Bernard Muller wrote:to Ben,
There is exactly one saying which seems to parallel Luke in all of his fragments, and it is questionable on other grounds.
Can you tell me which one?
Andrew of Caesarea,
On the Apocalypse, commentary on Revelation 12.7-9. This is in Armenian. Many doubt it is even a genuinely Papian fragment, and nobody knows where exactly the quotation is supposed to end.
And in Papias' known segments, do we have parallel(s) of gMatthew?
Papias discusses the death of James and John, a clear parallel to Matthew 20.20-24 = Mark 10.35-41 (lacking in Luke). And, of course, he actually
mentions Matthew and Mark by name (yes, I know he may not have been referring to our canonical texts, but he says
nothing about Luke in our extant fragments). There are very few true parallels to
any of the NT texts, probably because it would do Eusebius and company very little good to quote earlier church fathers quoting the NT; the tendency is to quote people being unique or original.
Now, I am sure a response might be that Papias shows a lot of parallels with Acts. And that is true. I just happen to think that Papian dependence upon Acts is the wrong answer to the question. YMMV. I have a lot more to say about this, but it will take time, as I am still working on a number of ideas to do with Papias.
The majority is wrong. It happens.
Logia is used 4 times in the NT, and in all cases it means sayings and not a narration: Acts 7:38; Romans 3:2; Hebrews 5:12; 1 Pet 4:11.
In Romans 3:2-4, the logia (oracles) are the words (sayings) of God.
Oh, there is no doubt that
logia are
words. But, then again,
all books are words (except coloring books). I believe Romans 3.2 is talking about the entire Hebrew body of scripture; as Leon Morris says in his commentary on Romans, "It is better not to restrict the expression but to see it as referring to the whole Old Testament revelation," or as Frank Matera says in his, that "it seems best to follow C. K. Barrett... and Fitzmyer..., who take it as referring to the whole of Scripture." It is similar to how people call the Bible the "word of God" (and the Bible has both sayings and narratives, and much else). Same in Hebrews 5.12: the readers require instruction in the scriptures as a whole (not just in those parts that God actually speaks).
More specifically, Papias says that "Mark, who had become the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately, yet not in order, as many things as he remembered of the things either
said or done by the Lord," yet he also says that Mark came from Peter's preaching, which was not an orderly arrangement of the lordly
logia. So is Papias suggesting that Peter gave
only the Lord's sayings, but Mark somehow wrote down
both the sayings
and the narratives which contain them? Hardly. Peter preached what the Lord had said and done, and Mark wrote what the Lord had said and done down (though not in order), and those things that were written down were
logia, because writing involves
words, in this case special words (oracles,
logia).
Furthermore, logia is plural. gMatthew" is one gospel.
One gospel with lots of
words.