the order or arrangement of the events recorded in the Fourth Gospel relative to the other three. This too has been confirmed. By the very same method we would almost certainly also have to conjecture that Papias attributed the Fourth Gospel to John the Apostlefor so, apparently, did all those who read him.79 The restoration to Papias of the written work used by Eusebius in 3.24.5-13 simply confirms what we might otherwise have conjectured. 3. 'Gospels' It becomes probable, though not quite certain, that Papias' account also used the term 'Gospel' for the written documents he knew under the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This
Taiv TOV Kupiov fiadrjrwv. A variant has Siarpi^uiv for ^a(?ijTaji>, b u t the Latin

translation has ex discipuhs and the Syriac 'Apostles'. See Theron, 47; H. J. Lawlor and J. E. L. Oulton, Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History and the Martyrs of Palestine, 2 vols. (London, 1954), vol. 2, 93. 'Disciple of the Lord' is the favourite Asian designation of John used so often by Irenaeus. It is plain, because of the pairing with Matthew, that this title does not exclude him from the twelve. It is also to be noted that in Papias' Introduction (HE 3.39.4) he had used the title 'disciples of the Lord' to refer to Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, and Matthew. 79 At least this has been the usual conclusion of most scholars. But I say 'apparently' because there are a few, but a notable few as their number includes Professor Bauckham, who argue that Irenaeus or the MF or both assumed a John who was not one of the twelve (in Bauckham's case, John the Elder, Origin, 5657; 6769 and note 127). A full review of this matter must also await the aforementioned future studv.

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 615 has relevance for recent discussions about the origin of the use of the term 'Gospel' as a name for a written document. Some scholars have been unable to acknowledge such a use before Marcion 80 and H. Koester even proposes that this use was originated by Marcion. Hengel, on the other hand, says that the notion of Justin (writing in about 150) and the Church so quickly taking over a new title for these works from the heretic is 'absurd'. 81 Hengel cites 2 Clem. 8.5; Did. 8.2; 11.3; 15.3 f; Aristides, Apol. 2, as earlier examples, supporting the practice of Justin in Dial. 10.2; 100.1, Apol. 66.3. G. N. Stanton also points to Ignatius, Smyrn. 5.1; 7.2,82 to which, I believe, could be added Philad. 8.2. Where multiple works of a 'gospel' type, in Papias' case four of them, were known, some method or methods of distinguishing them must have been in use. Though Papias must have referred to Matthew and John as these disciples' 'recollections' (tmoixvr)ij,a.Ta) (3.24.5), three times in Eusebius' summaries we also read the phrase 'the Gospel according to him/them' for Matthew (3.24.6), Mark and Luke (3.24.7) and John (3.24.11).83 It is possible that this is Eusebius' terminology, but the consistent and repeated use could suggest that the expression goes back to his source. This form, 'Gospel according to ...', also matches the titles found in our earliest gospel papyri beginning from before AD 200,84 and is attested in church writers beginning with Irenaeus and the MF. Twice in his account Eusebius also uses the term 'evangelist' for the gospel authors (3.24.8, 11), the second in a seemingly direct reference to his source: 'They say accordingly that for this reason the Apostle John was asked to hand down in the Gospel according to him the period passed over in
80 H. Koester, 'From the Kerygma-Gospel to Written Gospels', NTS 35 (1989), 36181; idem. Ancient Christian Gospels. Their History and Development (Philadelphia/London, 1990), pp. 143; R. Gundry, 'EYAFFEAION: How soon a Book?', JBL 115 (1996), 321-25. 81 Hengel, Frage, p. 63. 82 G. N. Stanton, 'The Fourfold Gospel', NTS 43 (1997) 317-46 at 334. See his fuller discussion in, 'Matthew: BIBAOl, EYAFFEAION, or BIOZV, in F. van Segbroeck, et al. (eds.), The Four Gospels 1992, FS Frans Neirynck (Leuven,

1992), pp. 1187-1202. TO KaT* aVTOV evayyiXiov evayyeXtw (1 1).

(6); Ttuv Kar1 (LVTOVS evayyeXtwv (7)j T<*J KO.T CLVTOV

84 I?*56'has EYAFFEAION KATA IQANHN; &75 (which contains most of Luke and John, and has the transition between them) at the end of Luke has EYAFFEAION KATA AOYKAN, and at the beginning of John has EYAFFEAION KATA IQANHN. A scrap evidently taken from &*'M and " (which belong together, see below) has EYAFFEAION KATA MA80AION, though this is not by the same hand and was probably added later. See M. Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark (SCM Press, 1985), ch. 3, 'The Titles of the Gospels and the Gospel of Mark', pp. 64-84.

