Therefore, at this Apollonarius the heretic, with his companions, abandoned the glorious illumination of the living words and became blind to the faith like the Jews. He dared to speak, like the Pharisees, that after the resurrection of the dead, we shall live again for a thousand years in Jerusalem with the Messiah, with bodily pleasures, and childish sacrifices, and earthly libations before him [the Messiah?]. After these things are fulfilled, at that time we shall be taken up into heaven. And he was not shamed by the voice of Paul who said, “The kingdom of God is not of eating or drinking. But of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” [Romans 14:17]. Also in like manner Irenaeus bishop of Lyon in Gaul wandered in these matters, which are in the book of Papias as Eusebius narrates.
~John of Dara On the Resurrection of Bodies 2.13

Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in the Asia, who was educated with John the Evangelist, says in the fourth book of “Interpretations of the Lord” that delights shall exist through foods in the resurrection. What is more, Irenaeus says the same in writing “Against Heresies”, from testimony from the book of Papias. Afterwards, he accepted this opinion of Apollonarius.
~John of Dara On the Heavenly and the Earthly Hierarchy

I also added two hypothetical fragments that are proposed by Charles Hill and Richard Baukham. These are very intriguing. Do read them.  I also added information about various ancient translations of fragments from Eusebius, Jerome, and Andrew of Caesarea.  Some of these ancient translations alter the wording of the original in significant ways, which  I will show below.

I also  added a note to Vardan Arewelts’i calling into question the accuracy of his statement about Papias which I learned from Norelli (2005).  Norelli thinks that one of these fragments refers to Pappus of Alexandria not Papias.  I also fixed and changed some other things, which you can read in my “update” section.

My page on Papias is getting rather muddled with all the information I have on it (there are  inconsistencies in quotations, translation methods, etc) so I ask that anyone using it checks all sources to make sure there are no mistakes.

Here is the Syriac translation (found here) of one of Eusebius’ quotes of Papias compared with the Greek (differences are underlined, omissions are given in brackets):

This Syriac translation of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History was probably done shortly after the work was published in Greek, so the translator may have had first hand knowledge of Papias. The translator’s alterations seem to indicate that Papias was specifically claiming that he indeed heard the elders, the disciples of Jesus, himself and that he did not bother with reading books written by other people who had heard those disciples.

Here is the Armenian translation of one of Andrew of Caesarea’s quotes of Papias compared with the Greek [given here] (The Greek and Armenian parallel columns continue immediately after the quote from Revelation 12:9, but WordPress won’t let me embed tables so it looks like there is a gap):

I have always wondered what the original Greek said in this portion of Andrew Caesarea’s Commentary on the Apocalypse. The two most striking things about the Armenian translation is that the quotation of Papias comes almost immediately after a previous quotation of him and also that the Armenian translation contains more accurate testimony about the source of Andrew’s statement concerning Justin the martyr; the Greek claims that Andrew is quoting from Justin directly, but the Armenian more accurately states that he is quoting Justin from a quote given by Irenaeus. Even if we are to discount this Papias fragment as an interpolation by the translator, the Armenian translator is clearly a learned man given his “correction” of Andrew’s reference to Justin, and therefore may have had knowledge of Papias himself.

Finally, I have four or five other fragments and testimonies of Papias that I have discovered, I hope to publish them on my website when I get a chance.  As always, leave a comment if you have found any mistakes I have made, or if you have any suggestions.

Here are the details.

The quotation exists in multiple forms, some longer than others.

The longest, which is what is translated above, is given in a catena found in Cramer vol 3 p12 and also by Theophylact in his  Exposition on the Acts of the Apostles PG125 p522.  However Theophylact does not attribute the first paragraph to Apollinarius but Theophylact makes it seem as if they are his own words.  He quotes Papias directly in paragraphs two and three.

Oecumenius does the same as Theophylact but omits the last sentence in his Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles PG118 p57.

Another catena is quite similar to the passage at hand but omits the last sentence,  it is  given in Anecdota Graeca volume 2 p464. I scanned this page myself.

A similar but not identical catena ascribes only the first sentence of the second paragraph to Papias and the rest of the three paragraphs to, seemingly,  Apollinarius Cramer vol 1 p.231

A scholia on Acts 1.18 compiled in S. Lvcae Actvs apostolorvm graece et latine Riga 1782 p. 304 by Matthai gives a shortened variation of the first and second paragraph and attributes it to Apollinarius, and also has a different passage associated with Eusebius, but neither mention Papias.

Kirsopp Lake The Beginning of Christianity p24 says that Bar-Salibi quotes Papias in a fragment in the American Journal of Theology vol 4.3 1900 p501.

Zigabenus alludes to the passage at hand in his Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles PG129 p.1280 and Matthai p294-295.

What does this mean?  Did  Theophylact (11th/12th century) and Oecumenius (early 7th century) use Papias directly?  Or did they use Apollinarius and omit his name (perhaps due to his heretical history)? Or were they using a catena like the one translated from Cramer above?  Its impossible to know, but Oecumenius’ early date (early 600′s) suggests that he was not using  a catena, but either used Apollinarius or Papias.  However Oecumenius’ date and authorship are disputed, so if he wrote several centuries later (or if someone else wrote the work ascribed to Oecumenius) then a catena could have easily been used.    There are other possibilities, like if Oecumenius quoted Papias and in the course of time a catena falsely attributed it to Apollinarius, or both Oecumenius and Apollinarius quoted Papias independently, etc. It seems likely to me that Apollinarius quoted Papias and that his name was slowly dropped out due to his heretical association.  Oecumenius likely quotes from Apollinarius directly because the first paragraph of his quote is essentially Apollinarius’ wording.  However Oecumenius could be using a catena .  There are obviously many other possibilities as well.