Essays on the work entitled "Supernatural Religion" Part 9

Obviously, if the author has established his conclusions in the first part, the second and third are altogether superfluous [138:2].

I fancied that, in saying this, I was only translating his own opinion into other words. I imagined that he himself wished the second and third parts to be regarded as a work of supererogation. Was I altogether without ground for this belief? I turn to the concluding paragraph of the first part, and I find these words:--

Those who have formed any adequate conception of the amount of testimony which would be requisite in order to establish the reality of occurrences in violation of the order of nature, which is based upon universal and invariable experience, must recognize that, _even if the earliest a.s.serted origin of our four Gospels could be established upon the most irrefragable grounds_, the testimony of the writers--men of like ignorance with their contemporaries, men of like pa.s.sions with ourselves--_would be utterly incompetent to prove the reality of miracles_ [139:1].

What does this mean, except that even though it should be necessary to concede every point against which the author is contending in the second and third parts, still the belief in the Gospel miracles is irrational?

Is the language which I have used at all stronger than our author's own on this point? But I am glad to have elicited from him an expression of opinion that the question is not foreclosed by the arguments in the first part [139:2].

For some expressions in his concluding paragraph I sincerely thank the author, though I find it difficult to reconcile them with either the tone or the substance of the preceding reply. I trust that I have already relieved him from the apprehension that I should confine myself to 'desultory efforts.' I had hoped that some of the topics in my first article might have been laid aside for ever, but his reply has compelled me to revert to them. He does me no more than justice when he credits me with earnestness. I am indeed in earnest, as I believe him to be. But it seems to me that the motives for earnestness are necessarily more intense in my case than in his; for (to say nothing else), as I read history, the morality of the coming generations of Englishmen is very largely dependent on the answers which they give to the questions at issue between us. As he has withheld his name, he has deprived me of the pleasure of reciprocating any expression of personal respect. Thus he has placed me at a great disadvantage. I know nothing of the man, and can speak only of the book. Of the book I would wish to say that one who has taken so much pains to regulate his personal belief is so far ent.i.tled to every consideration. And, if this had been all, I should have entertained and expressed the highest respect for him, however faulty his processes might appear to me, and however dangerous his results. But, when I observed that the author, not content with ignoring the facts and reasonings, went on to impugn the honesty of his opponents; when I noticed that again and again the arguments on one side of the question were carefully arrayed, while the arguments on the other side were altogether omitted; when I perceived that he denied the authenticity of every work, and questioned the applicability of every reference, which made against him; when in short I saw that, however sincere the writer's personal convictions might be, the critical portion of the work was stamped throughout with the character of an advocate's _ex parte_ statement, I felt that he had forfeited any claim to special forbearance. For the rest, I do not wish to be unjust to the book, and I am sorry if, while attempting to correct an exceedingly false estimate, I have seemed to any one to be so; but I do not see any good in paying empty and formal compliments which do not come from the heart, and I cannot consent to tamper with truths which seem to me of the highest moment. Still, I should be sorry to think that so much energetic work had been thrown away. If the publication of this book shall have had the effect of attracting serious attention to these most momentous subjects, it will have achieved an important result. But I would wish to add one caution. No good will ever come from merely working on the lines of modern theorists. Perhaps the reader will forgive me if I add a few words of explanation, for I do not wish to be misunderstood. I should be most ungrateful if, in speaking of German writers, I used the language of mere depreciation. If there is any recent theologian from whom I have learnt more than from another, it is the German Neander. Nor can I limit my obligations to men of this stamp.

All diligent students of early Christian history must have derived the greatest advantage on special points from the conscientious research, and frequently also from the acute a.n.a.lysis, even of writers of the most extreme school. But it is high time that the incubus of fascinating speculations should be shaken off, and that Englishmen should learn to exercise their judicial faculty independently. Any one who will take the pains to read Irenaeus through carefully, endeavouring to enter into his historical position in all its bearings, striving to realize what he and his contemporaries actually thought about the writings of the New Testament and what grounds they had for thinking it, and, above all, resisting the temptation to read in modern theories between the lines, will be in a more favourable position for judging rightly of the early history of the Canon than if he had studied all the monographs which have issued from the German press during the last half century.