616 CHARLES E. HILL silence by the former evangelists'. That Papias' account used the term cvayyeXiov for the written Gospels or referred to any of their authors as evayyeXiarai, is then highly probable, and will receive some support from the following point. 4. A Four-Gospel Canon John is presented in Eusebius' source as the last of four to write a gospel. All those authors dependent upon Papias' account have John last of only four, even agreeing on their order (with the exception of Clement, as noted above). Despite the existence of other gospels, and despite an obvious familiarity with some of them in the case of most of these authors, all these readers of Papias85Irenaeus, Clement, the Muratorian Fragment, Origen, Victorinus, and Eusebiustestify that only the four were considered to have sound apostolic credentials and were deemed as in a special class by the Church and its leaders. Indeed, our fragment of Papias claims John as giving apostolic sanction to the first three (if Origen's 'written source' is Papias himself, this was said to be already in the time of Nero). This seems to require that Papias (and probably his source) considered as in the same class only these four Gospels. Another point relevant to this observation needs to be made about Papias' original account in the Exposition of the Dominical Oracles. Though the circumstances related in the stories of each Gospel are quite different, their presentations in Papias' work share, as we have seen, several common elements and concerns. This must signify that attempts were being made already at that time to offer a rationale for the number and identities of the Gospels acknowledged by the Church. We find, 1. a concern, whether apologetic or simply didactic, to maintain that the evangelists did not take it upon themselves to initiate the writing but were responding to the requests of their hearers (Matthew, Mark, John; with Luke a 'cause' is found in the desire to correct the doubtful propositions of others); 86
85 Surely Papias too knew of other Gospels, or other written accounts which purported to give other sayings and deeds of the Lord and 'commandments of others' (3.39.3). Eusebius says Papias recorded the story about the woman taken in adultery, which he says is contained in the Gospel to the Hebrews, though he does not quite say that Papias cited the story from that work. Eusebius says this gospel was used by the Ebionites These were true 'aetiologies'. We find in fact for Mark and Luke the word airi'a (Mark, 2.15.1; 3.24.14; Luke, 3.24.15) and for Matthew and John the word kirdvayKts (3.24.5). For Matthew and John this is explicitly attributed to Eusebius' source, and it should be evident that for Mark and Luke it reflected an interest in accounting for the circumstances surrounding the genesis of each Gospel

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE)

617

2. references to each being essentially a written record of what was preached or taught by one (or in Luke's case, more than one) of the Apostles; 3. the use of the term 'recollections' (of events in the Lord's life by Matthew and John, of the preaching of Peter by Mark); 4. a chronological ordering of the four, with an evident accompanying interest in explaining the reasons for a new Gospel by John so much later than the others (the justification being that the others had left out the beginnings of Jesus' ministry and that it was reserved for John to relate more vividly and plainly the divinity of the Lord); 5. the attempt to find some kind of endorsement for each Gospel, or gospel writer, from another accepted (apostolic), and textual authority: of Mark by Peter (HE 2.15.2); of Luke 87 by Paul (HE 3.4.7); of John by John (in his indications of chronology and probably in testimony cited from 1 John) 88 and possibly by Andrew and others, according to the MF\ for Matthew as of yet we cannot point to a textual affirmation that has survived, though his Gospel is vouched for by John in the story told about John's Gospel in HE 3.24.7. These almost formalized qualities in Papias' presentation imply already a fairly high degree of reflection, forethought, and no doubt even some research. They tell us that the subject of the Church's Gospels, their authorities and how they came to be, was a topic of interest in early second-century Asia. They also tell us, of course, that a special recognition, probably implying a collection, of these four Gospels as set apart from all others should be assigned at least to the time when Papias published his book, which I am assuming to be somewhere in the decade between 125135.89 And since Papias is attributing his material here at least on Mark to an earlier presbyter, and since, as we have seen, the presbyter's material shows many similarities
For this, see the Appendix, 'What Papias Said about Luke'. Lightfoot, SR, 206; Bauckham, Origin, 47, 55. 89 Hengel, Frage, p. 77, places Papias' writing between 120 and 135 in Hadrian's reign based on the fragment of Philip of Side (Lightfoot/Harmer, fr.5), which says that Papias spoke of some of those Christ healed as surviving until Hadrian's time, and on Irenaeus' naming Papias as an 'ancient' man (apxalos ainjp). Von Campenhausen, The Formation of the Christian Bible (Philadelphia, 1972), p. 129, says between 110 and 130. I think Bartlet's date, Paptas's 'Exposition', of around 110 is almost certainly too early. Papias' placing of himself in the line of succession of tradition is strictly speaking parallel to that of Irenaeus (HE 3.39.3-4), though Papias must have been in age closer to Polycarp than to Irenaeus. His need to rely on not merely the followers of the Apostles, but also on men of the next generation would seem to forbid putting his writing too early.
88 87

