Apollinaris of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas.

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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Apollinarius of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Bernard Muller wrote:Why would Papias mention Judas was larger than a chariot, if he did not intend to suggest him negotiating slowly a narrow passage (or being stuck in it) and then having him being crushed by the (speeding) chariot?
It is a size comparison, an analogy. I suppose he could have used an elephant or the broad side of a barn.... But "chariot" works.
The "the" in front of "chariot" is problematic & awkward for sure but if that did not bother an alleged interpolator (who could have easily written "a" chariot instead), why would that bother Papias?
The composer of a piece is usually more conscientious, on average, than its copyists.
Anyway, that grotesque description looks to be a commentary on the first part of Papias' account (that is Papias' account without the alleged interpolation), as an expansion on it. I also note the cause of Judas' death is not explained (not necessarily related to Judas' bodily problems), leaving open the possibility its author accepted Judas was crushed by a chariot.
I talked about that, remember? I said that part of the point of this kind of death is that the body turns against itself, eaten away from within by worms and pus and whatnot. Adding external factors (like chariots) tends to take away from that point a bit (unless the external factor is God himself, or a demon, or something equally spiritual).
The rest of your posting is just speculations from you and some scholars (sometimes with divergent opinions!) about possibilities, with many assumptions and lack of direct evidence. Rather complicated, wordy and leading nowhere.
No need to sugarcoat it for me. Tell me how you really feel. :)

But really, Bernard, you are exaggerating more than Papias (or Apollinarius) here. My explanation regarding the figurative and literal chariots was acceptably brief, to the point, and fitting. I think you are shortchanging it.
I think that many times, probably most of the times, when an author in antiquity claimed or suggested he got his info from oral traditions, that author was making up that oral tradition for his own benefit. And Papias is no different than other apologists of his times:
- Papias explained why the logias of Matthew came in different (Greek) versions. Why? Just to inform his readers about something he got from oral tradition? That's a naive proposition. No, most likely because the differences were causing concerns in his community.
- Papias explained why Mark's gospel looked out of order, again probably because that was causing concerns in his community. BTW: as compare to what? "Luke", in the preface of his/her gospel, claimed it was "in order".
- Papias explained how food would become so plentiful of earth (after the kingdom comes), again probably in order to answer questions about some sayings of Jesus which mention the great availability of food at that time.
You may have a point there.
There is a pattern here, and what follows fits well with that:
Papias attempted to answer the problem of Acts version of Judas' death, because some in his community were puzzled about it.
I doubt idle curiosity explains it all; I gave other reasons for detailing Judas' death in this way, and I think they are stronger than mere puzzlement.
BTW, there are so many uncertainties about this particular saying of Papias, that I never used it in my website or blog. But you are the one who brought it up.
Yes, that is true. And I cautioned against laying too much on it by itself.
And I would reword your conclusion (using Marcion's method :D ):
Is all of this a slam dunk in favor of Papian priority with regard to Luke-Acts? [deleted] the [deleted] assumption that Papias gave us the shorter version of the death of Judas, with its attendant internal difficulties, [deleted] ought [deleted] to figure into the argument.
Ha. Okay, points for cleverness. Let me repay the favor, using the Catholic method on your resultant sentence:

Inasmuch as some have undertaken to question the account of the death of Judas, just as it was handed down to us by the holy Hierapolitan father Papias, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully, to lay it all out for you, most excellent Bernard; so that you may know the exact truth about the two versions of which you have been made aware. One ought not to operate on the assumption that Papias gave us the shorter version of the death of Judas, with its attendant internal difficulties; such assumptions ought not to figure into the argument.

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Re: Apollinarius of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Ben,
I talked about that, remember? I said that part of the point of this kind of death is that the body turns against itself, eaten away from within by worms and pus and whatnot. Adding external factors (like chariots) tends to take away from that point a bit (unless the external factor is God himself, or a demon, or something equally spiritual)
I think you missed that:
... I also note the cause of Judas' death is not explained (not necessarily related to Judas' bodily problems), leaving open the possibility its author accepted Judas was crushed by a chariot.
If the long rendition of Judas' death was the first one, and Acts written later, then why in Acts there is no mention of Judas' body features (likely to bring death), but his death explained by him falling headlong?
There is quite a disconnection here, which I do not have in my case.
And if Acts was written well into the second century, why does it ignore most of Matthew's version (death by self-inflicted hanging)?

