Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/509

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PAPIENSIS


459


PAPINI


V, xxxvi). The reference in his preface to our Lord as "the Truth" also implies a knowledge of the fourth Gospel. He cited I John and I Peter according to Eusebius, and he evidently built largely upon the Apocalypse, from which he drew his chiliastic views. It was formerly customary among liberal critics to assume (for no proof was possible) that Papias ignored St. Paul. It is now recognized that a bishop who lived a few miles from ColossiB cannot be suspected of opposition to St. Paul merely on the ground that the few lines of his writings which remain do not contain any quotation from the Apostle. It is highly prob- able that Papias had a New Testament containing the Four Gospels, the Acts, the chief Epistles of St. Paul, the Apocalypse and Epistles of St. John, and I Peter.

Eusebius says that Papias frequently cited tradi- tions of John and narrations of Aristion. He had also received information from the daughters of Philip, one of whom was buried like her father at Hierapolis, and had apparently been known to Papias. He related the raising to life of the mother of Manaimos (probably not the same as Manaen the foster-brother of Herod) ; also the drinking of poison without harm by Justus Barsabas : he may have related this in connexion with Mark, xvi, 18, as it is the only one of the miracles promised in that passage by our Lord which is not ex- emplified in Acts. It would be interesting if we could be sure that Papias mentioned this last section of Mark, since an Armenian MS. attributes it to Aris- tion. Eusebius says Papias "published a story of a woman accused of many sins before the Lord, which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews". This appears to refer to the pericope adulterce, John, viii.

The cause of the loss of this precious work of an Apostolic Father was the chiliastic view which he taught, like St. Justin and St. Irenteus. He supported this by "strange parables of the Saviour and teach- ings of His, and other mythical matters", says Euse- bius. We can judge of these by the account of the wonderful vine above referred to. His method of exe- gesis may perhaps be estimated to some extent by a comparison of the chiliastic portion of St. Irenteus's fifth book with the original ending of Victorinus's commentary on the Apocalypse, as published by Haussleiter (Theologisches Litteraturblatt, 26 April, 1S9.5); for both passages are evidently based on Pa- pias, and contain the same quotations from the Old Testament. Eusebius was an opponent of chiliastic speculations, and he remarks: "Papias was a man of very small mind, if we may judge by his own words". It would seem that the fragment of Victorinus of Pet- tau "De fabrica mundi" is partly based on Papias. In it we have perhaps the very words to which Euse- bius is referring: "Nunc igitur de inenarrabili gloria Dei in providentia videas memorari; tamen id mens parva polerit, conabor ostendere". This passage prob- ably preserves the substance of what Papias said, ac- cording to the testimony of Anastasius of Mount Sinai, as to the mystical application to Christ and the Church of the seven days of creation. A wild and ex- traordinary legend about Judas Iscariot is attributed to Papias by a catena. It is probable that whenever St. Irena>us quotes "the Presbyters" or "the Presby- ters who had seen John", he is citing the work of Pa- pias. Where he attributes to these followers of John the assertion that our Lord sanctified all the ages of man, he is probably quoting Papias; but it does not follow that Papias had inferred that our Lord reached the age of fifty, as Irenajus concludes, nor need we be too cer- tain that Papias ex-plicitly cited the Presbyters in the passage in question. His real statement is possibly preserved in a sentence of "De fabrica mundi", which implies only that our Lord reached the perfect age (between 30 and 40) after which decline begins.

Of Papias's life nothing is known. If Polycarp was bom in 69, his "comrade" maj' have been born a few years earlier. The fragment which makes him state


that those who were raised to life by Christ lived on until the age of Hadrian cannot be used to determine his date, for it is clearly made up from the quite cred- ible statement of Quadratus (Eusebius, iv, 3) that some of those cured by our Lord lived until his own time and the fact that Quadratus wrote under Ha- drian; the name of Papias has been substituted by the egregious excerptor. The work of Papias was evi- dently written in his old age, say between the years 115 and 140.

