Page:Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, 1842.djvu/158

 KG ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. tion ascribed to John. And the same Papias, of whom we now speak, professes to have received the declarations of the apostles from those that were in company with them, and says also that he was a hearer of Arislion and the presbyter John. For as he has often mentioned them by name, he also gives their state- ments in his own works. These matters, I trust, have not been uselessly adduced. But it may be important also to subjoin other declarations to these passages from Papias, in which he gives cer- tain wonderful accounts, together with other matters that he seems to have received by tradition. That the apostle Philip continued at Hierapolis, with his daughters, has been already stated above. But we must now show how Papias, coming to them, received a wonderful account from the daughters of Philip. For he writes that in his time there was one raised from the dead. Another wonderful event happened respecting Justus, surnamed Barsabas, who, though he drank a deadly poison, experienced nothing injurious through the grace of the Lord. This same Justus is mentioned in the book of Acts, after the resurrection, as the one over whom, together with Matthew, the holy apostles prayed, in order to fill up their number, by casting lots, to sup- ply the place of Judas the traitor. The passage is as follows ; "And they placed two, Joseph, called Barsabas, who was sur- named Justus and Matthias. And having prayed, they said." The same historian also gives other accounts, which he says he adds as received by him from unwritten tradition, likewise cer- tain strange parables of our Lord, and of his doctrine and some other matters ratlicr too fabulous. In these he says there would be a certain millennium after the I'esurrection, and that 'there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on this very earth ; which things he appears to have imagined, as if they were authorized by the apostolic narrations, not understanding correctly those matters which they propounded mystically in their representa- tions. For he was very limited in his comprehension, as is evident from his discourses ; yet he was the cause why most of the ec- clesiastical writers, urging the antiquit}'^ of the man, were carried away by a similar opinion ; as, for instance, Irenaas, or any other that adopted such sentiments. He has also inserted in his work