PAPIAS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

374 and mercy, looking to his glory and the eternal happiness of mankind. On the part of man, history is the biography of the human race, and the gradual development, both normal and abnormal, of all its physical, intellectual, and moral forces to the final consummation at the general judgment, with its eternal rewards and punishments. The idea of universal history presupposes the Christian idea of the unity of God, and the unity and common destiny of men, and was unknown to ancient Greece and Rome. A view of history which overlooks or undervalues the divine factor starts from deism and consistently runs into atheism; while the opposite view, which overlooks the free agency of man and his moral responsibility and guilt, is essentially fatalistic and pantheistic.

PAPIAS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

Religious Thought In the Second Century

Edward Hall

Papias was an Apostolic Father, who lived between 60–130 AD.

It was Papias who wrote, the Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord in five books.

Despite indications that the work of Papias was still extant in the late Middle Ages, the full text is now lost. Extracts, however, appear in a number of other writings, some of which cite a book number.

Very little is known of Papias apart from what can be inferred from his own writings. He is described as “An ancient man who was a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp” by Polycarp’s disciple Irenaeus (A.D. 180).

Eusebius adds that Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis around the time

375 of Ignatius of Antioch. In this office, Papias was presumably succeeded by Abercius of Hierapolis.

Papias provides the earliest extant account of who wrote the Gospels. Eusebius preserves two (possibly) verbatim excerpts from Papias on the origins of the Gospels, one concerning Mark and then another concerning Matthew.

Papas records that John and his brother James were killed by the Jews although some doubt the reliability of this record. According to the two sources, Papias presented this as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus on the martyrdom of these two brothers. This is consistent with a tradition attested in several ancient martyrologies and with a pre 70 A.D. writing of the book of Revelation.