The literature on Papias is of overwhelming quantity. Every introduction to the New Testament, every book on the Fourth Gospel mentions him. The best discussion in English is Light- foot's Essays on Supernatural Religion, reprinted from the Con- temporary Review (London, 1889) ; on the preface see especially Zahn, Forschungen, VI (1900); on the two Johns, Drdmmond, Ezra Abbott, Camerlynck, and others on the Gospel of St. John; for the view that the Apostle was not at Ephesus but only the presbyter, Harnack, Gesch. der altchr. Litt,, II (1897), and (making the presbyter the beloved disciple) Delff, Gesch. d. Rabbi Jesus (Leipzig. 1889) ; Idem, Das vierte Evang, wiederherge- stellt; Idem. Neue Beitrdge zur Kritik und Erkl&rung des vierten Ev, (both at Husum, 1890) ; Sandat, The Criticism of the Fourth Gos- pel (Oxford. 1905) ; Bousset, Offenbarung d. Joh. (Leipzig, 1896) ; also Zahn, loc. cit.; Stanton, The Gospels as Hist. Documents, X (1903); Chapman, John the Presbyter (Oxford, 1911); on the sup- posed martyrdom of St. John, De Boor, A^eue Fragments des Papias in Tezle u. Uniers., V, II (1888) ; Delff, loc. cit.; Chapman, loc. cit.; Schwartz, Ueber den Tod der Sohne Zebedcei (in favour of the martyrdom, Berlin. 1904); against are; Armitage Robin- son, The Historical Character of St. John's Gospel (London, 1908); Bernard in Irish Church Quarterly (Jan., 1908) ; Edwin Abbott, Notes on New Testament Criticism (London, 1906) ; for a general ac- count of Papias, see Bardenhewer, Gesch, der altkirchl, Litt., I (Frcihurt;, 1902), who gives sufficient references to older books and urMrl. ini.[. in Richardson's S^7iopsis (Buffalo, 1887). _ On St. .1 I ;ii I .-. CnKPUK-N, Papias on the Age of our Lord in Jour-

,.■ I -.luflies, IX (Oct., 1907), 33; Gdtjahr, Die Glaub-

(/'//';.(' , irendischen Zeugnisses (Graz, 1904); Lewis, The Ircii.iHs 1,'xtimnny to the Fourth Gospel (Chicago, 1908); on the Chiliasm of Papias, Atzberger, Gesch, der christl. Bschatologie (Freiburg, 1896); Gry, Le millenarisme (Paris, 1904; New York, 1S99). JoHN ChaPMAN.

Papiensis, Beknardus, Italian canonist of the thirteenth century; d. IS Sept., 1213. He was born at Pavia, studied law and theology at Bologna, was provost of the cathedral of Pavia until 1191, Bishop of Faenza until 119S, and then Bishop of Pavia until his death. He is renowned for his "Breviarium ex- travagantium " (later called "Compilatio prima an- tiqua"), a collection of canonical texts comprising ancient canons not inserted in the "Decretum" of Gratian and also later documents. The work was compiled between 1187 and 1191, and was edited by Friedberg ("Quinque compilationes antiquffi", Leip- zig, 1882). Papiensis is the author of a "Summa" on his own compilation, which he wrote while Bishop of Faenza; it was edited by Laspeyres, as were also other works of the same author: "Summa de matrimonio", "Summa de electione", "Casus decretalium", and a glo.ss on his "Breviarium extravagantium" ("Ber- nardi Papiensis Summa decretalium", Ratisbon, 1861). He is also the author of a "Vita sancti Lan- franci" (Acta SS., IV Jun., 620 sqq.), a "Commen- tarius in Ecclesiasticum", and a " Commentarius in Canticum Canticorum".

Schulte, Die Gesch, der Quellen u. Lit, des canon. Rechts, I (Stuttgart, 1875), 175-82; Laurin, Introd. in Corp. Jur. Canon. (Freiburg, 1889), 20, 97-105; Schneider, Die Lehre von den Kirchenrechtsquellen (Ratisbon. 1892), 126-29.

A. Van Hove.

Papini, Nicholas, historian, b. at San Giovanni Valdarno, between Florence and Arezzo, about 17.51; d. at Terni, LTmbria, 16 Dec, 1834. Having entered the Order of the" Conventuals he taught Italian liter- ature at Modena, was secretary of the Provincial of Tuscan}', cuslos of theSacred Convent of .-Vs.sisi, 1800 (?) -1803, a short time guardian of Dodici Apostoli at Rome, and finally named Minister General of the Con- ventuals 1803-09. Later on he lived at Assisi and Terni, where he is buried. His printed works are "L'Etruria Francescana o vero raccolta di notizie storiche interessanti I'Ordine de FF. Minor! Con- ventuali di S. Francesco in Toscana", I, Siena, 1797; "Notizie sicure della morte, sepoltura, canoniz-