An alternative theory of the history of Christianity
Papias and the Eusebian fiction postulate
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Papias, Bishop of Hieropolis

PAPIAS: (about 70-155 A.D.); Bishop of Hieropolis, in
Phrygia, of whose "life nothing is known" (CE. xi, 459); who, after
the Apostles and contemporary with the early Presbyters, was the
first of the sub-Apostolic Fathers. He was an ex-Pagan Greek, who
flourished as a Christian Father and Bishop during the first half
of the second Christian century; the dates of his birth and death
are unknown. He is said to have written five Books entitled
"Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord" -- that is, of the Old
Testament "prophecies"; these are now lost, "except a few precious
fragments" (CE. vi, 5), whether fortunately or otherwise may be
judged from the scanty "precious fragments" preserved in quotations
by some of the other Fathers. According to Bishop Eusebius (HE.
iii, 39), quoted by CE. (xi, 549), "Papias was a man of very small
mind, if we may judge by his own words"; -- though again he calls
him "a man well skilled in all manner of learning, and well
acquainted with the [O.T.] Scriptures." (HE. iv, 36,) As examples,
Eusebius cites "a wild and extraordinary legend about Judas
Iscariot attributed to Papias," wherein he says of Judas; "his body
having swollen to such extent that he could not pass where a
chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that
his bowels gushed out." (ANF. i, 153.) This Papian "tradition" of
course impeaches both of the other contradictory Scriptural
traditions of Judas, towit, that "he went and hanged himself"
(Matt. xxvii, 5), and Peter's alleged statement that "falling
headlong, he burst asunder in the midst and all his bowels gushed
out." (Acts i, 15-18.) Bishop Eusebius says that Bishop Papias
states that "those who were raised to life by Christ lived on until
the age of Trajan," -- Roman Emperor from 98-117 A.D. Father Papias
falls into what would by the Orthodox be regarded as "some" error,
in disbelieving and denying the early crucifixion and resurrection
of Jesus Christ -- evidently not then a belief; for he assures us,
on the authority of what "the disciples of the Lord used to say in
the old days," that Jesus Christ lived to be an old man; and so
evidently died in peace in the bosom of his family, as we shall see
explicitly confessed by Bishop Irenaeus. Father Papias relates the
raising to life of the mother of Manaimos; also the drinking of
poison without harm by Justus Barsabas; which fables he supported
by "strange parables of the Savior and teachings of his, and other
mythical matters," says Bishop Eusebius (quoted by CE.), which the
authority of so venerable a person, who had lived with the
Apostles, imposed upon the Church as genuine." (Eusebius, Hist.
Eccles. Bk. III, ch. 39.) But Father Papias -- this is important to
remember -- is either misunderstood or misrepresented, in his claim
to have known the Apostles, or at least the Apostle John; for, says
CE., in harmony with EB. and other authorities: "It is admitted
that he could not have known many Apostles. ... Irenaeus and
Eusebius, who had the works of Papias before them, understood the
presbyters not to be Apostles, but disciples of disciples of the
Lord, or even disciples of disciples of the Apostles." (CE. xi,
458; see Euseb. HE. III, 39.) This fact Papias himself admits, that
he got his "apostolic" lore at second and third hand: "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." (Papias, Frag. 4; ANF. i,
153.)

     One of the "wild and mythical matters" which good Father
Papias relates of Jesus Christ, which is a first-rate measure of
the degree of his claimed intimacy with John the Evangelist, and of
the value of his pretended testimony to the "Gospels" of Matthew
and Mark, to be later noticed, is the "curious prophecy of the
miraculous vintage in the Millennium which he attributes to Jesus
Christ," as described and quoted by CE. In this, Papias assures us,
on the authority of his admirer Bishop Irenaeus, that he "had
immediately learned from the Evangelist St. John himself," that:
"the Lord taught and said, That the days shall come in which vines
shall spring up, each having 10,000 branches, and in each branch
shall be 10,000 arms, and on each arm of a branch 10,000 tendrils,
and on each tendril 10,000 bunches, and on each bunch 10,000
grapes, and each grape, on being pressed, shall yield five and
twenty gallons of wine; and when any one of the Saints shall take
hold of one of these bunches, another shall cry out, 'I am a better
bunch, take me, and bless the Lord by me.'" The same infinitely
pious twaddle of multiplication by 10,000 is continued by Father
Papias with respect to grains of wheat, apples, fruits, flowers and
animals, precisely like the string of jingles in the nursery tale
of The House that Jack Built; even Jesus got tired of such his own
alleged inanities and concluded by saying: "And those things are
believable by all believers; but the traitor Judas, not believing,
asked him, 'But how shall these things that shall propagate thus be
brought to an end by the Lord?' And the Lord answered him and said,
'Those who shall live in those times shall see.'" "This,
indicates," explains Bishop Irenaeus, who devotes a whole chapter
to the repetition and elaboration of this Christ-yarn as "proof" of
the meaning of Jesus, that he would drink of the fruit of the vine
with his disciples in his father's Kingdom, -- "this indicates the
large size and rich quality of the fruits." (CE. xi, 458; Iren.
Adv. Haer. IV, xxxiii, 4; ANF. i, 564.) How far less wild a myth,
one may wonder, is this prolific propagation than that fabled by
this same John the Evangelist in his supposed "Revelation," wherein
he saw in heaven the River of Life proceeding out of the Throne of
God and of the Lamb, and "in the midst of the street of it, and on
either side of the River, was there the Tree of Life, which bare
twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the
leaves of the Tree were for the healing of the nations." (Rev.
xxii, 1, 2.) Verily, "out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou
hast perfected praise"! (Mt. xxi, 16.)

-- extracted from Joseph Wheless,
"FORGERY IN CHRISTIANITY", 1930

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