V. PAPIAS OF HIERAPOLIS.

[AUGUST, 1875.]

Two names stand out prominently in the Churches of proconsular Asia during the age immediately succeeding the Apostles--Polycarp of Smyrna, and Papias of Hierapolis. Having given an account of Polycarp in my last article, I purpose now to examine the notices relating to Papias. These two fathers are closely connected together in the earliest tradition.

Papias, writes Irenaeus, was 'a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp.' [142:1] On the latter point we may frankly accept the evidence of Irenaeus. A pupil of Polycarp, at all events, was not likely to be misinformed here. But to the former part of the statement objections have been raised in ancient and modern times alike; and it will be my business in the course of this investigation to inquire into its credibility. Yet, even if Papias was not a personal disciple of St John, still his age and country place him in more or less close connection with the traditions of this Apostle; and it is this fact which gives importance to his position and teaching.

Papias wrote a work ent.i.tled, 'Exposition of Oracles of the Lord,' in five books, of which a few scanty fragments and notices are preserved, chiefly by Irenaeus and Eusebius. The object and contents of this work will be discussed hereafter; but it is necessary to quote at once an extract which Eusebius has preserved from the preface, since our estimate of the date and position of Papias will depend largely on the interpretation of its meaning.

Papias then, addressing (as it would appear) some friend to whom the work was dedicated, explains its plan and purpose as follows [143:1]:--

But I will not scruple also to give a place for you along with my interpretations to everything that I learnt carefully and remembered carefully in time past from the elders, guaranteeing their truth. For, unlike the many, I did not take pleasure in those who have so very much to say ([Greek: tois ta polla legosin]), but in those who teach the truth; nor in those who relate foreign commandments, but in those [who record] such as were given from the Lord to the Faith, and are derived from the Truth itself. And again, on any occasion when a person came [in my way] who had been a follower of the elders ([Greek: ei de pou kai parekolouthekos tis tois presbuterois elthoi]), I would inquire about the discourses of the elders--what was said by Andrew, or by Peter, or by Philip, or by Thomas or James, or by John or Matthew or any other of the Lord's disciples, and what Aristion and the Elder John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I did not think that I could get so much profit from the contents of books as from the utterances of a living and abiding voice ([Greek: ou gar ta ek ton Biblion tosouton me ophelein hupelambanon, hoson ta para zoses phones kai menouses]).

This pa.s.sage is introduced by Eusebius with the remark that, though Irenaeus calls Papias a hearer of John,

Yet Papias himself, in the preface to his discourses, certainly does not declare that he himself was a hearer and eye-witness of the holy Apostles, but he shows, by the language which he uses, that he received the matters of the faith from those who were their friends.

Then follows the extract which I have given; after which Eusebius resumes:--

Here it is important to observe, that he twice mentions the name of John. The former of these he puts in the same list with Peter and James and Matthew and the rest of the Apostles, clearly intending the Evangelist; but the second John he mentions after an interval ([Greek: diasteilas ton logon]), and places among others outside the number of the Apostles, putting Aristion before him, and he distinctly calls him an 'elder;' so that by these facts the account of those is proved to be true who have stated that two persons in Asia had the same name, and that there were two tombs in Ephesus, each of which, even to the present time, bears the name of John.

Then, after speculating on the possibility that this second John was the author of the Apocalypse, he continues:--

Papias avows that he has received the sayings of the Apostles from those who had been their followers ([Greek: ton autois parekolouthekoton]), but says that he himself was an immediate hearer of Aristion and the Elder John. Certainly he mentions them many times in his writings, and records their traditions.

The justice of this criticism has been disputed by many recent writers, who maintain that the same John, the son of Zebedee, is meant in both pa.s.sages. But I cannot myself doubt that Eusebius was right in his interpretation, and I am glad for once to find myself entirely agreed with the author of _Supernatural Religion_. It will be observed that John is the only name mentioned twice, and that at its second occurrence the person bearing it is distinguished as the 'elder' or 'presbyter,'

this designation being put in an emphatic position before the proper name. We must therefore accept the distinction between John the Apostle and John the Presbyter, though the concession may not be free from inconvenience, as introducing an element of possible confusion.

