books," he says, "did not so profit me as that from the living and abiding voice."(1) If, therefore, it could even have been shown that Papias was acquainted with any of our Canonical Gospels, it must at the same time have been admitted that he did not recognize them as authoritative documents. It is manifest from the evidence adduced, however, that Papias did not know our Gospels. It is not possible that he could have found it better to inquire "what John or Matthew, or what any other of the disciples of the Lord... say" if he had known of Gospels such as ours, and believed them to have been actually written by those Apostles, deliberately telling him what they had to say. The work of Matthew which he mentions being, however, a mere collection of discourses of Jesus, he might naturally inquire what the Apostle(2) himself said of the history and teaching of the Master. The evidence of Papias is in every respect most important. He is the first writer who mentions that Matthew and Mark were believed to have written any works at all; but whilst he shows that he does not accord any canonical authority even to the works attributed to them, his description of those works and his general testimony comes with crushing force against the pretensions made on behalf of our Gospels to Apostolic origin and authenticity.
2 We may merely remark that Papias does not call the
Matthew who wrote the[——]—] an Apostle. In this passage he
speaks of the Apostle, but he does not distinctly identify
him with the Matthew of the other passage.
END OF VOL. I.