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Re: Apollinarius of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Bernard Muller wrote:If the long rendition of Judas' death was the first one, and Acts written later, then why in Acts there is no mention of Judas' body features (likely to bring death), but his death explained by him falling headlong?
Well, I am provisionally accepting MacDonald's explanation of the rare vocabulary in the Acts account (pages 60-61):

Apparently it was Luke himself, not a source, who created the lapidary and enigmatic sentence “falling face down, [he] burst in the middle, and all his guts poured out.” Because the adjective πρηνής, “face down,” was rare in Luke’s day, readers ancient and modern have been unsure how to take it. The word is common in Homeric epic. When combatants in the Iliad died bravely, they received their wounds facing their enemies and thus fell backward (ὕπτιος), but Homeric cowards, who turned from their enemies, were struck from behind and fell πρηνής. The weapon, usually a spear, struck the warrior in the back, drove him face down to the earth, and spilled his bowels. For example, Patroclus’s spear slew a Trojan as he turned to flee, “and he fell πρηνής on the ground” (16.310–311).

Luke then states that Judas “burst [ἐλάκησεν] in the middle,” using a verb that appears nowhere else in the New Testament or the Septuagint. The Iliad uses it for the cracking of bones in warfare, as when Menelaus struck Peisander in the head with a spear, “the bones cracked [λάκε], and his bloody eyeballs / fell at his feet in the dust. / He doubled over when he fell” (13.616– 618).

Luke ends his depiction of Judas’s death by saying, “all his guts poured out.” This revolting expression, too, finds parallels in Homer, who described the death of Polydorus as follows: "Swift-footed noble Achilles struck him square on the back with a cast of his spear as he darted past; … clean through went the spear point beside the navel, and he fell to his knees with a groan, and a cloud of darkness enfolded him, and as he slumped, he clasped his intestines to him with his hands. (20.413– 414, 416–418)"

Two passages in the epic use an identical formula for disgorging that is similar to Acts 1:18: “and then all / his guts poured to the ground [ἐκ δ᾿ ἄρα πᾶσαι / χύντο χαμαὶ χυλάδες].”

And if Acts was written well into the second century, why does it ignore most of Matthew's version (death by self-inflicted hanging)?
Because (again) the Matthean version allowed for the restoration of Judas in the regeneration; he repents and then hangs himself. The versions in Acts and Papias do not allow for his restoration to a position amongst the 12. Repentance and suicide are worthy of a second chance; lack of repentance and a death reserved either for the grossly immoral (Papias) or for cowards (Luke-Acts) are not.

I am curious what you make of Eusebius quoting nothing about Papias discussing Luke. Eusebius quotes Papias as mentioning Matthew and Mark... but not Luke. Why, if Papias mentioned Luke, as well, did Eusebius not mention that? Or,if Papias knew Luke-Acts and drew some material from it, as you posit, why did he not mention it like he mentioned Matthew and Mark?

Ben.
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Re: Apollinarius of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Ben,
Well, I am provisionally accepting MacDonald's explanation of the rare vocabulary in the Acts account (pages 60-61):
That passage of Acts draws from homeric vocabulary: it's OK by me. But the problem is: if Acts was written late, why did Acts not copy more, about Judas' death, from the long version (and Matthew's one)? Why would you draw on homeric words if you were aware of the long version and/or the one of gMatthew?
I am curious what you make of Eusebius quoting nothing about Papias discussing Luke. Eusebius quotes Papias as mentioning Matthew and Mark... but not Luke. Why, if Papias mentioned Luke, as well, did Eusebius not mention that? Or,if Papias knew Luke-Acts and drew some material from it, as you posit, why did he not mention it like he mentioned Matthew and Mark?
Papias mentioned Matthew's logias (but not likely Matthew's gospel) and Mark's gospel probably because of concerns on their content by Christians then.
It may have just happened there was no concern about gLuke then. So the silence (as it seems on gJohn also).
But Papias likely implied a knowledge of gLuke in his community, as I mentioned before:
- Papias explained why Mark's gospel looked out of order, again probably because that was causing concerns in his community. BTW: as compare to what? "Luke", in the preface of his/her gospel, claimed it was "in order".
Maybe Papias' community was accepting only two gospels, gMark & gLuke.

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Re: Apollinarius of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Bernard Muller wrote:to Ben,
Well, I am provisionally accepting MacDonald's explanation of the rare vocabulary in the Acts account (pages 60-61):
That passage of Acts draws from homeric vocabulary: it's OK by me. But the problem is: if Acts was written late, why did Acts not copy more, about Judas' death, from the long version (and Matthew's one)? Why would you draw on homeric words if you were aware of the long version and/or the one of gMatthew?
Because Luke-Acts is passing itself off as a classy piece of work. It also cleans up the poor syntax and grammar it encounters in its sources. Its description of Herod's death in Acts 12, while of the same kind as Papias' description of Judas' death (no actual, physical cause of death posited, just bodily corrosion from the worms and filth within), is restrained and clinical.

