history had nothing of the miraculous, though much of the merciful in it; and the Churches of Asia might well dwell upon it as a most blessed and hopeful encouragement to be like Polycarp,-" faithful unto death," so as to win " a crown of life"

CHAPTER XIII.

PAPIAS AND MELITO, THE CREDULOUS AND THE THOUGHTFUL

BELIEVER.

"I could have deem'd one spake from heaven,

Of hope and joy, of life and death,

And immortality through faith."

ARCHBISHOP TRENCH, Justin Martyr.

We have already seen how many were the perils which the writings of the early Church underwent,-a sort of sifting process, as it were, which has brought only a few down to our times.

This is the case with Papias, apparently another of the pupils of St. John, of whom very little is known, except that he was ruler of the Church of Hierapolis, one of the chief Phrygian cities. Judging by his name, which means "the fatherly," he was probably of Greek extraction, but he must early have become a disciple, and as a youth he obtained much instruction from St. John, and likewise conversed with two of the daughters of Philip the Deacon.

It may be remembered that when St. Paul was at Cæsarea, he lodged in the house of this Philip, the

same who had baptized the Ethiopian eunuch, and who had four daughters, virgins, who did prophesy." One of these four is said to have married, the other two lived on together at Hierapolis, probably as deaconesses, virgins who are called widows, as Ignatius said; and from these holy women Papias learnt many particulars concerning our Lord and His Apostles.

Of him Eusebius, the Church historian of the fourth century, says:

Papias (according to Irenæus), a disciple of St. John and companion of Polycarp-though himself does nowhere say that he conversed with any of the Apostles, but only with those that had been intimate with them-wrote five books, which he entitled "Explications of the Oracles of Christ," where he has inserted a great variety of remarkable particulars, communicated to him by those who had known the Apostles, and lets us understand that he made it his business, as it fell in his way, to inquire after the sayings of Andrew, or Philip, or Peter, or Thomas, or any other of the Apostles. He tells us (what Philip's daughters had imparted to him) of a dead body raised to life again: and how that Justus, surnamed Barsabas, having drunk a draught of poison, received no manner of hurt or indisposition by it; and that St. Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, leaving it to the reader to interpret for himself. His writings have some passages in them legendary and groundless, particularly his opinion that, after the Resurrection, Christ should reign visibly a thousand years

upon earth, which he was led into, being a plain and illiterate man, "by misunderstanding some allegorical and mystic expressions of the Apostles;" and afterwards, the earliness of his authority drew others into the same error.

Thus we learn from Irenæus that Papias both said and wrote that the disciples reported that they had heard from our Lord that the days should come in which the vines should have ten thousand branches, each branch ten thousand twigs, each twig ten thousand shoots, each shoot ten thousand bunches, each bunch ten thousand grapes, and each grape should give twenty-five measures of wine; and when one of the saints should lay hold of a cluster, another should cry out, "I am a better cluster; bless the Lord through me;"-that wheat should in like manner multiply ten thousandfold, all the fruits of the earth be in due proportion, and all the beasts of prey become peaceable.

Understood literally, this is of course utterly unlike anything we know of our blessed Lord's unearthly teaching, yet it does sound like what a literal and narrow mind, listening to mere word-of-mouth narrations, might make of the parable of the Vine, and of the Sower, or of the Grain of Mustard-seed; and we also see how providential and how merciful it was that the real words of our Lord were so early recorded by two eye-witnesses, and by two scholarly men, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, instead of being left to the versions that good but dull-minded believers might make of them.

As to matters of fact, Papias related that which is generally believed, both on his and on internal authority,—namely, that St. Mark's Gospel was drawn up from the teachings of St. Peter, and was not meant to be a full narrative in the exact order in which the events took place.

He also said that Judas' death was occasioned by being run over by a carriage, which is certainly inconsistent with St. Luke's narrative; and he further explained the four Maries in the Gospels to have been Mary, the mother of our Lord; Mary, wife of Cleophas; Mary Salome, wife of Zebedee; and Mary Magdalene; adding that the three first were sisters, and that James, Simon, Thaddeus, and Joseph were sons of Cleophas, and James and John of Zebedee. The custom of giving daughters of a family the same name was not uncommon in those days, and this explanation so far agrees with what we gather from the Gospels that it may be admitted. A man who would confuse parable into material prophecy, would still not be unlikely to thread his way clearly in genealogical details.

And in him we find that there can be small clearness of intellect even in holy and good men, and that a feeble, simple mind may yet learn the true qualities of a Christian enough to be loved and honoured by saints, and to become worthy of their companionship, not by word, but by deed. For all that is further known of Papias is, that he died a martyr in the same persecution as did his far abler companion, Polycarp; but even the scene of his death is not cer