Papias of Hierapolis, an early second‑century bishop, recorded eyewitness traditions about Jesus and preserved the earliest statements on how the Gospels of Mark and Matthew originated.
Apostolic Fathers: The Christian writers of the late first and early second centuries who knew the apostles or learned from people who. Their writings are the earliest Christian texts outside the New Testament.
Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord: A five-volume work by Papias that collected teachings and traditions about Jesus. The books are lost. Only quotations in later writers such as Irenaeus and Eusebius survive.
Who Was Papias of Hierapolis?
Papias of Hierapolis was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, in western Turkey, in the early second century. Hierapolis sits a few miles from Colossae and Laodicea, churches Paul mentions in Colossians 4:13.
Papias wrote five books called Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord, probably between AD 110 and 130. The books are lost, but the fragments that survive give us some of the earliest statements about who wrote the Gospels.
Major Work: Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord (Fragments)
Irenaeus and Eusebius quote Papias, and later writers add a few more lines. Together the fragments fill only a few pages.
Irenaeus calls Papias “a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp.” Eusebius, writing about 200 years later, argues that Papias heard a different John, called John the Elder, rather than John the apostle. Scholars still debate who is right.
Early Tradition About Jesus
Papias preserves the oldest known statement about the origin of Mark’s Gospel. He reports that Mark was Peter’s interpreter and wrote down accurately, though not in order, what Peter remembered of the Lord’s words and deeds.
He also says Matthew compiled the sayings in the Hebrew language, and each person interpreted them as best he could. Scholars disagree on what Papias meant, since the Greek Matthew we have does not read like a translation. His statement still shows that the church connected the Gospels to apostles and their companions early.
Use of Eyewitness Accounts
Papias explains his method in a passage Eusebius quotes. Whenever someone came who had followed the elders, Papias asked what Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or other disciples of the Lord had said. He writes that he valued “a living and abiding voice” more than information from books.
This matters for anyone studying how the Gospel accounts were passed down. Papias describes a church that tracked its sources back to named people.
A Note of Caution
Not everything Papias recorded holds up. Irenaeus credits to him a saying that in the coming kingdom each vine will have ten thousand branches with ten thousand clusters each. Eusebius thought Papias took prophetic language too literally and called him a man of small intelligence.
Papias is an early witness, and his value lies in how close he stood to the first generation.
How to Read Papias Today
All the fragments together take about 20 minutes to read.
Michael Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, collects them with notes.
Read Eusebius, Church History, book 3, chapter 39, for the main quotations in context.
For a scholarly case built on Papias, see Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.
About the Author
CK Quarterman is a USAF veteran, independent author, and publisher at CKQbooks. He writes the Malaterrestrials nonfiction series, which examines evil earthbound non-human intelligences through Scripture and history, along with the Watchers’ Universe and Sons of the Flood fiction series. Find his books at ckqbooks.com.
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