Papias is next referred to. He was Bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, in the first half of the second century, and is said to have suffered martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius, about A.D. 160-167. About the middle of the second century he wrote a work in five books, called, "Exposition of the Lord's Oracles," which is lost, excepting a few fragments preserved by Eusebius and Irenæus. We have the preface to his book, which states: "I shall not hesitate to set beside my interpretations all that I rightly learnt from the Presbyters, and rightly remembered, earnestly testifying to its truth. For I have not, like the multitude, delighted in those who spoke much, but in those who taught the truth; nor in those who recorded alien commandments, but in those who recall those delivered by the Lord to faith, and which come from truth itself. If it happened that any one came who had followed the Presbyters, I inquired minutely after the words of the Presbyters--what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James, or what John or Matthew, or what any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what Aristion and the Presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say; for I held that what was to be derived from books was not so profitable as that from the living and abiding voice." "It is clear (says our author) from this that even if Papias knew any of our Gospels, he attached little or no value to them, and that he knew absolutely nothing of the Canonical Scriptures of the New Testament" (p. 445).