Papias of Hierapolis ( c 60-130 AD ) was an Early Christian Bishop of Hierapolis in Anatolia, whose book, " Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord ", in which he stated that " Matthew compiled the logia ( τὰ λόγια ) in the Hebrew language, and each person interpreted them as he was able ", survives only in quotations made by Irenaeus and Eusebius.

The tradition that this was the disciple Matthew begins with the early Christian bishop Papias of Hierapolis ( about 100 – 140 AD ), who, in a passage with several ambiguous phrases, wrote: " Matthew collected the oracles ( logia — sayings of or about Jesus ) in the Hebrew language ( Hebraïdi dialektōi — perhaps alternatively " Hebrew style ") and each one interpreted ( hērmēneusen — or " translated ") them as best he could.

" In this connection, he attributes to Christ the saying about the vine with ten thousand branches, and the ear of wheat with ten thousand grains, and so forth, which he quotes from Papias of Hierapolis.

An alternative account of John's death, ascribed by later Christian writers to the early second century bishop Papias of Hierapolis, claims that he was slain by the Jews.

These works and authors include Ignatius ( c. 107 ); Polycarp ( c. 107 ); Papias ’ elders ( c. 110-120 ); Hierapolis ' Exegesis of the Lord ’ s Oracles ( c. 120-132 ).

Such a collection of sayings of Jesus are believed to be referred to by Papias of Hierapolis.

He appears in fragments from the church father Papias of Hierapolis as one of the author's sources and is first unequivocally distinguished from the Apostle by Eusebius of Caesarea.

John the Presbyter appears in a fragment by Papias, a 2nd century bishop of Hierapolis, who published an " Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord " ( Greek — Kyriakôn logiôn exêgêsis ) in five volumes.

: PG 5: Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Melito of Sardis, Papias of Hierapolis, Apollonius of Ephesus, etc.

Richard Bauckham states that while Papias was collecting his information ( c. 90 ), Aristion and the elder John ( who were Jesus ’ disciples ) were still alive and teaching in Asia minor, and Papias gathered information from people who had known them.

Earlier church fathers were also associated with apostles: Clement with Peter ( associated closely with Rome ) and with Paul ( as the Clement Paul wrote about in Philippians 4: 3 ), Papias and Polycarp with John ( associated with Asia Minor ).

In his book Adversus Haereses, which survives in a Latin version, Irenaeus mentions " Papias, the hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp " ( Book V, chapter xxxiii ), without indicating that this was another John than " John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

The earliest surviving references to the gospel tradition are quoted by Eusebius ( lived c. 263 – 339 CE ), and different but related traditions appear in the works of Papias ( wrote during the first half of 2nd century CE ) and the works of Clement.

Before the 18th century, the belief of many, including the Church Fathers Papias ( c. 60-130 ), Irenaeus ( c. 130-200 ), Origen ( c. 185-254 ), Eusebius ( c. 260-340 ) Jerome ( c. 340-420 ), and Augustine of Hippo ( c. 354-430 ), had been that Matthew was the first gospel to be written.

Papias () ( writing in the first third of the 2nd century ) was a bishop of the early Church.

This hypothesis was based on an argument from authority: the claim by the 2nd century AD bishop Papias that he had heard that Matthew wrote first.

However, Michael W. Holmes has pointed out that it is not certain " that Papias knew the story in precisely this form, inasmuch as it now appears that at least two independent stories about Jesus and a sinful woman circulated among Christians in the first two centuries of the church, so that the traditional form found in many New Testament manuscripts may well represent a conflation of two independent shorter, earlier versions of the incident.

An early tradition within the Roman Catholic Church, first visible in the writings of Papias, identify her sons James and Joses / Joseph referred to in scripture as the " brothers of Jesus " as his biological cousins, Mary of Clopas being the sister ( or sister-in-law, or even cousin ) of Mary the Mother of Jesus.

In his work Redating Matthew, Mark and Luke Wenham wrote regarding the book of Matthew the following: " The fathers are almost unanimous in asserting that Matthew the tax-collector was the author, writing first, for Hebrews in the Hebrew language: Papias ( c. 60-130 ), Irenaeus ( c. 130-200 ), Pantaenus ( died c. 190 ), Origen ( c. 185-254 ), Eusebius ( c. 260-340 ), Epiphanius of Salamis ( c. 315-403 ), Cyril of Jerusalem ( c. 315-86 ) and others write in this vein.

