Biography
Commemoration Day: February 22 (March 6)
Papias of Hierapolis (Greek Παπίας) was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia.
Papias is the author of a five-volume work, "Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord", which has not come down to us. The work of Papias has survived as fragments and quotations in the works of other authors. The source of Papias' book was the accounts of the "elders", eyewitnesses of the earthly life of Jesus Christ. According to Papias, he heard some of the accounts he cites from the daughters of the apostle Philip, who lived in Hierapolis. The reports of Papias shed invaluable light on the early years of Christianity; among other things he mentions the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew.
Papias of Hierapolis is included in volume 5 of the Patrologia Graeca.
Quotations from the works of Papias have been preserved in the Church History of Eusebius of Caesarea:
1. Five books of Papias are in circulation, entitled "Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord". Irenaeus too mentions these as his only works, saying: "Papias, a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp, a man of old, bears witness to these things in writing in the fourth of his books, for five books were composed by him".
2. So says Irenaeus. But Papias himself, in the preface to his work, by no means declares that he was himself a hearer and eyewitness of the holy apostles, but says that he received the faith from those who were known to them. These are his own words:
3. "I shall not hesitate to add to my interpretations, as confirmation of the truth, whatever I learned well from the elders and remembered well. For I did not take pleasure, as many do, in those who say much, but in those who teach the truth; not in those who repeat the commandments of others, but in those who relate the commandments given by the Lord to faith and proceeding from the Truth itself.
4. And if anyone came who had followed the elders, I inquired about their words: what Andrew said, or Peter, or Philip, or Thomas, or James, or John, or Matthew, or any other of the Lord's disciples; and what Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I understood that books would not profit me as much as the living and abiding voice".
5. It should be noted that Papias mentions two persons named John: the first, whom he mentions earlier together with Peter, James, Matthew and the other apostles, he clearly means to be John the Evangelist; the other John he places among those outside the number of the apostles, putting Aristion before him, and clearly calls him a presbyter.
6. The truth of this account is confirmed by the fact that in Asia two persons of this name were spoken of, and in Ephesus there are to this day two tombs, each of which is called John's. It is necessary to pay attention to this: if one does not regard the first John as the author of the Revelation that bears the name of John, then all these visions were given to the second.
7. Papias, of whom we are now speaking, acknowledges that he received the words of the apostles from those who had followed them, but he says that he himself was a hearer of Aristion and the presbyter John. Often mentioning them by name in his books, he records their accounts.
8. I say this not in vain: to the words of Papias already quoted it is worth adding other accounts of his, in which he relates certain miracles and what he learned from tradition.
9. We have already said that the apostle Philip lived in Hierapolis with his daughters; now we shall tell how Papias, their contemporary, recalls a wonderful story he heard from the daughters of Philip about a resurrection of a dead man that happened in his time, and about the miracle with Justus, surnamed Barsabbas, who drank a deadly poison and by the grace of the Lord suffered no harm.
10. After the Ascension of the Lord the holy apostles put forward this Justus together with Matthias and prayed that the lot might fall on the one by whom they would complete their number in place of the traitor Judas. In the Acts this is written thus: "And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias; and they prayed and said...".
11. He also relates other accounts that came to him by oral tradition: certain strange parables and teachings of the Saviour, and some things rather fabulous.
12. Thus, for example, he says that after the resurrection of the dead there will be a thousand-year, bodily Kingdom of Christ on this very earth. I think that he misinterpreted the apostolic words and did not understand their figurative and mystical sense, for he was a man of small understanding.
13. This is evident from his books, although most of the church writers who lived after him held him in great respect as an ancient writer and shared his opinions, for example Irenaeus and others.
14. In his book he also reports other sayings of the Lord as handed down by the aforementioned Aristion, as well as the accounts of the presbyter John. We refer the curious to them, but we consider it necessary now to add to all that has been said his account of the evangelist Mark.
15. This is what the presbyter said: "Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately everything that he remembered of what was said and done by the Lord, though not in order, for he had not heard the Lord nor followed Him. Later he accompanied Peter, who taught as the needs required and did not intend to arrange the words of Christ in order. So Mark made no mistake in writing things down as he remembered them; he took care only of one thing: to omit nothing of what he had heard and to state nothing falsely".
16. This is what Papias says about Mark; about Matthew he reports the following: "Matthew wrote down the discourses of Jesus in Hebrew, and each translated them as best he could".
17. He also uses the First Epistle of John and that of Peter, and relates a story about a woman accused before the Lord of many sins. This story is found in the "Gospel according to the Hebrews". I considered it necessary to add all this to what has been said.