Peter Kirby wrote:One of the most remarkable (and perhaps one of the most overlooked) things about this passage is the description of the five books of Papias as the "exoteric" books, which confirms a distinction between the "esoteric" and "exoteric" Christian teaching, for Papias, someone of relatively early date who is generally claimed for orthodox/catholic tradition.
Exoteric here maybe should be exegetic
See Lightfoot
Andrew Criddle
There's some interesting commentary/discussion by Lightfoot either side of the page that link goes to.
On p.850 Lightfoot discusses Papias's mention of a Hebrew version of Matthew, and "the fact that St Matthew's Gospel is not an original but a translation." He then goes on to discuss how events in different texts might have been dealt with, and then refers to Eusebius and describes how Eusebius
"tears out a fragment from Irenaeus which intimately affects the relations of the Evangelists to one another.+ He commences in the middle of a sentence, and extracts as much as serves his immediate purpose, leaving out everything else."
A few sentences later Lightfoot defends Eusebius as "prepared to face the difficulties in harmonizing the Gospels, when the subject came 'properly' before him".
Also on p.851 he presents 'the Preface to John, Vat. Reg. lat 14' and then discusses it. He mentions 'four Maries'(?), and then says that is a "genuine work of another Papias, a Latin lexicographer of the 11th century". I found the following commentary hard to follow, but he ends up making the comment as to how 'Exoteric maybe should be exegetic'.
MrMacSon wrote:
There's some interesting commentary/discussion by Lightfoot either side of the page that link goes to.
On p.850 Lightfoot discusses Papias's mention of a Hebrew version of Matthew, and "the fact that St Matthew's Gospel is not an original but a translation." He then goes on to discuss how events in different texts might have been dealt with, and then refers to Eusebius and describes how Eusebius
"tears out a fragment from Irenaeus which intimately affects the relations of the Evangelists to one another.+ He commences in the middle of a sentence, and extracts as much as serves his immediate purpose, leaving out everything else."
A few sentences later Lightfoot defends Eusebius as "prepared to face the difficulties in harmonizing the Gospels, when the subject came 'properly' before him".
Also on p.851 he presents 'the Preface to John, Vat. Reg. lat 14' and then discusses it. He mentions 'four Maries'(?), and then says that is a "genuine work of another Papias, a Latin lexicographer of the 11th century". I found the following commentary hard to follow, but he ends up making the comment as to how 'Exoteric maybe should be exegetic'.
