How Much Did Papias Influence Gospel Authorship Attributions?

I just had an exchange on Facebook regarding the popular claim that a large percentage of ancient gospel authorship attributions, if not all of them, were based on the testimony of Papias. I'll indent the other person's comments and leave mine without indentation.

Jason, I hope you don't mind me asking, but I was wondering if in your studies on Origen of Alexandria you ever came across discussions of what sources were behind Origen's Gospel attributions. I checked Monte Shank's book on Papian fragments and it looks like Origen never mentioned Papias anywhere in his writings - so it seems like Origen was naming the Gospels independent of Papias. Thanks for any information you may be able to relay.

Origen never cites Papias as a source on gospel authorship issues. And we wouldn't expect somebody like Papias to have had much influence on authorship attributions, the lack of references to Papias in any context in the earliest centuries suggests he wasn't so influential, and the diversity of details included in accounts of the gospels' origins suggests there wasn't one source everybody was relying on. Origen was influenced by Alexandrian traditions, and Clement of Alexandria apparently cited elders (plural) when discussing the background of the gospels (in Eusebius, Church History, 6:14:5-7). While the earliest Alexandrian traditions make no reference to Papias that I'm aware of, they do name other individuals, like Pantaenus. Eusebius reports a tradition of Pantaenus coming across a copy of the gospel of Matthew in India, supposedly brought there by the apostle Bartholomew (Church History, 5:10). That reflects how multifaceted the early sources of information on the gospels would have been, not depending on one individual, like Papias. And the fact that people like Origen keep naming individuals who have influenced them, like Pantaenus, without mentioning Papias works against the notion that Papias had the sort of large influence many people attribute to him today. Origen traveled to some extent and was often in contact with other Christians through writing. He often interacted with non-Christian Jews and wrote an entire treatise in response to Celsus, who relied on at least one non-Christian Jewish source. Celsus referred to the gospels as written by "the disciples" (cited in Origen, Against Celsus, 2:13-16). The phrase "the disciples" is more naturally taken as a reference to the apostles, not disciples in a more general sense. Origen, who had a copy of Celsus' treatise, interprets him that way, and he nowhere has to interact with an argument from Celsus against the traditional authorship attributions. Regarding non-Christian Jews, Origen wrote:

"For they [non-Christian Jews] will not maintain that the acquaintances and pupils of Jesus Himself handed down His teaching contained in the Gospels without committing it to writing, and left His disciples without the memoirs of Jesus contained in their works." (Against Celsus, 2:13)

Origen also responded to heretics on a lot of occasions and would have come across their gospel authorship attributions in the process. And he did some work on textual issues and would have seen the authorship attributions in manuscripts in that context and others.

I don't know of any context in which we should expect him to have explained in much depth how he went about making judgments about gospel authorship (or the authorship of other works he discussed). But we know he would have taken in a lot of information on the subject from a large number and variety of sources.

Jason Engwer yes, this is extremely important information you've gathered here, as even recently I saw a respected New Testament scholar repeat the common skeptical argument that every Gospel attribution in the patristic tradition after Papias was just relying on him. Even though, as you and others have pointed out, ECW's like Justin Martyr and Tertullian make no reference to Papias, even when we would expect them too if they were relying on him.

(It's significant to point out that when this was brought up in response to this scholar and the people defending her, they only responded with silence. But no retraction or acknowledgment of their faulty reasoning was made. That entire conversation says so much about the state of New Testament scholarship.)

There's also the issue of why Papias is being singled out when Papias himself cites the elder (likely the apostle John) as a source in the context of gospel authorship. So, why not conclude, using the reasoning common among people like those you cited, that Papias' elder was the source people relied on rather than Papias? I suspect that, in many cases, they prefer to single out Papias rather than the elder. The elder is earlier and more credible than Papias for other reasons, so they'd prefer to focus on Papias instead. The focus on Papias makes more sense the later you get, since we have evidence for the preservation of some relevant writings of Papias that we don't have for the writings of the elder. Later sources would, in that sense, have more access to Papias than the elder. But the elder is a more likely candidate for the initial popularizing of the gospel authorship attributions. Yet, I don't recall ever seeing any acknowledgement of that fact by people who argue like those you cited. Instead, the elder is ignored and Papias' influence is exaggerated.

They also ignore or underestimate the influence of Polycarp. We have good evidence that he traveled widely, and he's known to have been involved in multiple contexts in which he probably would have commented on gospel authorship (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/07/polycarp-as-witness-to-new-testament.html). But, once again, Papias keeps getting mentioned while Polycarp is largely ignored. Again, I think one of the reasons why is that Polycarp has more credibility than Papias in some ways. So, there's a preference for focusing on Papias instead.

You mentioned Justin Martyr and Tertullian. Notice that Justin frequently makes comments about the gospels that we don't find in Papias (referring to them as memoirs, commenting on the authorship of all four of them, etc.). Anybody who wants us to think he got all of that information from Papias, or that none of the other sources he relied on is relevant, bears the burden of proof. Justin seems to have traveled to some extent and to have been in some locations significant in this context, namely Israel, Ephesus, and Rome. Israel has a lot of relevance to all four gospel attributions, Ephesus has ties to Paul (and thus Luke) and John, and Rome has ties to Paul (and thus Luke) and Peter (and thus Mark). We have good reason to think the Roman church had resources such as a library and archives, and there's evidence that Irenaeus drew from the Roman archives when commenting on gospel authorship (Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels And The One Gospel Of Jesus Christ [Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2000], 35-36). Those records surely existed in Justin's day as well. Though the Roman church could have been influenced by Papias, men like Paul, Peter, Clement of Rome, and Polycarp (who traveled to Rome) are better candidates. The idea that Justin traveled so widely and to such significant places, studied Judaism as much as he did, cited the gospels as much as he did, etc., yet relied on Papias alone (or even primarily) for his information on gospel authorship is very unlikely.

Tertullian refers to getting authorship attributions from manuscripts, specifically in the context of discussing gospel authorship (Against Marcion, 4:2), so we have that evidence that he didn't rely solely on Papias. Tertullian goes as far as to say, in the passage just cited, that "here I might now make a stand, and contend that a work ought not to be recognised, which holds not its head erect, which exhibits no consistency, which gives no promise of credibility from the fulness of its title and the just profession of its author". That comment wouldn't make much sense if Tertullian thought something like an attribution made by Papias was sufficient grounds for reaching a conclusion about gospel authorship. In the surrounding context (4:5), Tertullian also appeals to apostolic churches (plural), which is another line of evidence that's independent of Papias and any other one source. Elsewhere, Tertullian referred to how old some of the manuscripts of his day were. Bruce Metzger noted that Tertullian referred to how the church of Thessalonica still possessed the original copies of the letters Paul sent them (The Canon Of The New Testament [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], n. 4 on 4-5). Notice that, even if Tertullian was mistaken about the Thessalonian letters, he probably wouldn't have been mistaken about the broader principle involved. Some manuscripts in his day were substantially old. That makes sense in the abstract, and the testimony of individuals like Tertullian gives us further reason to think it was true. The idea that people like Tertullian wouldn't have had any sources other than Papias who were comparably old or older is dubious. Most likely, they had multiple written sources as old as Papias or older who commented on gospel authorship, in addition to many oral traditions from a large number and variety of sources.