But it does not therefore follow that the statement of Irenaeus was incorrect. Though this pa.s.sage in the preface of Papias lends no support to the belief that he was a personal disciple of John the son of Zebedee, yet it is quite consistent with such a belief. Irenaeus does not state that he derived his knowledge from this preface, or indeed from any part of the work. Having listened again and again to Polycarp while describing the sayings and doings of John the Apostle [144:1], he had other sources of information which were closed to Eusebius. Nor indeed is there any chronological or other difficulty in supposing that he may have derived the fact from direct intercourse with Papias himself. But the possibility still remains that he was guilty of this confusion which Eusebius lays to his charge; and the value of his testimony on this point is seriously diminished thereby.

It will have been noticed that in the above extract Papias professes to derive the traditions of 'the elders,' with which he ill.u.s.trated his expositions, from two different sources. He refers _first_, to those sayings which he had heard from their own lips, and _secondly_, to those which he had collected at second-hand from their immediate followers.

What cla.s.s of persons he intends to include under the designation of 'elders' he makes clear by the names which follow. The category would include not only Apostles like Andrew and Peter, but also other personal disciples of Christ, such as Aristion and the second John. In other words, the term with him is a synonyme for the Fathers of the Church in the first generation. This meaning is entirely accordant with the usage of the same t.i.tle elsewhere. Thus Irenaeus employs it to describe the generation to which Papias himself belonged [145:1]. Thus again, in the next age, Irenaeus in turn is so designated by Hippolytus [145:2]. And, when we descend as low as Eusebius, we find him using the term so as to include even writers later than Irenaeus, who nevertheless, from their comparative antiquity, were to him and his generation authorities as regards the traditions and usages of the Church [145:3]. Nor indeed did Papias himself invent this usage. In the Epistle to the Hebrews for instance, we read that 'the elders obtained a good report' [145:4]; where the meaning is defined by the list which follows, including Old Testament worthies from Abel to 'Samuel and the prophets.' Thus this sense of 'elders' in early Christian writers corresponds very nearly to our own usage of 'fathers,' when we speak of the Fathers of the Church, the Fathers of the Reformation, the Pilgrim Fathers, and the like.

Thus employed therefore, the term 'presbyters' or 'elders' denotes not office, but authority and antiquity [146:1]. It is equivalent to 'the ancient' or 'primitive worthies' [146:2]. But at its last occurrence in the extract of Papias, where it is applied to the second John, this is apparently not the case. Here it seems to be an official t.i.tle, designating a member of the order of the presbyterate. Though modern critics have stumbled over this two-fold sense of the word [Greek: presbuteros] in the same context, it would create no difficulty to the contemporaries of Papias, to whom 'the Presbyter John' must have been a common mode of designation in contradistinction to 'the Apostle John,'

and to whom therefore the proper meaning would at once suggest itself.

Instances are not wanting elsewhere in which this word is used with two senses, official and non-official, in the same pa.s.sage [146:3].

Of the elders with whom Papias was personally acquainted, we can only name with certainty Aristion and the Presbyter John; but as regards these Eusebius is explicit. To them the Apostle John may perhaps be added, as we have seen, on the authority of Irenaeus. Beyond these three names we have no authority for extending the list, though there is a possibility that in very early life he may have met with others, more especially Andrew and Philip, who are known to have lived in these parts. But, however this may be, it seems to follow from the words of his preface that his direct intercourse with these elders or personal disciples of the Lord had not been great. It was probably confined to the earlier part of his life, before he had any thought of writing his book; and the information thence derived was in consequence casual and fragmentary. When he set himself to collect traditions for this special purpose, he was dependent on secondary evidence, on the information collected from scholars and followers of these primitive elders.

