St. Papias of Hierapolis

St. Papias of Hierapolis was a bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, in Asia Minor, in the first half of the second century, and one of the earliest Christian writers after the apostolic age. He belonged to a generation that still had living contact with the disciples of the apostles, and by tradition was associated with St. Polycarp and even said to have heard the Apostle John.

He composed a work in five books, the Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord, of which only fragments survive in later authors, especially Eusebius and Irenaeus. Papias valued above all the "living voice" of oral tradition, seeking out those who had known the apostles to learn what the Lord had taught, and his surviving fragments preserve precious early testimony about the origins of the Gospels, notably that Mark set down the preaching of Peter and that Matthew compiled the sayings of the Lord. Though later readers judged some of his opinions naive, his witness is of great value for the early history of the Gospels. He is venerated as a saint.