Papias, Bishop at Hierapolis, in Phrygia, in the earlier half of the 2d century, is known to us only from references by Irenæus, Eusebius, and a few others, and from fragments of his lost work preserved in their writings (see especially Eusebius, Historia Eccl. iii. 39). Irenæus speaks of him as a 'hearer of John'—evidently meaning the apostle. Eusebius aptly quotes Papias himself against Irenæus on the point; but, while the quotation justifies his criticism thus far, it does not fully bear out his own view that Papias claimed to have been a hearer of two other disciples of the Lord, Ariston and the elder (not the apostle) John. There is, then, no very reliable evidence of personal intercourse with any of the immediate followers of Jesus. On the other hand, some of the links between Papias and the apostles are definitely known; for two daughters of the apostle Philip, living in Hierapolis, related traditions to him, and he was a 'companion of Polycarp' (69–155 A.D.), Bishop at Smyrna, who in his youth had been a disciple of the apostle John. The statement, however, in the Chronicon Paschale, that Papias suffered at Pergamon in the year of this contemporary's martyrdom at Smyrna, rests on the compiler's misreading of Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. iv. 15).
The only work which he is known to have written is the Logion kyriakōn exeḡēsis ('Exposition of Oracles of the Lord'), in five books, which on various grounds, including an expression in a fragment recently discovered, may be probably assigned to the period 140–150. It is now generally agreed that the signification of 'oracles' is not to be absolutely limited to 'discourses,' and that by 'Oracles of the Lord' we are to understand a record, or records, of the Lord's sayings, including at least a setting of narrative. Part of the author's design was to supplement his expositions with trustworthy oral traditions. But the scanty remains are enough to show that Papias was, as Eusebius says, 'of very small intellect,' credulous, and fond of recording the wonderful. His doctrinal characteristic is a quaint millenarianism, with traces of the Apocalypse of Baruch.
But it is in relation to the New Testament canon, and especially to what is known as the synoptic problem, that Papias is of real importance. The fragment bearing on Mark runs thus: 'This also the elder (John) said: "Mark, having become the interpreter (recorder) of Peter, wrote down accurately whatever he remembered, without, however, recording in order what was either said or done by Christ,"' &c. Many scholars maintain that the words suit the second gospel as we have it, while others who deny this accept them as an account of its groundwork. Still greater interest attaches to the short fragment on Matthew: 'Matthew, then, composed the oracles in the Hebrew (Aramaic) language, and each one interpreted them as he could.' This statement has often been called in question, but the best authorities now hold that Papias is correct as to the Aramaic original, and that the canonical gospel, while evidently not a translation, is a Greek edition, by either Matthew himself or some writer unknown. On the whole, the two-document hypothesis of the origin of the synoptics, which at present holds the field, coincides remarkably with the above two fragments (see GOSPELS). As to the rest of the canon, Papias quoted 1 John and 1 Peter, and was cited as an authority for the 'credibility' of the Apocalypse. There are also some indications that he knew the fourth gospel.
For Papias generally, see Lightfoot, Essays on the Work entitled 'Supernatural Religion' (1889); for the collected fragments, the Patrum Apost. Opera of Gebhardt, Harnack, and Zahn; for an English translation, the Ante-Nicene Library, vol. i.