We are now in a position to investigate the age of Papias; but, as a preliminary to this investigation, it is necessary to say something about the authority for the one definite date which is recorded in connection with him. In my article on Polycarp, I pointed out that recent investigations had pushed the date of this father's martyrdom several years farther back, and that some chronological difficulties attaching to the commonly received date had thus been removed [147:1]. A similar difficulty meets us in the case of Papias; and it disappears in like manner, as I hope to show, before the light of criticism. The _Chronicon Paschale_, which was compiled in the first half of the seventh century [147:2], represents Papias as martyred at Pergamum about the same time when Polycarp suffered at Smyrna, and places the event in the year 164. If this statement were true, we could hardly date his birth before A.D. 80, and even then he would have lived to a very advanced age. But there is a certain difficulty [147:3] in supposing that one born at this late date should have been directly acquainted with so many personal disciples of our Lord. No earlier writer however mentions the date, or even the fact, of the martyrdom--not even Eusebius, who has much to say both about Papias and about the martyrologies of this epoch; and this absence of confirmation renders the statement highly suspicious. I believe that I have traced the error to its source, which indeed is not very far to seek. The juxtaposition of the pa.s.sage in this Chronicle with the corresponding pa.s.sage in the History of Eusebius [148:1], will, if I mistake not, tell its own tale.

CHRONICON PASCHALE. | EUSEBIUS.

| In the 133rd year of the Ascension | At this time _very severe of the Lord _very severe persecutions | persecutions having disturbed_ having dismayed_ ([Greek: | ([Greek: anathorubesanton]) anasobesanton]) _Asia_, many were | _Asia, Polycarp_ is perfected by _martyred_, among whom _Polycarp_.... | _martyrdom_ ... and in the same | writing concerning him were | attached other martyrdoms ...

* * * * * | and next in order ([Greek: hexes]) | memoirs of _others_ ([Greek: | allon]) also, who were martyred and in _Pergamum others_ ([Greek: | _in Pergamum_, a city of Asia, heteroi]), among whom was PAPIAS and | _are extant_ ([Greek: pheretai]), many others ([Greek: alloi]), whose | Carpus and PAPYLUS and a woman martyrdoms _are extant_ ([Greek: | Agathonice....

pherontai]) also in writing.... | | * * * * * | * * * * *

| _Justin_, a philosopher of the | And at the same time with these word received among us ([Greek: tou | ([Greek: kata toutous]) _Justin_, kath' hemas logou]), _having | also who was mentioned shortly presented a second book in defence of | before by us, _having presented the doctrines received among us_ to | a second book in defence of the Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Verus, | doctrines received among us_ to the emperors, _is decorated_ not | the aforementioned rulers, _is long after _with the divine_ crown of | decorated with divine martyrdom_, _martyrdom, Crescens_ accusing (?) | a philosopher _Crescens_ ...

him. | having hatched the plot against | him, etc.

The sequence of events, and the correspondence of individual phrases, alike show that the compiler of this Chronicle derived his information from the History of Eusebius [148:2]. But either he or his transcriber has subst.i.tuted a well known name, _Papias_, for a more obscure name, _Papylus_. If the last letters of the word were blurred or blotted in his copy of Eusebius, nothing would be more natural than such a change.

It is only necessary to write the two names in uncials, [Greek: PAPIAS PAPYLOS], to judge of its likelihood [149:1]. This explanation indeed is so obvious, when the pa.s.sages are placed side by side, that one can only feel surprised at its not having been pointed out before. Thus the martyrdom of Papias, with its chronological perplexities (such as they are), disappears from history; and we may dismiss the argument of the author of _Supernatural Religion_, that 'a writer who suffered martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius (c. A.D. 165) can scarcely have been a hearer of the Apostles' [149:2].

Thus we are left to infer the date of Papias entirely from the notices of his friends and contemporaries; but these will a.s.sist us to a very fair approximation. (1) He was a hearer of at least two personal disciples of Christ, Aristion and the Presbyter John. If we suppose that they were among the youngest disciples of our Lord, and lived to old age, we shall be doing no violence to probability. Obviously there were in their case exceptional circ.u.mstances which rendered intercourse with them possible. If so, they may have been born about A.D. 10 or later, and have died about A.D. 90 or later. In this case their intercourse with Papias may be referred to the years A.D. 85-95, or thereabouts. (2) He was acquainted with the daughters of Philip, who dwelt with their father at Hierapolis, where they died in old age. Whether this Philip was the Apostle, as the earliest writers affirm, or the Evangelist, as others suppose [149:3], is a question of little moment for my immediate purpose--the date of Papias. In the latter case these daughters would be the same who are mentioned at the time of St Paul's last visit to Jerusalem, A.D. 58, apparently as already grown up to womanhood [149:4].

