Again it is probable that several of the so-called gospels were compilations from the canonical gospels. Tatian's Diatessaron was an avowed harmony, and it did not stand alone. The book which Serapion found in circulation in Rhossus, professing to be the Gospel of Peter, seems to have been a harmony of the gospel narratives, but with Docetic additions. Jerome, followed by the decree of Gelasius, condemns the codices of Hesychius and Lucian, which seem to have been some kind of harmony, with additions.
There can be no doubt that many facts about the Lord and sayings of Him which we meet with in patristic literature, were handed down by tradition, and if we had the lost five books of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, in Asia Minor, which he is said to have written about the year 140 A. D., we should probably know more. But except the title and a few scraps in Irenæus and Eusebius, and in writers long after their time, we really know nothing about the books of this old chronicler. The title of his treatise was "An Exposition (or Expositions) of the Oracles of the Lord"; and it seems to have been a collection of our Lord's most important sayings and doings, with Papias's own commentary, and certain additions to corroborate the commentary—these additions being drawn from what Papias had collected as unwritten reminiscences. The importance of the book lies in the fact that Papias, like Polycarp, was a link between the apostolic age and that of Irenæus.
