"Did Eusebius read Papias?"...

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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StephenGoranson
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:10 am

"Did Eusebius read Papias?"...

Post by StephenGoranson »

...is the title of an article by Luke J. Stevens in The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 70, Issue 1, April 2019, Pages 163–183. The Abstract:
Although the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea is our principal source of information on Papias of Hierapolis and his lost Exegesis of Dominical Oracles, it is here argued that Eusebius knew the work only at second hand. Several Papian fragments preserved elsewhere demonstrate his ignorance, and his citations of the Exegesis consistently differ in style from those of works certainly known to him at first hand. Apparently, the same intermediary that informed him about both Papias’s Exegesis and Hegesippus’s Hypomnemata was also used in the de Boor Fragments, and this intermediary’s author, perhaps Pierius of Alexandria, has handed down further Papian fragments through other works. Eusebius’s lack of first-hand knowledge prevents us from fully trusting the integrity of his summaries, from giving credence to his charges of chiliasm, and from drawing any conclusions from his silence, especially on what Papias may have said about Luke and John.
Charles Wilson
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Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2014 8:13 am

Re: "Did Eusebius read Papias?"...

Post by Charles Wilson »

Thank you, SG, for this.

CW
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