618 CHARLES E. HILL with Papias' accounts of the other Gospels, it has to be considered most likely from a literary standpoint that these accounts have the same source and that this conception of the four Gospels was abroad in Asia some years earlier, at the time when Papias was gathering his traditions. 90 Just how much earlier it is impossible to say, though a very conservative estimate would bring us down to around 120 or earlier. Even if we restrict our conclusions to the time of Papias' writing, this may call for a paradigm shift on the history of a four-Gospel 'canon' which at first sight might strike some as momentous. Many do not regard it as likely that a four-Gospel canon was dreamt of before Irenaeus, or at the earliest, before Tatian a few years earlier. But two things should be said immediately. First, these ramifications do not necessarily apply to any geographic region besides Asia Minor. It cannot simply be assumed that stages in what we today call the process of fixing the New Testament canon were reached everywhere at the same time. The appropriateness of this witness coming from Asia Minor will be touched upon shortly. Second, developments have been taking place in papyrological studies which should also mitigate the revolutionary appearance of this conclusion.91 In a recent study, the eminent papyrologist, T. C. Skeat, has confirmed the opinion of C. H. Roberts 92 that the papyrus fragments ^4>64'67 (containing parts of Matthew and Luke) were once part of the same codex, and has determined that this must have been a four-Gospel codex with the order Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. 93 Skeat has also confirmed that this codex was written in the late second century, and had an exemplar reaching back to an earlier time. He has stated his considered belief that 'the Four-Gospel Canon and the Four-Gospel codex are inextric90 It seems from his narrative in 3.39.3-4 that John the Elder and Anstion, alive when Papias was collecting the teachings of the elders, were dead by the time he wrote. 91 After this article had been submitted to the publisher, vol. 43.1 of NTS arrived, containing Graham Stanton's article, 'The Fourfold Gospel'. I am pleased to note below the confirmation he adds to many of the points which follow in this section. 92 In C. H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (Oxford, 1979), p. 13. 93 T. C. Skeat, 'The Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels?', NTS 43 (1997), 134, esp. 15. See now also Stanton, Fourfold Gospel, 32728, who points out that the two-column format of this codex 'is very probably an indication of a highclass codex, a splendid "pulpit edition" intended for liturgical use' and observes that it 'does not look at all like an experiment by a scribe working out ways to include four gospels in one codex: it certainly had predecessors much earlier in the second century' (328).

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 619 ably linked, and that each presupposes the other', 94 and that, 'the reason why the Christians, perhaps about AD IOO, soon after the publication of the Gospej of John, decided to adopt the codex was that only a codex could contain all four Gospels'. 95 The oldest known papyrus fragment of a Gospel is ^ 2 dating from about 125, quite contemporary with Papias though it was found in Egypt. We cannot now tell if the codex which contained it once contained more Gospels. 96 But Skeat has explained how even the continued production of single Gospel codices in the second century probably presupposed the existence of a fourGospel codex.97 Picturing the situation of a second-century Christian deciding whether to choose a Gospel in the form of a roll or to 'abandon the practice of a lifetime and choose the codex', Skeat says we know from all the papyri discoveries that Christians chose the codex, and 'the reason must have been the fact that the four-Gospel codex was already in existence and had thus set the standard for manuscripts of the individual Gospels'. 98 Skeat has also argued that Irenaeus' defence of the fourfold Gospel in AH 3.11.8-9 is dependent upon an earlier source which itself presupposed a collection of these four Gospels already in codex form,99 a source which Skeat now believes 'must
T. C. Skeat, 'Irenaeus and the Four-Gospel Canon', NovT 34 (1992) 194-99. Skeat, The Oldest Manuscript, 31; idem, 'The Origin of the Christian Codex', ZPE 102 (1994), 263-68. For this date for the rise of the codex in Christianity see also C H. Roberts and T. C. Skeat, The Birth of the Codex (London, 1983), pp. 45, 47. See now also J. K Elliott, 'Manuscripts, the Codex and the Canon', JSNT 63 (1996), 105-23, at 107, 'It could be that the reason why the Christians adopted the codex long before anyone else was to safeguard the four Gospels from either addition or subtraction'. Stanton, Fourfold Gospel, 337, has reminded us that this point was essentially made by F. G. Kenyon in 1933 While this explanation for the collection and publication of the Gospels into codex form appears quite plausible, we should not overlook the possibility that the codex was already in use for a Pauline corpus before the end of the first century. 96 Elliott, Manuscripts, 106, allows that our oldest extant New Testament manuscripts which at present exist as only fragments of one book, the second- and third-century papyri 9i2, &\ &*, 0>7, 0>-', 0"2, &"3, 0"e, 'may originally have contained more than one text'. I do not know the basis of Stanton's definite statement, Fourfold Gospel, 338, that .f^52 is from 'a single-gospel codex'. 97 Skeat, Origin. 98 Skeat, Origin, 266. The standard once set, even the production of 'new' Gospels, such as the Egerton papyrus, at least one MS of the Gospel of Thomas, and from about 200 a copy of the Gospel of Peter, would have to follow suit, as did eventually all of Christian literature. See Roberts and Skeat, Birth, p. 43. 99 Skeat, Irenaeus, 199. Stanton, Fourfold Gospel, 329-32, also argues, I think rightly, that Justin 'may well have had a four-Gospel codex in his catechetical school in Rome by about AD 150' (331).
93 94

