Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

John2 wrote: But why isn't Papias on the list? Yes, he only mentions Mark and Matthew, but actually he is evidence for three or more gospels (Mark, Matthew, and a Hebrew Matthew with more than one translation) and he mentions other people's names in connection with books: "If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings, what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice."

He could have read about these people's sayings in books but instead he preferred "the living and abiding voice." So there were books about Jesus in his time (in the early to mid-first century CE) and he explicitly names two of them (Mark and Matthew).

VI
[Papias, who is now mentioned by us, affirms that he received the sayings of the apostles from those who accompanied them, and he moreover asserts that he heard in person Aristion and the presbyter John. Accordingly he mentions them frequently by name, and in his writings gives their traditions. Our notice of these circumstances may not be without its use. It may also be worth while to add to the statements of Papias already given, other passages of his in which he relates some miraculous deeds, stating that he acquired the knowledge of them from tradition. The residence of the Apostle Philip with his daughters in Hierapolis has been mentioned above.

We must now point out how Papias, who lived at the same time, relates that he had received a wonderful narrative from the daughters of Philip. For he relates that a dead man was raised to life in his day. He also mentions another miracle relating to Justus, surnamed Barsabas, how he swallowed a deadly poison, and received no harm, on account of the grace of the Lord. The same person, moreover, has set down other things as coming to him from unwritten tradition, among these some strange parables and instructions of the Saviour, and some other things of a more fabulous nature. Amongst these he says that there will be a millennium after the resurrection from the dead, when the personal reign of Christ will be established on this earth.

He moreover hands down, in his own writing, other narratives given by the previously mentioned Aristion of the Lord's sayings, and the traditions of the presbyter John. For information on these points, we can merely refer our readers to the books themselves; but now, to the extracts already made, we shall add, as being a matter of primary importance, a tradition regarding Mark who wrote the Gospel, which he [Papias] has given in the following words]:

[Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.13-16] -

• And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took special care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements.
  [This is what is related by Papias regarding Mark; but with regard to Matthew he has made the following statements]:
  
  Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.

[The same person uses proofs from the First Epistle of John, and from the Epistle of Peter in like manner. And he also gives another story of a woman who was accused of many sins before the Lord, which is to be found in the Gospel according to the Hebrews.]

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0125.htm

But it looks like Thomas is mentioned only once in Mark, in the list of disciples in 3:18 (and Mt. 10:3 and Lk. 6:15 following him), but several times in John (where he says stuff, like Papias says).

http://biblehub.net/searchgospels.php?q=thomas

Same with Philip. He is also apparently mentioned only once, in the disciple list in Mark 3:18 (with Matthew and Luke following him), but several times in John and Acts (where he says stuff too):

http://biblehub.net/search.php?q=philip

It may not have been John or Acts, but something like them, something that had sayings of Thomas and Philip, existed in book form in Papias' time.

John2 wrote: But why isn't Papias on the list? Yes, he only mentions Mark and Matthew, but actually he is evidence for three or more gospels (Mark, Matthew, and a Hebrew Matthew with more than one translation) and he mentions other people's names in connection with books: "If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings, what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not so profitable to me as what came from the living and abiding voice."

He could have read about these people's sayings in books but instead he preferred "the living and abiding voice." So there were books about Jesus in his time (in the early to mid-first century CE) and he explicitly names two of them (Mark and Matthew).

• http://peterkirby.com/putting-papias-in-order.html
  
  from http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/papias.html

John2 wrote:Since MacDonald persuades me that Papias did not know Luke or Acts, I'm leaning towards the idea that he did at least know of John given what he says above. Perhaps it wasn't called John yet, but it sounds like John (i.e., "what was said by Philip, or by Thomas"), and because he mentions presbyter John.

According to Wikipedia, this John is "frequently proposed as an alternative author of some of the Johannine books in the New Testament," and "The interpretation of that text consists of two basic views: one view, first voiced by Eusebius of Caesarea, distinguishes between two Johns, the Apostle and the presbyter, while the other view, in line with most of Church tradition, identifies only one John."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Presbyter

The identification of the author of John's Gospel with the John of 'the Apocalypse'/Revelation was common in the 2nd century: Irenaeus assumed they were the same authors. The 3rd century's Dionysius of Alexandria was unusual in rejecting the identification of the two writers. Many modern critical scholars agree with Dionysius: the author of the Apocalypse/Revelation, John of Patmos, is different from the author of the Gospel of John and Epistles of John.