On the former supposition they would belong to the same generation, and probably would be about the same age. As a very rough approximation, we may place their birth about A.D. 30, and their death about A.D. 100-110.

(3) Papias is called by Irenaeus a 'companion' of Polycarp, whose life (as we saw) extended from A.D. 69 to A.D. 155 [150:1]. The word admits a certain lat.i.tude as regards date, though it suggests something approaching to equality in age. But on the whole the notices affecting his relations to Polycarp suggest that he was rather the older man of the two. At all events Eusebius discusses him immediately after Ignatius and Quadratus and Clement, _i.e._ in connection with the fathers who flourished in the reign of Trajan or before; while the notice of Polycarp is deferred till a much later point in the history, where it occurs in close proximity with Justin Martyr [150:2]. This arrangement indicates at all events that Eusebius had no knowledge of his having been martyred at the same time with Polycarp, or indeed of his surviving to so late a date. Otherwise he would naturally have inserted his account of him in this place. If it is necessary to put the result of these incidental notices in any definite form, we may say that Papias was probably born about A.D. 60-70.

But his work was evidently written at a much later date. He speaks of his personal intercourse with the elders, as a thing of the remote past [150:3]. He did not write till false interpretations of the Evangelical records had had time to increase and multiply. We should probably not be wrong if we deferred its publication till the years A.D. 130-140, or even later. Our author places it at least as late as the middle of the second century [150:4].

The opinions of a Christian writer who lived and wrote at this early date, and had conversed with these first disciples, are not without importance, even though his own mental calibre may have been small. But the speculations of the Tubingen school have invested them with a fict.i.tious interest. Was he, or was he not, as these critics affirm, a Judaic Christian of strongly Ebionite tendencies? The arguments which have been urged in defence of this position are as follows:--

1. In the first place we are reminded that he was a millennarian. The Chiliastic teaching of his work is the subject of severe comment with Eusebius, who accuses him of misinterpreting figurative sayings in the Apostolic writings and a.s.signing to them a literal sense. This tendency appears also in the one pa.s.sage which Irenaeus quotes from Papias. But the answer to this is decisive. Chiliasm is the rule, not the exception, with the Christian writers of the second century; and it appears combined with views the very opposite of Ebionite. It is found in Justin Martyr, in Irenaeus, in Tertullian [151:1]. It is found even in the unknown author of the epistle bearing the name of Barnabas [151:2], which is stamped with the most uncompromising and unreasoning antagonism to everything Judaic.

2. A second argument is built on the fact that Eusebius does not mention his quoting St Paul's Epistles or other Pauline writings of the Canon. I have already disposed of this argument in an earlier paper on the 'Silence of Eusebius' [151:3]. I have shown that Papias might have quoted St Paul many times, and by name, while nevertheless Eusebius would not have recorded the fact, because it was not required by his principles or consistent with his practice to do so. I have shown that this interpretation of the silence of Eusebius in other cases, where we are able to test it, would lead to results demonstrably and hopelessly wrong. I have pointed out for instance, that it would most certainly conduct us to the conclusion that the writer of the Ignatian Epistles was an Ebionite--a conclusion diametrically opposed to the known facts of the case [152:1].

3. Lastly, it is argued that Papias was an Ebionite, because he quoted the Gospel according to the Hebrews. In the first place, however, the premiss is highly questionable. Eusebius does not say, as in other cases, that Papias 'uses' this Gospel, or that he 'sets down facts from'

it [152:2], but he writes that Papias relates 'a story about a woman accused of many sins before the Lord' (doubtless the same which is found in our copies of St John's Gospel, vii. 53-viii. 11), and he adds 'which the Gospel according to the Hebrews contains' [152:3]. This does not imply that Papias derived it thence, but only that Eusebius found it there. Papias may have obtained it, like the other stories to which Eusebius alludes, 'from oral tradition'([Greek: ek paradoseos agraphou]). But, even if it were directly derived thence, the conclusion does not follow from the premiss. The Gospel according to the Hebrews is quoted both by Clement of Alexandria and by Origen, though these two fathers accepted our four Gospels alone as canonical [152:4]. It may even be quoted, as Jerome a.s.serts that it is, and as the author himself believes [152:5], by the writer of the Ignatian letters, a most determined anti-Ebionite. If Papias had cited the Gospel according to the Hebrews only once, Eusebius would have mentioned the fact, because he made it his business to record these exceptional phenomena; whereas he would have pa.s.sed over any number of quotations from the Canonical Gospels in silence.