620 CHARLES E. HILL go back to the time when the codex was formally adopted by the Church'. 100 This means, in Skeat's opinion, somewhere around AD ioo, or shortly after the publication of John's Gospel.101 This would predate Papias (not to mention, of course, Marcion) and put us in the environs of Papias' source, John the Elder. But a steady line can be drawn at least from Irenaeus to Papias at this point. We cannot now help wondering whether an earlier form of the comparison of the four Gospels to the four living creatures from Ezek: i; Rev: 4 was not already contained in one of Papias' books. We have remarked above that Irenaeus' comparisons in AH 3.11.8 are based on the 'different beginnings' of the four Gospels. It is their beginnings which disclose the characters of each Gospel and allow them to be linked up with the four living creatures. Such would be a fitting capstone to Papias' whole discussion of the four Gospels as we are now able to piece it together from our several locations.102 That modern scholars continually declare themselves unconvinced by Irenaeus' arguments about the necessity of there being exactly four Gospels is quite beside the point. Regardless of their persuasive power, then or now, Irenaeus' coordinations of the four Gospels in AH 3.11.8-9 do n o t necessarily give the impression of introducing a novelty,103 but appear rather as after-the-fact justifications of a longstanding tradition. As Elliott says, 'That Irenaeus was able to argue in favour of the fourfold Gospel canon in c. 170104 suggests that such a collection was already well in existence by then, although the establishment of the collection was in need of

Skeat, The Oldest Manuscript, 3 1. Skeat, Origin, 266, even says, 'It is my belief that the key to the whole situation was the publication of John (circ. 100 A.D.)' Though in our present state of knowledge this is quite conjectural, it strikes me as a brilliant hypothesis. 102 The comparison may also have been found in another part of Papias' books. Chapman, 'Papias on the Age of our Lord', JTS 0 (1908), 4261, argued on the following grounds that this comparison went back to Papias. Victonnus of Pettau, who can be shown to have used Papias in other respects, not only coordinates the four living creatures with the four Gospels in his commentary on Revelation (aligning them as does Irenaeus), but, expatiating on the fourth day of creation in his de fabnca mundt, he lists among his 'fours', 'lo, there are four living creatures before God's throne, four Gospels . . . ' . According to Anastasius of Sinai, Papias also commented on the six days of creation (Considerations on the Hexaemeron; Lightfoot Harmer's no. 12, 13). It is then possible that in his comments on the fourth day was contained some comparison of the living creatures and the Gospels. 103 pace H. Y. Gamble, The New Testament Canon. Its Making and Meaning (Philadelphia, 1985), pp 31-32. 104 Irenaeus' third book is usually placed nearer 180, as he names Eleutherius as the Roman bishop at the time (AH 3.3.3), whose dates are often given as 175-89.
101

100

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 621 defence'. 105 The recovery of Papias' witness then helps make that of Irenaeus historically understandable, 106 while providing mutually confirmatory evidence for Skeat's proposals about the rise of the Christian codex. Given Irenaeus' position on the four Gospels, then, it should not be surprising that our earliest literary evidence for a fourfold Gospel collection should come from Asia Minor. And if Skeat's opinion is correct that such a selection and co-edition of the four Gospels was made not long after the first publication of the Fourth Gospel, it may be that Asia Minor was the birthplace of this portentous practice.107 That Papias and even the 'elder' before him may already have known not only a special regard for these four but even codex collections of them, is therefore not out of keeping with (though not yet proved by) the manuscript evidence as we now have it. It is of interest then to note that the chronological order which Papias named for the four, and which his readers (with the possible exception of Clement) preserved, is precisely that of the most common order in the manuscript tradition (i.e., the present canonical order), and is the order in which they appeared in what now must be considered the oldest multiple-Gospel codex found so far, the manuscript which according to Roberts and Skeat originally held ^P4'64'67. Very probably, SP7S, from around 200, which now contains only Luke followed by John in a single quire was originally bound together with the other two in the common order as well.108 This is significant in
Elliott, Manuscripts, 108 Stanton, Fourfold Gospel, 334-35, also suggests that the early and lasting separation of Luke from its companion volume, Acts, was precipitated by 'the acceptance of Luke into the fourfold Gospel ... probably before Marcion'. For this argument he also cites W. R. Farmer in W. R. Farmer and D. M Farkasfalvy, The Formation of the New Testament Canon (New York, 1983), P- 73106 Before Irenaeus wrote, Tatian had already composed his Gospel harmony which, as far as the best evidence tells us, was meant to synthesize only the four. See B. M. Metzger, Canon, 115-16. 107 Skeat himself suggests Rome, where the non-Christian use of the codex is first documented (Origin, 268). A. Souter, The Text and Canon of the New Testament (London, 1912), p. 161, suggested Asia or Italy. 108 See Skeat, Origin, 264. The Gospels in the third-century codex SP*b, which contained all four Gospels and Acts, at the time of their arrival in London were already separated Skeat, Irenaeus, 198, thinks their manuscript order was Matthew, John, Luke, Mark, the so-called Western order. He thinks this is the order assumed by Irenaeus and his source, because if one takes Irenaeus' matching of the Gospels with the living creatures and sets them in their order of presentation in Ezek. 1, the Western order would result (Skeat, Irenaeus, 19798). It is possible then that the Western order was based on Ezek. 1. But Irenaeus presents the Gospels in 3.11.8 in the order in which the living creatures are given in Rev. 4, as evidently did his source, and this almost certainly was not represented by a codex (John, Luke, Matthew, Mark). The correlations were made the basis of an analysis of the characteristics of the individual Gospels (particularly, of their
105