Papias is also given to extreme detail on the positive side, as well (his description of productivity during the millennium, for example).
Papias mentioned Matthew's logias (but not likely Matthew's gospel)....
I think Papias did mention Matthew's gospel: he regarded it as one of the (not quite adequate) Greek translations from Hebrew Matthew (the logia).
...and Mark's gospel probably because of concerns on their content by Christians then.
It may have just happened there was no concern about gLuke then. So the silence (as it seems on gJohn also). But Papias likely implied a knowledge of gLuke in his community, as I mentioned before:
- Papias explained why Mark's gospel looked out of order, again probably because that was causing concerns in his community. BTW: as compare to what? "Luke", in the preface of his/her gospel, claimed it was "in order".
So Papias regarded Luke as the gospel which was in order, in contrast both to Mark and to the putative translations of Matthew, but never actually mentioned it by name?? Who cares at this point whether other Christians had "concerns" about Luke? If you are treating Luke as the one that is in order, if Luke is your go-to gospel of choice when it comes to order, you mention it. You do not hide it.

If there is any gospel that can lay claim to differing from Mark (and Greek Matthew, for that matter) on its order, it is John. The differences in order between Mark and Luke are paltry compared to the differences in order between any one of the synoptics and John. And we have quite a bit of evidence that those differences in order caused some consternation amongst Christians in century II.

Not that I am claiming that Papias knew John. But, if you are going to suggest a gospel on which Papias is silent, yet to which he compared other gospels with respect to order, John is a much better choice.

I am actually quite tempted in the direction of thinking that Papias regarded something like the Johannine order as the official order of affairs, whether he knew John or not. After all, his main statements on order come, not from any written text, but from the elder John, a living voice. It could well be that the Johannine order of events was in the process of developing when Papias wrote, or maybe (some version of) John had already been written by that time, but Papias did not know about it, yet the elder John did (or wrote it himself). I am still weighing all of that, still considering. But one thing seems pretty clear to me, and that is that Papias is not comparing the order of Mark to the order of Luke.

Speaking of order, by the way, notice that Papias (citing John the elder) explicitly attaches good order to (what he considers to be) eyewitness testimony. He says that the apostle Matthew (listed as an eyewitness earlier) wrote a gospel in order... but his translators apparently did not (at least, to say that they interpreted "as they could" does not sound like an endorsement). He says that Mark, whom he expressly says was not an eyewitness of the Lord, did not write in order, but he excuses his efforts on account of having written from Petrine preaching, which was delivered according to the needs of the listener rather than any strict concern for order.

Now, if Papias knew about Luke, would not Luke's preface call for comment?? Here is an author who, by his own admission, is not an eyewitness, yet he is claiming to write in order. How can Papias pass up the opportunity either to praise Luke for managing to get it right simply by researching it thoroughly or to condemn him for being so presumptuous as to inaccurately claim to have gotten it right?

Another way to put this is: if the order of a gospel is a concern for you, and you have already mentioned it with respect to Matthew and Mark, how do you not mention by name the one gospel which prefaces its narrative with a concern precisely for writing in order?

I think the evidence from the Lucan preface works best in exactly the other direction. Papias and his elder John prove that a gospel written in order was a desideratum in the early church. Luke comes along and, with that preface, claims to be such a gospel. But Papias and his elder John had admitted only that the original (Hebrew) Matthew was written in order, not Mark, and this trait, "order," evidently followed as a consequence of being an eyewitness. So Luke has to emphasize his claim, despite no claim to being an eyewitness, and he does so by laying stress on the kind and amount of research he has done. His preface is practically an apology for not being an eyewitness yet somehow claiming to have gotten the order right.

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Re: Apollinarius of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas

Post by Michael BG »

Thanks Peter I knew it couldn’t be that easy hence the “seems”. I had hoped it would be easy to find the texts Ben is talking about but I found your page instead. Wikipedia gives the long quote from Apollonaris of Laodicea, while this site gives the Roberts-Donaldson translation (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/papias.html) which includes the two line quote that Bernard Muller was using, but without saying where they come from.

Ben C Smith are you saying that the earliest place to find both the short and longer Apollinaris quotes from Papias are from the nineteenth century “Catenae Graecorum Patrum in Novum Testamentum” of John Cramer? If so does Cramer state where he found the quotes?

