is sufficient for my
purpose to remark that we here find just the three elements which the
preface of Papias would lead us to expect: _first_, the saying or
sayings of Christ recorded in the written Gospels: _secondly_, the
interpretation of these sayings, which is characteristically millennial;
_thirdly_, the illustrative story, derived from oral tradition, which
relates 'what John said,' and to which the author 'gives a place along
with his interpretation' [159:1].

So far everything seems clear. But if this be so, what becomes of the
disparagement of written Gospels, which is confidently asserted by our
author and others? When the preface of Papias is thus correctly
explained, the 'books' which he esteems so lightly assume quite a
different aspect. They are no longer Evangelical records, but works
commenting on such records. The contrast is no longer between oral and
written Gospels, but between oral and written _aids to interpretation_.
Papias judged rightly that any doctrinal statement of Andrew or Peter or
John, or any anecdote of the Saviour which could be traced distinctly to
their authority, would be far more valuable to elucidate his text than
the capricious interpretations which he found in current books. If his
critical judgment had corresponded to his intention, the work would have
been highly important.

The leading object of Papias therefore was not to substitute a correct
narrative for an imperfect and incorrect, but to counteract a false
exegesis by a true. But where did he find this false exegesis? The
opening passage of Irenaeus supplies the answer. This father describes
the Gnostic teachers as 'tampering with the oracles of the Lord ([Greek:
ta logia Kuriou]), showing themselves bad expositors of things well said'
([Greek: exegetai kakoi ton kalos eiremenon ginomenoi]) [160:1]. Here we
have the very title of Papias' work reproduced. Papias, like Irenaeus
after him, undertook, we may suppose, to stem the current of Gnosticism.
If, while resisting the false and exaggerated spiritualism of the
Gnostics, he fell into the opposite error, so that his Chiliastic
doctrine was tainted by a somewhat gross materialism, he only offended
in the same way as Irenaeus, though probably to a greater degree. The
Gnostic leaders were in some instances no mean thinkers; but they were
almost invariably bad exegetes. The Gnostic fragments in Irenaeus and
Hippolytus are crowded with false interpretations of Christ's sayin