622 CHARLES E. HILL the light of the manuscript tradition of the Pauline corpus, for which the dominant principle of arrangement, after the division between letters to churches and letters to individuals, was evidently the length of the individual letters, not chronology.109 From our study of Papias we can observe that what came to be the common order of the manuscript tradition, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, was evidently carried out according to a view of their chronological relationships.110 5. Papias' Attitude to the Written Gospels Our findings reveal a fuller and more coherent picture of Papias' attitudes towards the written Gospels than has been possible to achieve heretofore. This should be welcomed. But a difficulty could be felt by some because this fuller picture is quite positive, while Papias' attitude to the written Gospels of Mark and Matthew in 3.39.1516 has sometimes been portrayed as begrudging at best, or as thinly veiled disgust. And Papias' own words about the relative trustworthiness of oral tradition as opposed to books have been claimed as necessitating such a view. As von Campenhausen says, 'he declares with feeling his belief in the superiority of the oral tradition'. 111 But are all books included in
beginnings). At any rate, the order of Irenaeus' presentation in 3.1.1, the chronological order we have identified from Papias, is also the common order found in the manuscripts and therefore is likely to represent the order of codices extant in Papias' day. It is quite possible then that both arrangements were represented in the early second century. 109 See D. Trobisch, Paul's Letter Collection. Tracing the Origins (Minneapolis, 1994), pp. 1617. Trobisch explains the logic of this practice for the scribe, who had to calculate before he began writing in his quire the number of leaves he would need to complete the work: 'If he started out with the longest letters and ended with the shorter ones, the chances are good he could finish the codex with the end of a letter even if his calculation was wrong. In this case all the scribe would need to do is produce an extra volume out of some additional leaves holding the missing letters. If he were to start out with the short letters and end with the long ones, however, the chances are much higher that he would be in the middle of a letter when he reached the last page'. 1 1 0 ^phjg means that Papias has in common with these early manuscripts both the form of the titles, EYArTEAION KATA ... (see above), and the order of placement. 111 Von Campenhausen, Formation, p. 130. Despite even Paul's and Luke's efforts to tie down a firm basis for Christianity, 'In Papias', von Campenhausen rhapsodizes, 'everything is sinking back into the flood of chaotic tradition, whether written or oral, which despite his alleged sifting is at most only a little restricted by his own theological judgment, and is mostly in practice uncontrollable, bursting all banks and defences and spreading far and wide. "It is as if an attempt had been made to keep the immediacy of the original revelation as a present reality by clinging to the living word, not to the dead, transient written text" ' (Formation, pp. 134-35, the last sentence is borrowed from F. C. Bauer). Cf. P Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristliche Literature (Berlin/New York, 1975), pp. 760-61.

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 623 this contrast? Von Campenhausen assures us that it is 'indisputable' that Papias had in mind at least such books as he might have known from what we now call the New Testament, and forbids any thoughts to the contrary. 112 But to force all books into this contrast must result in aspersions not only for the Gospels he knew, but also for the Old Testament 'books', and for his own 'books', for he made this statement, rather remarkably, in a book. Often the context of Papias' expression of anti-scribal bias is not reported. In the preface to his work entitled Exposition of the Dominical Oracles, he says,
And I shall not hesitate to append (auy/caTaTri|ai) to the interpretations (rat; kpfir)vi'ais) all that I ever learnt well from the presbyters and remember well, for of their truth I am confident. For (oil ydp) unlike most I did not rejoice in them who say much, but in them who teach the truth, nor in those who recount the commandments of others, but in them who repeated those given to the faith by the Lord and derived from truth itself.

Then, after identifying some of the sources for his traditions, he continues, For (oil ydp) I did not suppose that information from books would help me so much as the word of a living and surviving voice. (HE 3.39.3-4) The material has been laid out in this way to highlight the fact that the first sentence, a declaration of intent for the book, is followed by two parallel, subordinate ov ydp statements. It thus becomes more visible that the 'books' mentioned after the second 011 ydp are opposed to the presbyterial traditions mentioned after the first, and both are explanatory of the category of 'all that I ever learnt well from the presbyters and remember well'. And what he learned and remembered from these oral (not written) sources he promises to 'append' {avyKarard^ai) to, as supporting or illustrating, the 'interpretations'. And interpretations require that something is there already to be interpreted, no doubt the Xoyia KvpiaKd (whatever these were).113 As Lightfoot said long ago,
Von Campenhausen, Formation, p. 130, n. 19, 'The fundamental importance of this attitude is not to be disputed, as R. P. C. Hanson, Tradition in the Early Church, 1962, pp. 38 f., would like to do, nor misunderstood as polemic against supposedly heretical literature, as in A. F. Walls, "Papias and Oral Tradition", VC 21, 1967, pp. 137-140'. 113 On this phrase see J. Kiirzinger, 'Papias von Hierapolis: Zu Titel und Art seines Werkes', in Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien des Neuen Testaments (Regensburg, 1983), pp. 6989, 'Man wird vielmehr den Begriff im weitesten Sinn verstehen, als Zusammenfassung all dessen, was mit dem Herrn heilsgeschichthch im Zusammenhang steht, vor allem auch die im Herrn grtindende Kirche (xvptaKi]) und ihre innere und auBere Geschichte'. Our results confirm that the Adyia Kvptaxd cannot be restricted to 'sayings'.
112

