Giuseppe wrote: ↑Sat Dec 01, 2018 8:02 am
I think that if Papias had truly meant
'acts and words of Jesus' and not rather
'oracles in the OT scriptures about Jesus' then probably he would have used the same construct of Justin:
And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm
...where the author cares to point out the distinction between what is prophetized by prophets and what is remembered by apostles.
ADDITION: Even if Papias had meant 'sayings of Jesus' (and not
oracles about Jesus), Papias doesn't talk about stories about Jesus (stories = acts (or contexts) + sayings) but only about 'sayings', like the Gospel of Thomas, in the form:
Jesus said: ….
That is a good point. Papias undeniably attributed to Jesus some fantastic predictions (
logia), especially about the fruitfulness of the earthly kingdom when it is established. Papias *also* gave some details about his sources (disciples, evangelists, notable elders) to validate their trustworthiness. In recent history, such as the case of Nazi death camps, we would give different levels of credibility to official archives or occasional written records like diaries, over anectdotal ones. Even when your source is anectdotal, some witnesses naturally have greater trustworthiness attached to them than others (eyewitness testimony versus hearsay).
I believe that the lexicons say that this Greek word meant ambiguous prophetic oracles delivered by folks like the ones at pagan shrines at Delphi. They remain ambiguous oracles until the hearers interpret them as pertaining to themselves or others, and of course, the initial interpretations are often in "error" when historical events offer a better interpretation. It seems to me that Jesus' teachings were interpreted anew in the turn of the 2nd century (
ca. 100-125 CE) in reaction to fallout from the failed 1st Judean rebellion (40 years after Jesus' time, and the one in N. Africa & Cyrene (40 yrs after that 1st one).
What kind of "acts" of Jesus are we speaking of, if not the circumstances under which they were uttered (to fit into the Gospel frameworks) and by whom these sayings were relayed to him (trustworthiness)? If we read about some Delphic oracle and its ultimate meaning "made plain" by subsequent events, we don't include the story about how the oraculation was occasioned as included part and parcel in the oracle itself. I don't think it becomes *necessary* to assert that Papias lumped *both* the oracles uttered from Jesus' mouth and facts pertaining to the trustworthiness of them under the heading "
logia." That is part of the story *about* that oracle, and how it came to be "properly" interpreted.
Papias seemed to relay these fantastic stories, attesting to the trustworthiness of the witnesses, with the caveat that, like all oracles, sweeping them away will not prevent them from one day being fulfilled. Eusebius was commenting that in Papias' day circumstances had not yet unfolded enough to "properly" understand them as figures or what have you.
IMHO, that is just wishful thinking on our part, intended to make problems "go away." I'd rather just live with some unresolved issues than to tie it up neatly like a package.
DCH