" The benefit of historical immediacy, as argued by D. H. Fischer is one of the key determinants of historicity, and the church father Papias is a very early source in regard to testimony that the Matthew wrote his gospel first.

Papias does not identify his Matthew, but by the end of the 2nd century the tradition of Matthew the tax-collector had become widely accepted, and the line " The Gospel According to Matthew " began to be added to manuscripts.

Well into the 2nd century Christians held onto a strong preference for oral tradition as clearly demonstrated by writers of the time, such as Papias.

Clopas also appears in early Christian writings such as the 2nd century writers Papias and Hegesippus as a brother of Joseph, the husband of Mary, mother of Jesus, and as the father of Simeon, the second bishop of Jerusalem.

Two possible patristic sources that may refer to eye witness encounters with Jesus are the early references of Papias and Quadratus, reported by Eusebius of Caesarea in the 4th century.

" Scholars have put forward several theories to explain Papias: perhaps Matthew wrote two gospels, one, now lost, in Hebrew, the other our Greek version ; or perhaps the logia was a collection of sayings rather than the gospel ; or by dialektōi Papias may have meant that Matthew wrote in the Jewish style rather than in the Hebrew language.

On the question of the relationship of the Synoptic Gospels, Holtzmann in his early work, Die synoptischen Evangelien, ihr Ursprung und geschichtlicher Charakter ( The Synoptic Gospels: Their Origin and Historical Character ; Leipzig, 1863 ), presents a view which has been widely accepted, maintaining the priority of Mark, deriving Matthew in its present form from Mark and from Matthew's earlier " collection of Sayings ," the Logia of Papias, and Luke from Matthew and Mark in the form in which we have them.

Apart from Papias ' comment, we do not hear about the author of the Gospel until Irenaeus around 185 who remarks that Matthew issued a written Gospel of the Hebrews ( Against Heresies 3. 1. 1 ) Pantaenus, Origen and other Church Fathers also believed Matthew wrote the Gospel of the Hebrews ( Church History 5. 10. 3, 6. 25. 4 ) None of these Church Fathers asserted that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Greek.

For this and other reasons, the Gospel of Matthew was composed in Greek and not Hebrew as suggested by Papias.

Papias provides a very early source for the idea that the canonical Gospels were either based on some non-Greek written sources, or ( in the case of Matthew ) possibly " composed " in a non-Greek language.

" Papias ' surviving comment about Matthew is more tantalizing, but equally cryptic: " And so Matthew composed collected the sayings record in the Hebrew tongue, and each one interpreted possibly " translated " them to the best of his ability.

As stated above, some scholars identify the work that Papias attributed to Matthew with the hypothetic Q document that would explain the many similarities between the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke that are not accounted for in the presumedly earlier Gospel of Mark.

Thus Papias reports he heard things that came from an unwritten, oral tradition of the Presbyters, a " sayings " or logia tradition that had been passed from Jesus to such of the apostles and disciples as he mentions in the fragmentary quote.

The Talmudic evidence for early Christian gospels, combined with Papias ' reference to the Hebrew " logia " ( Eusebius, Church History III.

" ( the ' Hebrew language ' referred to by Papias has often been interpreted as Aramaic )

Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius and Jerome all agree that the original Matthew was written in Hebrew.

* Papias – great concierge of the imperial palaces, responsible for the opening and closing of the palace gates each day.

This man, said in one document to be the author of two of the Epistles of John, was supposed to have been the teacher of the martyr bishop Papias, who had in turn taught Eusebius ' own teacher Irenaeus.

In one fragment, Papias cites an older source who says, " When Mark was the interpreter possibly " translator " of Peter, he wrote down accurately everything that he recalled of the Lord's words and deeds.

This means that early writers, like Papias, Clement, Ireneas, and Justin Martyr would have quoted them, and the message of the Agrapha must not conflict with the teachings of Jesus contained in the Canonical Gospels.

: Moreover, Papias himself, in the introduction to his books, makes it manifest that he was not himself a hearer and eye-witness of the holy apostles ; but he tells us that he received the truths of our religion from those who were acquainted with them apostles in the following words.

: And Papias, of whom we are now speaking, confesses that he received the words of the apostles from those that followed them, but says that he was himself a hearer of Aristion and the presbyter John.