624 CHARLES E. HILL 'The contrast' is not 'between oral and written Gospels, but between oral and written aids to interpretation'; 'The leading object of Papias therefore was not to substitute a correct narrative for an imperfect and incorrect, but to counteract a false exegesis by a true'. 114 An examination of the surviving fragments of Papias' book, I believe, bears this out. Even if his oral traditions occasionally brought with them an unwritten saying attributed to Jesus (as in AH 5.33.4), the fragments show that the traditions he collected were recorded not with a view to adding new sayings of Jesus, but for enlightening ones he already had. Even the saying on eschatological fruitfulness attributed to Jesus, as Lightfoot so well observed, was elicited to support an interpretation of sayings of Jesus contained in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. 115 What has now been restored to Papias from HE 3.24 then is not at odds with the rest of the fragments in their depiction of Papias' regard for the four Gospels, but, I believe, explains them admirably well. We still know relatively little about just what his books contained. But the four Gospelsnamed, set in chronological order, their origins told, and their discrepancies acknowledged and (summarily) accounted forshow every indication of forming at least part of the essential base, the treasury of rd Adyta d, which it was the purpose of Papias' five books to 116 interpret. 116
114 Lightfoot, SR, 160. On these points it is still hard to surpass Lightfoot for sound judgement. See also H. J. Lawlor, 'Eusebius on Papias', Hermathena XIX (1922), 167-222; A. F. Walls, Papias and Oral Tradition, 13839, 'While we naturally tend to read this statement in conjunction with his statements about Matthew and Mark, the immediate context shows that Papias has in mind works of a different character: works that are prolix but superficial (rols rd 7roAAct Aeyovoiv) or suspicious in doctrinal tendency (TOIS TOS aWorpias kvToXas ^ivTjfiovevovaiv) ... Papias, then, is thinking of works of whose apostolic origin there is no proof. With Matthew, Mark, and any other demonstrably apostolic work he is not here concerned'. 115 Lightfoot, SR, 1158-160. 116 Lawlor, Eusebius on Papias, 204, 'On the whole, then, we may conclude that the title of the five books of Papias indicates that they were a commentary on passages of certain Gospels. One of these was almost certainly St Mark; probably St Matthew was another'. Now we may add Luke and John. It is not certain, of course, that his comments were restricted to passages from these Gospels. It is most improbable that he would have used in the same way any other Gospels (the story in the pencope de adultera was probably used by him as an interpretative tradition), but the testimonies from later authors indicate that, whatever the original context might have been for their introduction, Papias gave interpretations also of passages from Revelation (Andrew of Caesarea, On the Apocalypse praef.; 34. serm. 12 (Lightfoot Harmer, n. 10, 11)), he apparently knows the book of Acts (Eusebius, HE 3.39.910; on this see note 125 below), and he used at least for supportive interpretive material, 1 Peter (Eusebius, HE 3.39.17), 1 John (Eusebius,

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE)

A P P E N D I X : W H A T P A P I A S SAID ABOUT L U K E

625

The Armenian fragments of Papias published by Siegert demonstrate that Papias knew Luke's Gospel and cited it as he did other Scriptures. 117 There are also signs in the elder's report on Mark in 3.39.15 that he is acquainted with the introduction to Luke's Gospel. M. Black argues that the use of rhetorical terminology in Papias is probably reflected in his use of ragis, avvra^is, and xpei'a.118 But more telling, it seems to me, are the coincidences of usage with Luke 1:13, which contains avard^aaBat. (cf. T&IS, avvra^is in 3.39.15, 16), hirjyrjais (see 3.24.7), npayfj-aTcov (cf. TTTTpay/xeva, npd^eis, TTpa^Oevra in 3.24.8, 10, 11, 12, 13; 39.15), irapaht'Sai/xi (3.24.II, 12), OLKptftcbs (3.39.15), irapaKoXovdew (3.39.15, cf. also Papias' own use in 3.39.4). From this it seems that Luke's introduction served as a kind of model, conscious or unconscious, for the presbyter, and also for Papias, when it came to forming their aetiologies of the Gospels. In giving the tradition of his source on Matthew and John in HE 3.24 Eusebius reveals that it also spoke of Mark and Luke as writing chronologically between the writings of the two Apostles, and that they each indicated the temporal focus of their accounts of Jesus' ministry with regard to John's imprisonment. What else this source said about Mark or Luke he does not say here, though we can now affirm that its information on Mark is preserved in 2.15.2; 3-39-I5- But having come to the end of his summary of his source's information about Matthew and John in 3.24.14, Eusebius reminds his readers that he had already given them the cause for Mark's Gospel, in 2.15, where he had cited Clement and Papias. We are now able to affirm that one of these authors, Papias, has in fact been his source in 3.24.5-13. Evidently sensing then that he could not leave out the other Gospel, he appends a brief account of the 'cause' of Luke's Gospel in 3.24.15. May we not suspect that this too might be indebted to Papias in some way? There is one thing standing in the way of this at the outset, and that is that after relating this account of Luke, Eusebius says, 'This much we ourselves (relate)
HE 3.39.17), the letters of Paul (Andrew of Caesarea, On the Apocalypse on Rev. 12:7-9 (Lightfoot Harmer, n. 24)), and portions of the Old Testament (Anastasius of Sinai, Considerations on the Hexaemeron 1; 7 (Lightfoot Harmer, n. 12, 13); Andrew of Caesarea, On the Apocalypse on Rev. 12:7-9 (Lightfoot Harmer, no. 24)). It is instructive to note that Irenaeus considered the notion of 'sayings of the Lord' (domini sermones) to apply to words by or about Jesus taken even from the Old Testament (AH 3.42.2; 4. praef. 1; 3.1)! See Lawlor, 197. 117 Siegert, Unbeachtete Papiaszitate. 118 iVl. Black, 'The Use of Rhetorical Terminology in Papias on Mark and Matthew', JSNT 37 (1989), 31-41.

