Mrs. Eddy Mentioned them September 26, 1959 Issue

Papias

[Mentioned in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, pp. 178, 179]

Papias , a contemporary of Poly-carp, was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia. He has been called "the first writer of distinction of the Apostolic times" and was among the first to collect facts concerning Christ Jesus' life and words from those who had known him or his disciples. The results of his investigations Papias set forth in a work entitled variously "Interpretations of the Lord's Sayings,'" or, "Expositions of the Lord's Oracles."

Papias' work was lost, but both Eusebius and Irenaeus have preserved fragments of his writing. From these fragments we learn that the daughters of the Apostle Philip lived in Hierapolis and told Papias of two miracles performed in Philip's time, one that of a man raised from the dead.

In his Preface, Papias said: "Nor shall I hesitate to relate to you, in addition to my expositions, whatever I have at any time learned from the Presbyters, having intrusted it carefully to my memory and vouching for its truth. For I did not care, as many do, for those who have much to say, but rather for such as have actual facts to give us; ... those precepts only which the Lord has committed to believers, and which emanate therefore from the truth itself."

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