Until corrected on the matter, I will assume that gmx meant Quadratus, not Papylas (ETA: see below for correction to this).gmx wrote:I think it is important to note, and I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this, that Eusebius' chronology appears to date Papias to the late first century, not the early-mid 2nd century, and secondly, the often-repeated late dating of Papias has been challenged on the basis of confusion over the names Papylas & Papias. Any dating of Papias to the mid-100s should be accompanied with a fairly indulgent caveat.
This is what is at stake. The most direct way to date Papias is through a datum attributed to him by Philip of Side:
Papias, bishop of Heirapolis, who was earwitness of the theologian John, and companion of Polycarp, wrote five volumes of the lordly oracles, in which, making an enumeration of the apostles, after Peter and John, Philip and Thomas and Matthew, to the disciples of the Lord he wrote up Aristion and another John, whom he also called elder, so that some suppose that of {this} John are the two short and catholic epistles which are extant from the name of John, because the ancients classified the first alone. And some who are deceived consider the revelation to be of this man. But Papias too was mistaken about the millennial years, and from him also Irenaeus.
Papias in the second volume says that John the theologian and James his brother were done away with by Jews. The aforesaid Papias reported as having received it from the daughters of Philip that Barsabas who is Justus, tested by the unbelievers, drank the venom of a viper in the name of the Christ and was protected unharmed. He also reports other wonders and especially that about the mother of Manaemus, her resurrection from the dead. Concerning those resurrected by Christ from the dead, that they lived until Hadrian.
Papias in the second volume says that John the theologian and James his brother were done away with by Jews. The aforesaid Papias reported as having received it from the daughters of Philip that Barsabas who is Justus, tested by the unbelievers, drank the venom of a viper in the name of the Christ and was protected unharmed. He also reports other wonders and especially that about the mother of Manaemus, her resurrection from the dead. Concerning those resurrected by Christ from the dead, that they lived until Hadrian.
If Papias wrote that those resurrected by Christ lived until Hadrian, it would imply that Papias wrote either during or after the reign of Hadrian, who was emperor from 117 to 138. However, Eusebius writes as follows about a certain Quadratus in History of the Church 4.3.1-3:
1 And, when Trajan had ruled for twenty whole years minus six months, Aelius Hadrian succeeded to leadership. To him Quadratus addressed and gave a treatise, having composed an apology on behalf of our religion, since indeed some evil men were trying to trouble our own. And it is still extant among many of the brethren, and the writing is also with us, from which can be seen shining proof both of the understanding of the man and of his apostolic orthodoxy.
2 And he himself makes apparent his own antiquity through these things that he records in his own words: But the works of our savior were always present, for they were true. Those who were healed, those who rose from the dead, who not only looked as though healed and risen, but also were always present, not only while the savior was sojourning but even after he left, were around for enough time so as that some of them stayed even unto our own times.
3 Such was this man. And Aristides also, a faithful man and devoted to our religion, has left behind just as Quadratus an apology on behalf of the faith addressed to Hadrian. The writing of this man too is preserved hither by very many.
2 And he himself makes apparent his own antiquity through these things that he records in his own words: But the works of our savior were always present, for they were true. Those who were healed, those who rose from the dead, who not only looked as though healed and risen, but also were always present, not only while the savior was sojourning but even after he left, were around for enough time so as that some of them stayed even unto our own times.
3 Such was this man. And Aristides also, a faithful man and devoted to our religion, has left behind just as Quadratus an apology on behalf of the faith addressed to Hadrian. The writing of this man too is preserved hither by very many.
So Quadratus apparently lived in the times of Hadrian, and wrote that those resurrected and healed by Jesus remained until his own times. Did both Papias and Quadratus pen this same claim? Or has Philip of Side confused Papias with Quadratus? He depends on Eusebius for many data, and it is quite possible that he has, perhaps working from faulty notes, confused Quadratus with Papias. Gundry writes in his Commentary on Mark:
The only hard evidence favoring a late date consists in a statement by Philip of Side, who makes Papias refer to the reign of Hadrian (117-138; see the citation in Aland’s Synopsis 531). But we have good reasons to distrust Philip’s statement. he is notoriously unreliable and wrote appoximately a century later than Eusebius did (Philip — ca. 430; Eusebius — ca. 324). Comparison of Philip’s statement with Eusebius’s favors that Philip depended on Eusebius but garbled the information he got. Eusebius mentions a Christian writer named Quadratus, who addressed an apology to Hadrian, the very emperor during whose reign Philip puts Papias’s writings. The claim of Quadratus that some of the people whom Jesus healed and raised from the dead have lived up to his own day sounds something like the claim of Papias to have gotten information about the Lord’s commands "from the living and abiding voice" of the elders and other disciples of the Lord (see Eus. H.E. 3.39.1-4 with 4.3.1-2). More strikingly, however, when Philip quotes Papias, the phraseology sounds more like Eusebius’s quotations of Quadratus than of Papias; in other words, it looks as though Philip transferred what Quadratus wrote over to Papias. Thus, just as Eusebius associates Quadratus with Hadrian’s reign and quotes Quadratus as referring to people raised from the dead by Jesus and still living, so Philip associates Papias with Hadrian’s reign and writes that Papias referred to people raised from the dead by Jesus and still living. Furthermore, there appears to have been another Quadratus, who was a prophet, not an apologist. Eusebius discusses him in association with Jesus’ original disciples and their immediate successors (H.E. 3.37.1). Philip probably confuses Quadratus the apologist with Quadratus the prophet. It was easy for him to do so, because he found Eusebius’s similar discussion of Papias bounded by references to the name "Quadratus." A final cause of Philip’s confusing Papias’s writings with an apology by a Quadratus is Eusebius’s associating this Quadratus with the daughters of Philip the evangelist (H.E. 3.37.1) just as Eusebius also associates Papias with them (H.E. 3.39.9). Poor Philip fell into a trap.
I am not saying that we ought to ignore Philip of Side's note, since he appears to know more of Papias than what he found in Eusebius (based on his statement that Papias recorded information about the deaths of James and John), and thus may have gotten the datum about Hadrian and those resurrected by Jesus directly from Papias. Nor am I saying that we ought to rush headlong to accept Eusebius' apparent dating of Papias to very, very early in century II. But these observations concerning Papias and Quadratus do cast serious doubt on the use of Philip's statement to date the former, on the grounds that he may have confused him with the latter.
Ben.
ETA: I figured out the reference to Papylas: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2696&start=30#p60056.