626 CHARLES E. HILL on these matters, but at the proper time we will endeavour to explain by citation from the ancients what has been said on the point by others'. Thus it seems he is taking personal responsibility for the tradition he relates now on Luke. And indeed we find that the bulk of this short report is based directly on Luke's own introductory words in Luke 1:1-3, ar>d was no doubt formed from Eusebius' direct knowledge of that passage. Yet Eusebius also names Paul and 'other apostles' as Luke's 'eyewitnesses and ministers of the word', something that is not of course mentioned by Luke. Moreover, it is significant that in this brief account Eusebius also uses terminology which we will later find in the elder's words in 3-39-!S~ J 6. Eusebius tells us in 3.24.15 that Luke gave at the beginning of his treatise the cause for which 'he made the arrangement' (TTenoirjTai rijv avvra^iv). Here is the very thing that the elder alleged that Mark (Peter) did not do (oi>x oicnrep ovvragiv rdv KvpuiKwv noiovfiivos Xoyiwv), and that Matthew did (rd Adyia avverdaro), complete with the periphrastic use of the middle of noieiv with an object.119 It is also worth pointing out that Eusebius says that according to his source, Matthew and John came to writing of necessity {kirdvayKes), and says here that Luke wrote because he 'felt it necessary (dvayxcu'ais) to release us from the doubtful propositions of the others', namely those who had 'somewhat rashly attempted to make a narrative' before him (3.24.15; cf. Luke I : I ) . 1 2 0 This is reminiscent of the statement of Origen in the Greek fragment from his first homily on Luke, that an earlier
119 Eusebius, of course, writes everywhere about writers and their literary compositions. His uses of avvrdaaw, awrafis are not uncommon. Yet in all his extant writings, HE 3.24.15 and 3.30.15 contain the only instances of this precise phrase. In two later writings, book 10 of the HE, which was added for his third edition at around 315, and in a work entitled Supplementa ad quaestiones ad Stephanum, written in about 320 (T. D Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (Cambridge Mass./London, 1981), pp. 122, 162) he will use a similar notation, Xoyov aiVrau< nevoirmevos, in the first instance for a composition of his own, in the second for Matthew's composition of the genealogy of Jesus. This correspondence in HE 3.24.15 and 3.39.15 makes it quite likely either that the phrase occurred in Papias' accounts of both Mark and Luke, or that Papias' account about Mark is still in his mind as he records a tradition about Luke. In either case it is probable that Eusebius still has Papias' account of the Gospels fresh in mind when he writes about Luke here in 3.24.15. 120 If this comment is based on something Papias said, it could form a plausible complement to what Papias says in HE 3.39.16 about Matthew: 'Matthew therefore arranged the logia in the Hebrew dialect, while each interpreted them as he was able' Luke's own intention to write after the 'many' before him who had undertaken to compile a digest (Luke 11) could then have been seen as an intention to correct doubtful translations or interpretations 'each' had made from Matthew's original Aramaic work.

W H A T PAPIAS S A I D A B O U T J O H N (AND L U K E )

