MrMacSon wrote: ↑Mon Dec 10, 2018 3:24 pm
hoping to discern earliest (ante-Nicene] sources (and have edited my OP to that effect).
I see. I think your list is correct.
If we're sticking to actual references to Papias and the text of his books, next in time would be post-Nicene (325) but pre-Chalcedonian (451). Maybe you're not strictly interested in them, but it's still useful to have an awareness. Overall I believe they have a lot of value, since I don't believe the texts of Papias were much more valid as texts in the early fourth century, although we could put a question to any individual source for reasons other than date. Indeed I do that here - I will not list here those texts that look like they may be dependent on Irenaeus and Eusebius or who refer to Papias without providing any quotations or who refer to Papias in conjunction with references to other early Christian authorities (without additional specificity in referring individually to Papias). I will also omit "hypothetical" allusions here.
In this category: Apollinaris of Laodicea [Wikipedia: died 382], Philip of Side [Wikipedia: ca. 380 - after 431].
After that, we have the texts between Chalcedon (451) and the last of the seven ecumenical councils (787), just after late antiquity.
In this category: John of Scythopolis, Scholia on The Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite 2.5 [Wikipedia: ca. 536–550], Andrew of Caesarea, On the Apocalypse Book 12.34 f. [Wikipedia: ca. 563 – 637].
This gives us a longer list of seven primary sources, which do not all enjoy the same temporal priority:
- Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 5.33.3-4 [century II]
- Preface to John, Vat. Reg. lat 14 [century II - III]
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 2.15 and 3.39 [century IV]
- Apollinarius, A catena compiled by Cramer vol 3 p12 [century IV]
- Philip of Side, History of Christianity, fragment from codex Baroccianus 142 in the Bodleian Library [century V]
- John of Scythopolis, Scholia on The Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite 2.5 [century VI]
- Andrew of Caesarea, On the Apocalypse Book 12.34 f. [century VII]
The additional potential yield of extending our frame of reference to consider quotes of later date are these bits:
Papias, Book 4
Judas did not die by hanging, but lived on, having been cut down before he was suffocated. And the acts of the apostles show this, that falling head long he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. This fact is related more clearly by Papias, the disciple of John, and the fourth book of the Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord as follows:
Judas walked about in this world a terrible example of impiety; his flesh swollen to such an extent that, where hay wagon can pass with ease, he was not able to pass, no, not even the mass of his head merely. They say that his eyelids swelled to such an extent that he could not see the light at all, while as for his eyes they were not visible even by a physician looking through an instrument, so far have they sunk from the surface.
His genitals appeared entirely disfigured, nauseous and large. When he carried himself about discharge and worms flowed from his entire body through his private areas only, on account of his outrages. After many agonies and punishments, he died in his own place. And on account of this the place is desolate and uninhabited even now. And to this day no one is able to go by that place, except if they block their noses with their hands. Such judgment was spread through his body and upon the earth.
-Apollinarius, A catena compiled by Cramer vol 3 p12
Papias, Book 1 (some overlap with Eusebius)
Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, who was a disciple of John the Divine, and a companion of Polycarp, wrote five books of Oracles of the Lord, wherein, when giving a list of the Apostles, after Peter and John, Philip and Thomas and Matthew he included among the disciples of the Lord Aristion and a second John, whom also he called `The Elder.’ So some think that this John is the author of the two short and catholic Epistles, which are published in the name of John; and he gives as the reason that the primitive (fathers) only accept the first epistle. Some too have wrongly considered the Apocalypse also to be his (i.e. the Elder John’s) work. Papias too is in error about the Millennium, and from him Irenaeus also.
-Philip of Side, History of Christianity, fragment from codex Baroccianus 142 in the Bodleian Library
Papias, Book 2 (for the first sentence, anyway)
Papias in his second book says that John the Divine and James his brother were killed by the Jews.
The aforesaid Papias stated on the authority of the daughters of Philip that Barsabas, who is also called Justus, when challenged by the unbelievers drank serpent’s poison in the name of the Lord, and was shielded from all harm. He makes also other marvelous statements, and particularly about the mother of Manaim who was raised from the dead. As for those who were raised from the dead by Christ, (he states) that they survived till the time of Hadrian.
-Philip of Side, History of Christianity, fragment from codex Baroccianus 142 in the Bodleian Library
Papias, Book 1
Those who practised guilelessness towards God they used to call children, as Papias also shows in the first book of the Expositions of the Lord, and Clement of Alexandria in the Paedagogue.
-John of Scythopolis, Scholia on The Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite 2.5
(Note: John of Scythopolis was a Byzantine theologian and lawyer and is speculated to have written some or all of these scholia on behalf of Maximus the Confessor, which I guess would be a case of ghost writing if it were so? Thus the note - "Corderius' edition also attributes the entirety of the scholia to a single author — Maximus the Confessor — but this attribution has long been questioned. In 1940, Hans Urs von Balthasar attempted to resolve the question of authorship" - and the attribution to Maximus the Confessor on TextExcavation.)
Papias, (Book ?)
And Papias has thus word for word: “some of them, that is, the divine Angels of old, [130] he gave (authority) to rule over the earth and commanded (them) to rule well.” And then says the following: “And it happened that their arrangement came to nothing.”
[Rev. 12:9] And the great dragon was thrown (down), the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown to the earth, and his angels were thrown (down).
– Andrew of Caesarea, On the Apocalypse Book 12.34
The references that I can find put the date of this commentary on Revelation by Andrew of Caesarea as 611 CE (seventh century). But TextExcavation has it as "Century XIV" for reasons that aren't clear to me.
The passage continues in different Greek and Armenian versions (quoted
here & elsewhere).
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown