Introduction⤒🔗

Who has ever heard of him? Except for perhaps a few theologians, Papias is an unknown name to almost everybody. No wonder: to meet him you would have to travel back to the end of the first century or the start of the second century.

That is not really a time that interests many people. Papias lived long before Calvin and Luther, and even before Augustine and Irenaeus. Now, if only he had published a great deal, perhaps his fame would have fared better. But as far as we are aware, he wrote only one book.

This book has even been lost in the course of centuries. What remains is a name. Add to this a few quotes from his work as cited by Eusebius, two centuries later. Even then he was regarded as “a man of old” – somewhat of a patriarch. Respected, yes, but only as someone from a time that was long past.

If there was no more to say about him, one might wonder how an article about him could appear in this magazine. The fact that he was pastor (bishop) of a congregation in what is now western Turkey (Hierapolis), sometime in the early second century, makes for a rather brief biography.

Loved←⤒🔗

As unknown as Papias may be today, however, he was a beloved person in the latter days of the apostles. He is a close acquaintance of the seven prophesying daughters of the evangelist Philip. They are old by this time, and he is their younger friend in Hierapolis.

He also has several contacts with the disciples of the apostles. They too are somewhat older; he is the younger brother who hears them out on what the apostles have told them. Through these disciples of the apostles he captures expressions, as he himself indicates, from Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, Matthew and from other disciples of the Lord.

In Papias’s time, the church begins to expand and to be built up on the foundations of these apostles and prophets. Papias is interested in that foundation: he wants to know as much as he can about it. He is not interested, as he himself says, in what is new, but in what is old and true.

The true reality←⤒🔗

So we can understand that he begins to use his knowledge of the apostles to write annotations on everything handed down by the evangelists about the words and deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ. He collects the details that he has heard first or second hand and he uses them as explanations to what we call the gospels. He calls his book Explanation of the Logia of the Lord. This is remarkable. We generally identify such an exegetical work as “Explanation of the gospels.” We then think of four books of the Bible. However, the term "logia" does not denote the book, but the content of the gospels. It covers "the things the Lord has said and done."

Papias does not pay much attention to how evangelists describe these words and deeds. He looks behind the actual accounts for the true reality of what was said and done by the Saviour. To him, the evangelists are the gateway to the facts about his Master.

He says it himself as follows: “What I have learned from the elders, I have kept accurately in my memory. Thus I pass it on in my explanations to confirm the truth. Unlike many others I am not interested much in those who speak at length. Rather, I prefer to hear those who tell the truth. Nor do I enjoy preachers who memorize the commandments of others: I prefer to listen to those who recount what the Lord himself has provided for us to keep in faith. That will lead to the truth itself!”

His commentary on the Good News was loved in his day and also afterwards, because of this direct contact with people of the first hour. In the fourth century, the church historian Eusebius quotes his Explanations more than once. Thanks to him we can read along in a lost book, which we would love to discover again: Exposition of the accounts (or "Oracles") of the Lord.

Reassuring←⤒🔗

In the 21^st century, there are many interpreters of the Bible who do not believe that the gospels contain historically reliable accounts, recorded from the mouths of apostles. This is strange, because from the very beginning it is noted in all manuscripts that these gospels come from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Unfortunately, this does not reassure everyone. Then it helps to listen to the few words of Papias that still reach us through Eusebius. Papias lived in the last days of the apostles. It is an established fact for him that Matthew and Mark, Luke and John are the authors of the gospels that bear their names. If he was mistaken in this, the disciples of the apostles would certainly have corrected him.

We can rest assured: the gospels present the true apostolic tradition and not later church inventions. They are original and not second-hand. Why should we, who live centuries later, know better than these early people?

In Hebrew←⤒🔗

Papias also found out a few things about the authors of the gospels through his inquiries, which he shares with us through the quotations that Eusebius recorded.

For example, he informs us that Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew. So it was translated into Greek at a later time. This was done so well that without Papias’s information we would not assume that his Greek gospel was in fact a translation from Hebrew. For the explanation of Matthew’s gospel it is not an important fact.

It is, however, interesting for the originality of this gospel. According to tradition, Matthew wrote his gospel for the Jews at the time when he himself left for other areas. Thus, when he did so in Hebrew, the Jews and Christians from among the Jews received the Gospel in their own Old Testament language. The Gospel according to Matthew may also be for us the gospel for Israel.

Peter’s voice←⤒🔗

In regard to Mark, Papias tells us that he wrote down as accurately as possible the preaching of Peter. In Acts 10:37-38 we read a summary of what Peter recounted to Cornelius and those with him about the life of Jesus: “You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

When we place this summary next to the gospel according to Mark we recognize Peter’s voice in that gospel. This gospel too begins with the baptism by John, the anointing with the Holy Spirit and the many miracles and signs. Papias helps us to read the book of Mark as in fact through the words of Peter. 

Defense←⤒🔗

Why does Papias think it is important to tell something more about the origins of the gospels? He is not concerned first of all with details or trivia. He employs his knowledge in the defense of the truth.

Already in his days there was criticism of the books of the evangelists. Pagans thought it rather strange that there were four books when there is only one truth. Does the fact that there are four accounts not argue against the truth of Christ? Pagans also considered that some of the gospels, especially Mark’s, were written much too plainly. It lacks the literary beauty that would suit the real truth. How can you package eternal truth in an ordinary narrative style?

From the few snippets that have survived from what Papias wrote, we can see that his apologia (defense) was in fact against this early criticism. He shows that the Lord’s true words and actions were described by a number of writers to the best of their ability and with their own purpose. Evangelists were not philosophers presenting an abstract truth. They were “ministers (servants) of the Word” to Jew and Greek.

For Jews and Greeks←⤒🔗

For Matthew, for instance, it was important to tell his Jewish contemporaries the truth of Christ in their own Old Testament language. And for Mark it was important to make known to Greeks the living voice of Peter, as precisely as possible. This explains the different design and style of books that nevertheless tell the same truth of Jesus Christ. Papias was an interpreter of the Bible, but he did so as a pastor in a congregation, focusing on the recipients of the truth. Unfortunately, we do not know much more about him, yet we know enough to honour him. After 1900 years, we may still hear the echo of his voice.