It's interesting that the author of the Muratorian Fragment thought or assumed that the author of the Gospel of John was the same as the author of the First Epistle of John: in the middle of discussing the Gospel of John he says

• 'what marvel then is it that John brings forward these several things so constantly in his epistles also, saying in his own person, "What we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears, and our hands have handled that have we written".' (1 John 1:1)

It is not clear whether the other epistle in question is 2 John or 3 John. Another indication that the author identified the Gospel writer John with two epistles bearing John's name is that, when he specifically addresses the epistles of John, he writes

• "the Epistle of Jude indeed, and the two belonging to the above mentioned John."

In other words, he thinks that these letters were written by the John whom he has already discussed, namely John the gospel writer.

The author of the Muratorian Fragment also refers to the author of the 'Apocalypse of John' (Revelation) as "the predecessor" of Paul, who, he assumes, wrote to seven churches (Rev 2–3) before Paul wrote to seven churches.

Dionysius was especially noted for his attacks on the Sabellians, who accused him of separating the persons of the Trinity (tritheism) and other heresies. Protests were sent to Pope St. Dionysius in Rome, who condemned those who denied any distinction between the persons of the Trinity and those who acknowledged three separate persons. Dionysius of Alexandria accepted the Pope’s judgment and repudiated the Sabellians’ charges, but he insisted that the Trinity consisted of three inseparable persons. His position has since been vindicated by the church.

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Sai ... Alexandria

Dionysius converted to Christianity when he received a vision sent from God; in it he was commanded to vigorously study the heresies facing the Christian Church so that he could refute them through doctrinal study. After his conversion, he joined the Catechetical School of Alexandria and was a student of Origen and Pope Heraclas. He eventually became leader of the school and presbyter of the Christian church, succeeding Pope Heraclas in 231. Later he became Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria & Patriarch of the See of St. Mark in 248 after the death of Pope Heraclas.[1]

Information on his work as Bishop of Alexandria is found in Dionysius' correspondence with other bishops and clergymen of the third century Christian Church. Dionysius’ correspondences included interpretations on the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation.

Prophetic Exegesis
About A.D. 255 a dispute arose concerning the millennialist views taught in Refutation of Allegorists, by Nepos, a bishop in Egypt, which insisted on the interpretation of Revelation 20 as denoting a literal "millennium of bodily luxury" on earth. Because he was taught by Origen, Dionysius succeeded through his oral and written efforts in checking this Egyptian revival of millennialism. He offered some critical grounds to reject the Book of Revelation, such as an alleged difference in style and diction from John's Gospel and Epistles. Dionysius main position was to claim it was not written by John: " 'I could not venture to reject the book, as many brethren hold it in high esteem,' " yet he ascribed it to another John - some "holy and inspired man" - but not the apostle John.[5]

His impact was felt in later years concerning the canonicity of the Apocalypse, causing much dialogue in the church, lingering in the East for several centuries. Thus it was that certain leaders began to retreat from millennialism in precisely the same quantity as philosophical theology became influential. The displacement of the millennial hope is one of the most important factors in the history of early Christianity. With the loss of millennialism, men lost faith in the imminent return of Christ, and the prophetic Scriptures denoting the reign of Christ became applied to the church.[6]

Called "the Great" by Eusebius, St. Basil, and others, was undoubtedly, after St. Cyprian, the most eminent bishop of the third century. Like St. Cyprian he was less a great theologian than a great administrator. Like St. Cyprian his writings usually took the form of letters ...


The baptismal controversy spread from Africa throughout the East. Dionysius was far from teaching, like Cyprian, that baptism by a heretic rather befouls than cleanses; but he was impressed by the opinion of many bishops and some councils that repetition of such a baptism was necessary, and it appears that he besought Pope Stephen not to break off communion with the Churches of Asia on this account. He also wrote on the subject to Dionysius of Rome, who was not yet pope, and to a Roman named Philemon, both of whom had written to him. We know seven letters from him on the subject, two being addressed to Pope Sixtus II.


