St
Basil uses 'sacred' (or divine) 'oracles', 'oracles of the Spirit,'
[175:2] as synonymes for the Scriptures. And this catena of passages
might be largely extended.

This wide sense of the word 'oracles' therefore in itself is fully
substantiated by examples both before and after the time of Papias. But
our author objects that it is not consistent with the usage of Papias
himself elsewhere. The examples alleged however fail to prove this. If
Papias entitled his work 'Exposition of Oracles of the Lord,' or rather
'of Dominical Oracles,' there is nothing to show that he did not include
narrative portions of the Gospels, as well as discourses; though from
the nature of the case the latter would occupy the chief place. On the
contrary, it is certain from the extant notices that he dealt largely
with incidents. And this he would naturally do. By false allegory and in
other ways Gnostic teachers misinterpreted the facts, not less than the
sayings, of the Gospels; and Papias would be anxious to supply the
corrective in the one case as in the other. The second example of its
use in Papias certainly does not favour our author's view. This father,
as we have seen [175:3], describes St Mark as not writing down 'in order
the things said or done by Christ' ([Greek: ou mentoi taxei ta hupo tou
Christou e lechthenta e prachthenta]). This, he states, was not within
the Evangelist's power, because he was not a personal disciple of our
Lord, but obtained his information from the preaching of Peter, who
consulted the immediate needs of his hearers and had 'no intention of
giving a consecutive record of the Dominical oracles' ([Greek: ouch
hosper suntaxin ton kuriakon poioumenos logion]). Here the obvious
inference is that [Greek: ta kuriaka logia] in the second clause is
equivalent to [Greek: ta hupo tou Christou e lechthenta e prachthenta]
the first, just as the [Greek: suntaxin] in the second clause
corresponds to the [Greek: taxei] in the first. Our author however,
following the lead of those who adopt the same interpretation of 'the
oracles,' explains it differently [176:1].

There is an evident contrast made. Mark wrote [Greek: e lechthenta
e prachthenta], because he had not the means of writing discourses,
but Matthew composed the [Greek: logia]. Papias clearly
distinguishes the work of Mark, who had written reminiscences of
what Jesus had said and done, from that of Matthew, who had made a
collect