The statement that Papias was a hearer of the Apostle John conflicts with the account in Eusebius (Ec. Hist, iii., 89), which implies that he received information from John the Presbyter after all the Apostles were dead. According to Eusebius (Ec. Hist, iii, 36,) and Jerome (De Viri Illust. xviii.), Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis, a city of Phyrgia. He is supposed to have suffered martyrdom about 163 or 167. His work, in five books, was entitled "An Exposition of the Oracles (or Words) of the Lord." Eusebius, in the third book of his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 39, gives us most of our information about Papias. His estimate of him, as a man of very limited understanding, does not deter us from regretting the loss of his writings. The fragments which remain cast such radiance on some of the dark points of the Christian evidences. Paley and all the school of evidence-writers cite him as proving the existence of our Matthew and Mark. But he is now generally seen to prove the very reverse. Let us first examine his statement in regard to Matthew. As given on the authority of Eusebius, it reads that "Matthew composed the _logia_ [oracles or sayings] in the Hebrew dialect, and everyone interpreted them as he was able." Now it is somewhat curious that Papias, probably in the second half of the second century, should be the first to give currency to the tradition that Matthew wrote a Gospel if that Gospel had been in existence 100 years. But that the work referred to was not the same we now have is manifest from its name _logia_, discourses, sayings, or oracles. It would be an utter misnomer for an historical narrative beginning with a detailed history of the genealogy, birth and infancy of Jesus, and the preaching of John the Baptist, and concluding with an equally minute account of his betrayal, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection, giving all his movements and miracles, and which has for its evident aim throughout the demonstration that Jesus was the Messiah. Our Gospel, not written by, _but according to_ Matthew, has no such title.