627

source had John welcoming some Gospels and rejecting others which were not truthful. Earlier in book 3, Eusebius had remarked on a tradition about Luke. There he says that Luke was by race an Antiochian (3.4.6) and by profession a physician, something that is paralleled in the so-called Anti-Marcionite Prologue to Luke which, unlike the prologues to Mark and John, is probably to be dated as early as the second century. 121 Eusebius continues, 'And they say (<j>aaiv) that Paul was actually accustomed to quote from Luke's Gospel since when writing of some Gospel as his own he used to say, "According to my Gospel" > m (3.4.7). What makes Papias a likely source here is, first, that this looks like an obvious attempt to ratify Luke's Gospel by means of Paul in his letters, something we know Papias (or his source) did with Mark by citing 1 Pet. 5:13 and evidently with John by citing John 2:11; 3:24 and probably 1 John 1:14. Second, a comparison with those authors who knew Papias' work reveals that the attribution of Luke's Gospel in a special way to Paul is repeated by Irenaeus, 'Luke ... set down in a book the Gospel preached by' Paul (AH 3.1.1, cited by Eusebius in HE 5.8.3; cf. Tertullian, Adv. Marc. 4.2, 5); by the MF: 'Luke, the physician, after the ascension of Christ, when Paul had taken him with him as a companion of his traveling, [and after he had made] an investigation, wrote in his own namebut neither did he see the Lord in the fleshand thus, as he was able to investigate, so he also begins to tell the story [starting] from the nativity of John'; and by Origen, who says Luke's Gospel was praised (enaivovfievov) by Paul (Comm. Matt. 1 in HE 6.25.6). Where it was that Paul praised Luke's Gospel is revealed in Origen's first homily on Luke: 'Hence the Apostle praises him deservedly when he says, "He is praised for his Gospel throughout all the churches"', 123
121 See Koester, Gospels, 335, from which the following translations are taken. 'Luke is a Syrian of Antioch, a Syrian by race, a physician by profession. He had become a disciple of the apostles and later followed Paul until his [Paul's] martyrdom, having served the Lord continuously, unmarried, without children, filled with the Holy Spirit he died at the age of eighty-four years in Boeotia'. (Cf. Polycrates, in Eusebius, HE 5.24.5, 'Melito the eunuch, who lived entirely in the Holy Spirit, who lies at Sardis ...'.) Koester thinks the next section of the prologue is later, but it continues, 'Since there were already other gospels, that According to Matthew written in Judea, that According to Mark [written in] Italy, he was urged by the Holy Spirit to write his whole gospel among those in the regions of Achaea, as he indicates this in the preface that there were already other writings before him ...'. 122 Cf. Rom. 2:16; 2 Tim. 2:8. 123 Translation from J. T. Lienhard, Origen. Homilies on Luke, Fragments on Luke, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, 1996), pp. 89.

628 CHARLES E. HILL that is, in 2 Cor. 8:18 (where Paul actually left the praised one in anonymity). The information recorded by Irenaeus (Tertullian) and by Eusebius in 3.24.15 seems to emphasize Paul as a source for Luke's Gospel, while that recorded by Origen and by Eusebius in 3.4.6 emphasizes Luke's Gospel as a source known to Paul! Yet, in an account like that of Papias these would not necessarily be mutually contradictory. The former would correspond to the concern to ground the gospel in the preaching of an Apostle, as we have seen in Papias' statements on Matthew, Mark, and John. And the second would also correspond to the attempt to find some kind of Scriptural ratification for each Gospel as we have seen Papias did with Mark and with John. Given the name of Luke as the author of the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, his being closely associated with Paul by early Christian writers is to be expected. But it should not be forgotten that nowhere in the New Testament is the author of these two works named. A disciple named Luke is named in three letters attributed to Paul, but this man is not distinguished from any number of other co-workers of Paul. Where then did the idea come from that it was Paul's friend Luke who wrote the Third Gospel and Acts, and why are there no other names mentioned by the tradition? Hengel has written that 'the best explanation of the fact that [Marcion] chose the Gospel of Luke seems to me to be that its title and tradition already attributed it to a disciple of Paul'. 124 Indeed, the Gospel must have gone under that name before the four Gospels were put together in a codex, where some name had to distinguish it from the others. Thus it is not surprising that, well before Marcion's editing activity, Papias should have named Luke as the author and have commented on his relationship with Paul.125
Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, p. 69. That Papias knew the Third Gospel and even named Luke as its author creates a presumption, though only a presumption, that he also may have known Acts, a book apparently known already to Polycarp in Asia (Phil. 1.2 cf. Acts 2:24). This may be supported by HE 3.39.9 where Eusebius says that Papias had some acquaintance with the daughters of Philip. Eusebius calls this Philip the Apostle, but identifies him elsewhere (3.31 5) with Philip the evangelist, who, Luke says in the Acts of the Apostles, had daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:89). Philip and two of his daughters are said to have been buried in Hierapolis, Papias' city (3.31.2-4). According to Eusebius, Papias related two miracle stories from the daughters of Philip, one involving Justus surnamed Barsabbas. Though the explanation that follows in 3.39.10, which explicitly connects Justus to the story in Acts 112324, is from Eusebius, not Papias, it is not easy to imagine that Papias would have learned and retold a story about this man without also being aware of his mention in the book of Acts. Papias' knowledge of 'The Acts of the Apostles' is also perhaps presupposed by the three references by Eusebius to the contents of the Gospels as 'the acts of Jesus', and 'the acts of Christ' in his summary of Papias' account of John in 3.24.10, 11, 13 and again in Dem. evang. 3 5.89 (see above).
125 124

WHAT PAPIAS SAID ABOUT JOHN (AND LUKE) 629 We conclude that it is virtually necessary to hold that the tradition Papias passed on about Luke named this travelling companion of Paul's as the author and probably placed his Gospel chronologically third of the four. Very likely it specifically named Paul as one of Luke's sources (3.24.15) and claimed Paul's ratification for Luke from his epistolary references to 'my Gospel' (3-3-7)CHARLES E. H I L L

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