... The chief interest of the incident [the Chiliastic error of an Egyptian bishop, Nepos] is not in the picture it gives of ancient Church life and of the wisdom and gentleness of the bishop, but in the remarkable disquisition, which Dionysius appends, on the authenticity of the Apocalypse. It is a very striking piece of "higher criticism", and for clearness and moderation, keenness and insight, is hardly to be surpassed. Some of the brethren, he tells us, in their zeal against Chiliastic error, repudiated the Apocalypse altogether, and took it chapter by chapter to ridicule it, attributing the authorship of it to Cerinthus (as we know the Roman Gaius did some years earlier). Dionysius treats it with reverence, and declares it to be full of hidden mysteries, and doubtless really by a man called John. (In a passage now lost, he showed that the book must be understood allegorically.) But he found it hard to believe that the writer could be the son of Zebedee, the author of the Gospel and of the Catholic Epistle, on account of the great contrast of character, style and "what is called working out". He shows that the one writer calls himself John, whereas the other only refers to himself by some periphrasis. He adds the famous remark, that "it is said that there are two tombs in Ephesus, both of which are called that of John". He demonstrates the close likeness between the Gospel and the Epistle, and points out the wholly different vocabulary of the Apocalypse; the latter is full of solecisms and barbarisms, while the former are in good Greek. This acute criticism was unfortunate, in that it was largely the cause of the frequent rejection of the Apocalypse in the Greek-speaking Churches, even as late as the Middle Ages.


... A controversy arose in the latter years of Dionysius of which the half-Arian Eusebius has been careful to make no mention. All we know is from St. Athanasius. Some bishops of the Pentapolis of Upper Libya fell into Sabellianism and denied the distinctness of the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. Dionysius wrote some four letters to condemn their error, and sent copies to Pope Sixtus II (257-8). But he himself fell, so far as words go, into the opposite error, for he said the Son is a poíema (something made) and distinct in substance, xénos kat’ oùsian, from the Father, even as is the husbandman from the vine, or a shipbuilder from a ship. These words were seized upon by the Arians of the fourth century as plain Arianism.

But Athanasius defended Dionysius by telling the sequel of the history. Certain brethren of Alexandria, being offended at the words of their bishop, betook themselves to Rome to Pope St. Dionysius (259- 268), who wrote a letter, in which he declared that to teach that the Son was made or was a creature was an impiety equal, though contrary, to that of Sabellius. He also wrote to his namesake of Alexandria informing him of the accusation brought against him. The latter immediately composed books entitled "Refutation" and "Apology"; in these he explicitly declared that there never was a time when God was not Father, that Christ always was, being Word and Wisdom and Power, and coeternal, even as brightness is not posterior to the light from which it proceeds. He teaches the "Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity"; he clearly implies the equality and eternal procession of the Holy Ghost. In these last points he is more explicit than St. Athanasius himself is elsewhere, while in the use of the word consubstantial, ‘omooúsios', he anticipates Nicæa, for he bitterly complains of the calumny that he had rejected the expression. But however he himself and his advocate Athanasius may attempt to explain away his earlier expressions, it is clear that he had been incorrect in thought as well as in words, and that he did not at first grasp the true doctrine with the necessary distinctness. The letter of the pope was evidently explicit and must have been the cause of the Alexandrian's clearer vision.

The pope, as Athanasius points out, gave a formal condemnation of Arianism long before that heresy emerged. When we consider the vagueness and incorrectness in the fourth century of even the supporters of orthodoxy in the East, the decision of the Apostolic See will seem a marvellous testimony to the doctrine of the Fathers as to the unfailing faith of Rome.


Sources
The principal remains of Dionysius are the citations in EUSEBIUS, Church History VI-VII; a few fragments of the books On Natrure (sic) in IDEM, Præp. Evang., xiv; and the quotations in ATHANASIUS, De Sententiâ Dionysii, etc.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05011a.htm

John2 wrote:

MrMacSon wrote:
"Who's Macdonald? Where?"

Dennis MacDonald: https://books.google.com/books?id=SbpVq ... ls&f=false