This Papias of Hierapolis, the friend and colleague of Polycarp, had undertaken in opposition to "the false teachers, and those who have so very much to say," to write (probably after the utter destruction of the community of 'apostles, elders, and witnesses' at Jerusalem in 135), _an Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord_. He based the work on authentic tradition of the Jerusalem witnesses, two of whom (Aristion, and John 'the Elder') were still living at the time of his inquiries. In fact, this much debated "John the Elder," clearly distinguished by Papias from John the "disciple of the Lord," may be identified, in our judgment, with the John mentioned by Eusebius and Epiphanius midway in the succession of 'Elders' of the Jerusalem church between A.D. 62 and 135. Epiphanius dates his death in 117. Papias gives us practically all the information we have regarding the beginnings of gospel literature. He may have known all four of our Gospels. He certainly knew Revelation and "vouched for its trustworthiness," doubtless against the deniers of the resurrection and judgment. He "used testimonies" from 1st John, and probably the saying of Jesus of John xiv. 2; but he seems to have based his _Exposition_ on two gospels only, giving what he had been able to learn of their history from travellers who reported to him testimonies of 'the elders.' Papias' two gospels were our Matthew and our Mark, whose differences he reconciled by what the Jerusalem elders had reported as to their origin. Matthew, according to these authorities (?), represented in its Greek form a collection of the Precepts of the Lord which had formerly been current in the original Aramaic, so that its circulation had of course been limited to Palestine. The original compiler had been the Apostle Matthew. Various Greek equivalents of this compilation had taken its place where Aramaic was not current. Thus Papias, in explicit dependence on "the Elder" so far as Mark is concerned, but without special designation of his authority for the statement regarding Matthew. It is even possible that his representation that the primitive Matthew was "in the Hebrew tongue" may be due to rumours whose real starting-point was nothing more than the _Gospel of the Nazarenes_, a product of _c._ 110-140 which misled many later fathers, particularly Jerome. We cannot afford, however, to slight the general bearing of testimony borne by one such as Papias regarding the origins of gospel composition, and particularly the two branches into which the tradition was divided. For Papias had made diligent inquiry. Moreover his witness does not stand alone, but has the support of still more ancient reference (_e. g._ 1st Tim. vi. 3, Acts i. 1) and the internal evidence of the Synoptic Gospels themselves. The motive for his statement is apologetic. Differences between the two Gospels had been pointed out on the score both of words and events. Papias shows that