chapter three
oral tradition was still highly valued and was even more important than
written tradition for Papias. However, this is not the point which Euse-
bius’ wants to make. He obviously presents Papias’ lengthy quotation
because it seems to make a distinction between two persons called John,
making it possible to exclude the Revelation from the collection of the
canonical books, if needed (Hist. Eccl. ..–). Eusebius also summa-
rizes approvingly two stories related by Papias (about Philip’s daughter
and Justus;Hist. Eccl. .) but then moves on to criticize him for accept-
ing “strange parables, teachings, and other mythical traditions.” Euse-
bius especially targets Papias’ chiliasm, which in Eusebius’ view indicates
Papias’ very modest intellectual skills.
The last part of Eusebius’ discussion of Papias includes quotations of
what Papias said about Mark and Matthew. The reference to theGospel
of the Hebrewscloses the section:
Papias also used evidence from John and from Peter and provides
another story of a woman falsely accused before the Lord of many sins,
which is contained in theGospel of the Hebrews.(Hist. Eccl. .).After many sweeping descriptions of traditions and writings that Papias
used, why does Eusebius single out the story about a woman accused of
many sins as an example of what Papias quoted from theGospel of the
Hebrews? Matthew, Mark, John and Peter are regarded as generally
accepted books by Eusebius, but theGospel of the Hebrewsbelongs to de
disputed ones. Why is it mentioned?
The supporters of the GH emphasize that the information about
theoriginofthequotationmustbefromEusebius.However,given
the superfluous character of Eusebius’ other references to theGospel of
the Hebrews, I find it likely that Papias already indicated the “source”
of the quotation.^83 For the supporters of the GH, a conclusion like
this is inconvenient because it would indicate the presence of a Greek
gospel “according to the Hebrews” in Asia Minor in the early second
century.^84
(^83) In contrast to Schmidtke , –, who thinks that Eusebius reasoned—
unjustly—that the passage must be derived from theGospel of the Hebrews. Vielhauer
& Strecker ^2 (^1 ), think that Eusebius must have found the passage in the
Gospel of the Hebrews. Klijn , , thinks that Eusebius did not possess the gospel but
got his information elsewhere or was merely guessing.
(^84) Notably, Didymus the Blind seems to have known a version of the same story (see
below) where the woman was not accused of adultery but of “sins,” just like in Papias’
quotation. According to Didymus, the quotation is in “some gospels.” Because Didymus
is one of the few authors whose writings have seemed to indicate that theGospel of the