As all these supposed tokens of Ebionite tendencies have failed, we are led to inquire whether any light is thrown on this question from other quarters.

And here his name is not altogether unimportant. Papias was bishop of Hierapolis, and apparently a native of this place. At all events he seems to have lived there from youth; for his acquaintance with the daughters of Philip, who resided in this city, must have belonged to the earlier period of his life. Now Papias was a designation of the Hierapolitan Zeus [153:1]; and owing to its a.s.sociation with this G.o.d, it appears to have been a favourite name with the people of Hierapolis and the neighbourhood. It occurs several times in coins and inscriptions belonging to this city and district [153:2]. In one instance we read of a 'Papias, who is also Diogenes,' this latter name 'Zeus-begotten' being apparently regarded as a rough synonyme for the Phrygian word [153:3].

We find mention also in Galen of a physician belonging to the neighbouring city of Laodicea, who bore this name [153:4]. Altogether it points to a heathen rather than a Jewish origin.

But more important than his name, from which the inference, though probable, is still precarious [153:5], are his friends.h.i.+ps and a.s.sociations. Papias, we are told, was a companion of Polycarp [153:6].

The opinions of Polycarp have been considered in it previous article [153:7]; and it has there been shown that the hypothesis of Ebionite leanings in his case is not only unsupported, but cannot be maintained except by an entire disregard of the evidence, which is of different kinds, and all leads to the opposite conclusion. As regards Papias therefore, it is reasonable to infer, in the absence of direct evidence, that his views were, at all events, in general accordance with his friend's. Moreover, the five books of Papias were read by Irenaeus and by Eusebius, as well as by later writers; and, being occupied in interpretation, they must have contained ample evidence of the author's opinions on the main points which distinguished the Ebionite from the Catholic--the view of the Mosaic law, the estimate of the Apostle Paul, the conception of the person of Christ. It is therefore important to observe that Irenaeus quotes him with the highest respect, as an orthodox writer and a trustworthy channel of Apostolic tradition.

Eusebius again, though he is repelled by his millennarianism, calling him 'a man of very mean capacity,' and evidently seeking to disparage him in every way, has yet no charge to bring against him on these most important points of all. And this estimate of him remains to the last.

Anastasius of Sinai for instance, who wrote in the latter half of the sixth century, and who is rigidly and scrupulously orthodox, according to the standard of orthodoxy which had been created by five General Councils, had the work of Papias in his hands. He mentions the author by name twice; and on both occasions he uses epithets expressive of the highest admiration. Papias is to him 'the great,' 'the ill.u.s.trious'

[154:1].

But indeed Eusebius has left one direct indication of the opinions of Papias, which is not insignificant. He tells us that Papias 'employed testimonies from the First Epistle of John.' How far this involves a recognition of the Fourth Gospel I shall have to consider hereafter. At present it is sufficient to say that this Epistle belongs to the cla.s.s of writings in our Canon which is the most directly opposed to Ebionism.

It may be said indeed, that Papias was foolish and credulous. But unhappily foolishness and credulity are not characteristic of any one form of Christian belief--or unbelief either.

The work of Papias, as we saw, was ent.i.tled, 'Exposition of Oracles of the Lord,' or (more strictly), 'of Dominical Oracles' [155:1]. But what was its nature and purport? Shall we understand the word 'exposition' to mean 'enarration,' or 'explanation'? Was the author's main object to construct a new Evangelical narrative, or to interpret and explain one or more already in circulation? This is a vital point in its bearing on the relation of Papias to our Canonical Gospels. Our author, ignoring what Dr Westcott and others have said on this subject, tacitly a.s.sumes the former alternative without attempting to discuss the question. Yet, if this a.s.sumption is wrong, a very substantial part of his argument is gone.