S.C.Carlson

"Clearly"!? Eusebius thought Papias clearly was, and he had the full context, which we don't.

I don't mind you doubting the attribution, but to claim your position is "clear" goes beyond the evidence. For example, most modern Q scholars, e.g. Kloppenborg, have concluded that Papias was referring to Matthew.

Stephen

gstafleu

Iasion's posting reminded me of something that I've been wondering about for a while. "Gospel" in Greek is ευαγγελιον, which means "good news." In English, though, there is a special word dedicated to the Genre: gospel. This has lost the connection with the original "good news" meaning: one takes something as gospel, not as good news.

So here is my question: when did ευαγγελιον come to denote a genre, which we now know as gospel, rather than a description (as in "this is a bit of good news"). In other words, when did ευαγγελιον take on the meaning we now translate as "gospel"? Where there "gospels" before Mark et al?

Gerard Stafleu

Ben C Smith

I think Justin Martyr does just that. Papias claims that a gospel was written by Mark from his remembrances of what Peter had preached. Justin later attributes a scene found only in Mark to the memoirs of Peter.

Ben.

S.C.Carlson

I'm not sure what you mean.

No. At least 85% of early Christian literature has been lost, just based on the titles of books that are no longer extant. What has survived from the 2d century has tended to be the apologetical works to pagans where the attribution is unimportant. And many of these apologies only survived because Aretas of Caesarea was interested in them and had a copy of them made in 914.

Granted, we hear of the gospel attributions in Irenaeus's anti-heretical writing (c. 185), but earlier anti-heretical writings (e.g. Justin, Melito, etc.) have not survived (in part because Irenaeus superseded them, and Epiphanius and others then superseded Irenaeus).

Papias's commentary on the oracles of the Lord has not survived probably because his theology about the millennium went out of fashion. What we do know of it is that the attribution of gospels to Matthew and Mark existed in the early second century.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

One of the earliest references to "gospel" as a literary genre is Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 66: "For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; ..."

Since Justin's preferred term is "memoir," he comes from a time in which the terminology was still in some kind of flux and had not been fully established, though the apologetical nature of the piece may be why Justin preferred a less jargony term.

Stephen

Diogenes the Cynic

Gospels, yes, but my objection is that Papias manifestly does not describe the Canonical Gospels with those names attached. Either he was talking about something else (even some kind of proto-gospels or sayings gospels which became subsumed in the Canonicals), or he was misinformed (assuming we can trust Eusebius' quotations of Papias in the first place).

Roger Pearse

I'm thinking of Adversus Marcionem book 4, chapter 2, in the Evans translation. A brief excerpt:

2. You have there my short and sharp answer to the Antitheses. I pass on next to show how his gospel—certainly not Judaic but Pontic—is in places adulterated: and this shall form the basis of my order of approach. I lay it down to begin with that the documents of the gospel have the apostles for their authors, and that this task of promulgating the gospel was imposed upon them by our Lord himself. If they also have for their authors apostolic men, yet these stand not alone, but as companions of apostles or followers of apostles: because the preaching of disciples might be made suspect of the desire of vainglory, unless there stood by it the authority of their teachers, or rather the authority of Christ, which made the apostles teachers. In short, from among the apostles the faith is introduced to us by John and by Matthew, while from among apostolic men Luke and Mark give it renewal, <all of them> beginning with the same rules <of belief>, as far as relates to the one only God, the Creator, and to his Christ, born of a virgin, the fulfilment of the law and the prophets. It matters not that the arrangement of their narratives varies, so long as there is agreement on the essentials of the faith—and on these they show no agreement with Marcion. Marcion, on the other hand, attaches to his gospel no author's name,—as though he to whom it was no crime to overturn the whole body, might not assume permission to invent a title for it as well. At this point I might have made a stand, arguing that no recognition is due to a work which cannot lift up its head, which makes no show of courage, which gives no promise of credibility by having a fully descriptive title and the requisite indication of the author's name. But I prefer to join issue on all points, nor am I leaving unmentioned anything that can be taken as being in my favour. For out of those authors whom we possess, Marcion is seen to have chosen Luke as the one to mutilate. Now Luke was not an apostle but an apostolic man, not a master but a disciple, in any case less than his master, and assuredly even more of lesser account as being the follower of a later apostle, Paul, to be sure...

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I'm not sure how we get to this position. Eusebius is quoting what Papias says about the origins of the gospels. That E's quote has less context than we would like isn't enough reason to read the text contrary to what he tells us about it, surely?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I'm not sure how you know that they are not authorial. But the other points seem to have nothing to do with whether the manuscripts tell us who the author is.

I would put it a little differently; we cannot say that they do represent internal evidence, since we have no information as to the origin of the titles. They do constitute external evidence as to the author's identity.

The remainder of your post appeared to consist of reiteration of points already made and responded to. As I see nothing in it that needs additional comment from me, I have snipped it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Diogenes the Cynic

Eusebius quotes Papias as making claims that Matthew complied a collection of sayings in Hebrew and that Mark record some memoirs from Mark. There is nothing in what is quoted from Papias which connects either of those alleged works specifically with the Canonicals and the Canonicals, in fact, do not fit the descriptions of whatever Papias IS talking about.
I am assuming that Eusebius' quotation of Papias is accurate and commenting ONLY on the words of Papias. I do not trust Eusebius' conclusions as a rule and dismiss his attempts to identify the works he quotes Papias talking about as referring to the Canonicals.