Papias and Clement and Mark's Two Gospels Terence Y. Mullins Vigiliae Christianae Vol. 30, No. 3 (Sep., 1976), pp. 189-192 (4 pages)
With the publication of the letter by Clement of Alexandria which Morton Smith discovered in the back of an early book/ the witness of Papias to Mark's Gospel has been somewhat clarified. I have shown that Papias, in the phrase where he actually defends Mark's writing, does not defend Mark against the charge of not writing an orderly account, but defends him against the charge that he should not have written "a few things as he remembered them".2 And this has to mean that he did not write many things from memory. Furthermore, the opening statement of Papias' testimony to Mark's Gospel may be interpreted as saying that Mark translated what Peter wrote. Putting this interpretation of the opening statement together with the necessary interpretation of Papias' defense of Mark produced an interpretation of Papias as saying that Mark translated what Peter had written and then, later, added a few things to that translation.3 That was as far as I could go at t...
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