Papias of Hierapolis on the Jews
Papias of Hierapolis is an obscure but important figure in the history of the early Christian Church: precisely because he is the central source upon which the argument about an original Hebrew text for the Gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke turns. He is also an important witness to the transmission of the oral Christian traditions, which were known to the early Church Fathers but which were largely lost before the First Council of Nicaea and were subsequently not included in the Christian canon.
Papias' principle work 'Interpretations of the Sayings of the Lord' has however been lost in the course of ages, but several fragments of what had to say in that text have come down to us. Although none of these are explicitly anti-jewish I think there is a case to be made in regards to the anti-jewish implications of what Papias had to say.
According to the first Papian fragment - as arranged by Philip Schaff - (1) we are told that Papias was a friend and associate of Saint Polycarp (2) who - according to the unknown author of 'The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp' - was murdered by the Roman state at the particular behest and urging of the jews. (3)
We further know that there is a vehemently disputed early Christian tradition that Polycarp and Papias were killed in the events that the Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp describes. This is quite possible considering how geographically close Smyrna (Polycarp's see) and Hierapolis (Papias' see) are in modern Turkey.
Indeed we know that both of them would have been active at more or less the same time. We don't know precisely when they were born, but we can reasonably deduce from the mentions made of them by other Fathers like Irenaeus that they were operating in relatively close geographic proximity to each other and that their lives and ministries overlapped.
This means of course that while we should always doubt unsupported traditions: the evidence we have tells us it is a plausible scenario. If this is so then it would make Papias as much a victim of the jews as Polycarp if we are to believe the only account of the proceedings that has come down to us.
Evidence that Papias was a likely candidate for the martyrs death that was inflicted on Polycarp is found in the second Papian fragment when we are told that Papias talked of how the early Christians 'called those who practised a godly guilelessness, children'. (4)
This might at first glance look like a typical paean to the various forms of asceticism that were greatly encouraged and sometimes actually practised by the Fathers of the Church, but if we but pause to think about the necessary consequences of the assertion Papias is making: then we can quickly see a tinge of anti-jewish sentiment looking back at us.
Consider that when we talk about being 'guileless' we are actually referring to the idea of absolute innocence in the dishonest ways of men and that as such we have got a reference to the Christians being 'as sheep amidst the wolves' here.
That means that we need to ask ourselves who the 'wolves' - or the ones who in Papias' view would ensnare innocent Christians in their diabolical schemes - of the piece are. That question is easily answered by understanding that non-jewish Christians of the early Church - like Papias - frequently identified the jews as being just that . (5) Pagans on the other hand were viewed as being simply ignorant of Christianity and the truths it believed itself to possess.
If we understand this then becomes clear that Papias is actually referring to the jews as the great enemy of Christianity - a fact that has been repeatedly emphasised in the literature on the subject - (6) and that the unspoken - or rather in this case lost - element to Papias' mention of the 'godly guilelessness' of the early Christians is that they - like Saint Paul - were being brutally persecuted by that Saint's former co-religionists: the jews.
Or as the Bible might style them: wolves in sheep's clothing.
Even if we were to dismiss this possibility then there we have other evidence to consider from the fragments of Papias' work that we have that Papias wrote in the Christian anti-jewish tradition.
This comes in the form of the third Papian fragment, which relates Papias' views on the subject of Judas. He states thus:
'Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out.' (7)
Papias further makes his views known when he styles Judas Iscariot as 'Judas the Traitor'. (8)
Once again this at first glance seem to be an understandable - albeit strong - statements of dislike for Judas - the anti-Apostle of the Bible, the bed-fellow of Simon Magus and King Herod I in the Christian cosmogony of evil - but once again if we but stop to think about what Papias is necessarily suggesting here we can see that the dislike has an anti-jewish patina to it.
When Papias refers to Judas as a 'sad example of impiety' he is referring to Judas' well-known betrayal of Jesus to the Temple authorities, which directly lead the latter's trial at the feet of Pontius Pilate and his eventual execution via the medium of crucifixion. The impiety that Papias refers to may be taken to mean that because Judas betrayed the Messiah: he was not a Christian but a jew (as his deeds betrayed his true beliefs and lack of faith).
This makes sense if we understand that Judas was thought - and still is by many Christians around the world - to be the embodiment of - what Judaism calls - 'the evil inclination' (i.e., lack of control over the self and urge to do ungodly things) and as such he was the 'wolf in sheep's clothing' among the Apostles. (9)
In Papias' vision then Judas was a jewish agent among the Christians who had sabotaged the coming of the Messiah; albeit as part of a preordained divine plan, and as such was not only a figure to be spoken of distastefully in polite conversation, but a jew who could not be publicly reviled or excoriated enough (which takes the form of Papias' story about the fate of Judas).
In summary then we can see that Papias was quite definitely in the Christian tradition of anti-Judaism, but that his ideas were certainly not anti-Semitic. As Papias clearly believed in the succession of the gentiles to the place of Israel - as decreed by the New Testament - but at the same time he also seems to have believed that the jews were the diabolical enemy of the Christians and were to be fought and opposed where-ever they were to be found.
References
(1) I have used Schaff's collection rather than the relevant Loeb editions as it is accessible on the internet and collects all the fragments together. This may be accessed at the following address: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.pdf
(2) Pap. Frag. 1; also see Frag. 4
(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-jewish-involvement-in-the-death
(4) Pap. Frag. 2
(5) Charles Freeman, 2009, 'A New History of Early Christianity', 1st Edition, Yale University Press: New Haven, p. 57; Israel Jacob Yuval, 2008, 'Two Nations in your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages', 1st Edition, University of California Press: Berkeley, pp. 14-15
(6) For example Ibid, pp. 60; 70
(7) Pap. Frag. 3
(8) Ibid. 4
(9) Freeman, Op. Cit., pp. 153-154