Papias of Hierapolis

60CE-130/164CE

• There is debate around his death. Some sources say 130-135CE but the Paschel Chronicle says he died around 163-164CE. Though modern scholars think this is an error due to the confusion between Papias and Papylas.
• He wrote the now lost Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord (~100CE-140CE). Portions of it were cited by Irenaeus and Eusebius.
• Papias did not declare knowing, hearing, or being an eyewitness to the apostles in Exposition of Dominical Oracles. He took the word of people who claimed to know them.
• He preferred hearsay told orally that conformed to stories he learned from elders over written accounts.
• Irenaeus is the first to claim that he was a "hearer" of John despite Papias' own denial. Irenaeus also claimed he was a companion of Polycarp. We have nothing from Polycarp or Papias confirming this.
• Eusebius disputes that it was John the Apostle (as claimed by Irenaeus) and instead a different John the Elder. Though Papias doesn't make that claim either. Eusebius also says he employed testimonies from the first epistle of John and from Peter (though Acts 4:13 says they were illiterate), his exact meaning is ambiguous.
• Eusebius says Papias heard a story from Philip's daughters. Though from the fragments of Papias' work it's not clear if he met them in person or if it was a story that claimed to have originated from them.
• Papias claimed Matthew was in Hebrew (or heard in Aramaic or in a Semitic work) but the book of Matthew that we have today wasn't written in Hebrew (It quotes the Septuagint directly, making the same errors.) and wasn't named until Irenaeus in the 180s CE.