Papias. But
the answer to this is decisive. Chiliasm is the rule, not the exception,
with the Christian writers of the second century; and it appears
combined with views the very opposite of Ebionite. It is found in Justin
Martyr, in Irenaeus, in Tertullian [151:1]. It is found even in the
unknown author of the epistle bearing the name of Barnabas [151:2],
which is stamped with the most uncompromising and unreasoning antagonism
to everything Judaic.

2. A second argument is built on the fact that Eusebius does not mention
his quoting St Paul's Epistles or other Pauline writings of the Canon. I
have already disposed of this argument in an earlier paper on the
'Silence of Eusebius' [151:3]. I have shown that Papias might have
quoted St Paul many times, and by name, while nevertheless Eusebius
would not have recorded the fact, because it was not required by his
principles or consistent with his practice to do so. I have shown that
this interpretation of the silence of Eusebius in other cases, where we
are able to test it, would lead to results demonstrably and hopelessly
wrong. I have pointed out for instance, that it would most certainly
conduct us to the conclusion that the writer of the Ignatian Epistles
was an Ebionite--a conclusion diametrically opposed to the known facts
of the case [152:1].

3. Lastly, it is argued that Papias was an Ebionite, because he quoted
the Gospel according to the Hebrews. In the first place, however, the
premiss is highly questionable. Eusebius does not say, as in other
cases, that Papias 'uses' this Gospel, or that he 'sets down facts from'
it [152:2], but he writes that Papias relates 'a story about a woman
accused of many sins before the Lord' (doubtless the same which is found
in our copies of St John's Gospel, vii. 53-viii. 11), and he adds 'which
the Gospel according to the Hebrews contains' [152:3]. This does not
imply that Papias derived it thence, but only that Eusebius found it
there. Papias may have obtained it, like the other stories to which
Eusebius alludes, 'from oral tradition'([Greek: ek paradoseos
agraphou]). But, even if it were directly derived thence, the conclusion
does not follow from the premiss. The Gospel according to the Hebrews is
quoted both by Clement of Alexandria and by Origen, though these two
fathers accepted our four Gospels alone as canonical [152:4]. It may
even be quoted, as Jerome asserts that it is, and as the author himself
believes [152:5], by th