Secret Alias there is no agreement on the etymology of Iscariot. You are correct it could be urban dweller as in a man from the towns, or a man from Qarioth (or Kerioth) possibly a town in southern Judea if the word is from the Hebrew. I once liked the idea it is a Hebrew or Aramaic version of the Latin “Sicarius” meaning a robber or a rebel or Zealot as suggested by S G F Brandon. It has been argued that it means a “man of lies” from either Hebrew or Aramaic or a “man of red” as in red-head or ruddy-coloured (maybe like William Rufus king of England) from Aramaic. It has also been argued that it comes from Aramaic roots for man who betrayed or delivered.

Joan Taylor makes an interesting case for Judas to have an epithet. She gives examples of Rock for Simon, Zealot for another Simon, sons of noise (Boanerges) for James and John and the twin (Thomas) for another Judas. She states, ‘It appears that … Judas was known in some way as “blockage”, “chokiness” or “congestion”,’ She goes on to say, ‘there would be also a correlation extremely early in the tradition in terms of speculation about the means of his death.’ She states, the word normally translated as “burst open” in Acts 1:18, ‘ordinarily indicates making a sharp sound, like a clanging bell, a crash when something is hit, a howl or a shriek, hence my translation here of “made a violent noise”.’ (I don’t know how she gets from ελακησεν to λασκω.) However maybe she is correct (http://www.academia.edu/283224/The_Name ... h_Iscariot_) and we could infer that Judas was called something like the congested.
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Re: Apollinarius of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas

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Here is the death of Nadan in the Story of Ahiqar/Haiqar 7.56-57:

56 And when Nadan heard that speech from his uncle Haiqar, he swelled up immediately and became like a blown-out bladder. 57 And his limbs swelled and his legs and his feet and his side, and he was torn and his belly burst asunder and his entrails were scattered, and he perished, and died.

Notice that there is no external cause for the death other than divine retribution. The body turns against itself and swells up. (In this case it actually bursts, even without falling.)

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Re: Apollinarius of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Michael BG wrote:Thanks Peter I knew it couldn’t be that easy hence the “seems”. I had hoped it would be easy to find the texts Ben is talking about but I found your page instead. Wikipedia gives the long quote from Apollonaris of Laodicea, while this site gives the Roberts-Donaldson translation (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/papias.html) which includes the two line quote that Bernard Muller was using, but without saying where they come from.
Yes, the original texts for this particular Papian passage are not all that easy to track down.
Ben C Smith are you saying that the earliest place to find both the short and longer Apollinaris quotes from Papias are from the nineteenth century “Catenae Graecorum Patrum in Novum Testamentum” of John Cramer? If so does Cramer state where he found the quotes?
Maybe, for Apollinarius. Cramer's Catena figures prominently into the question because it apparently preserves a very early witness, Apollinarius, whose work does not otherwise survive except in similar fragments. Cramer's manuscript sources were mostly medieval. If this whole quotation appeared only in the Catena, the fragment probably would not draw as much attention.

But the fragment is preserved in other places, much earlier, as well. Again, those passages can be very hard to track down. Here, for example, is Theophylact, On Matthew 27, who is quoting the same tradition without ascribing it to Papias:

Image

And here, more to the point, is Bar Salibi, a Syriac writer who definitely attributes at least part of the story to Papias:

Image

Notice that the part he ascribes to Papias comes only from the long version. He gives a variant on the part of the story belonging both to the long and to the short version (alleging that a vehicle could not hold Judas up, rather than that he could not fit where a vehicle may easily pass) without attributing it to anybody in particular ("others say"); this variant is also harmonistic, mentioning the hanging rope from Matthew, which may be why Bar Salibi does not attribute this snippet to Papias; both the death in Acts and the death in Papias were subject to much harmonization with the account in Matthew, but passages explicitly attributed to Papias tend to lack this harmonizing element.

These images come from the article by Harris that Lake mentioned in the quote from the OP: https://archive.org/details/jstor-3152829.

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Re: Apollinarius of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas

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Just found the passage from Theophylact, in On Acts 1, in which he does credit Papias (this is from Migne, PG 125; you have to scroll down a page):

Image

This is the longer version; no literal chariot. (I guess you will just have to take my word for it if you cannot read Greek or Latin; I am not going to translate it here and now.)

As you scroll down to Theophylact, you will pass fragment VIII, from Oecumenius, who preserves the short version:

Image

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Re: Apollinarius of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas

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Ah, and another one of those fragments comes from a 1715 catena of Apollinarius; this is fragment VII, and it preserves the shorter version.

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