7.16

Papias on the Gospel of Mark (Box 7.1)

Papias, a second-century Christian, reports the tradition that he heard regarding the Gospel of Mark:

The elder also used to say: “Mark, who had been Peter’s interpreter, wrote down carefully, but not in order, all that he remembered of the Lord’s sayings and doings. For he had not heard the Lord or been one of his followers, but later, as I said, one of Peter’s. Peter used to adapt his teaching to the occasion, without making a systematic arrangement of the Lord’s sayings, so that Mark was quite justified in writing down some things just as he remembered them. For he had one purpose only—to leave out nothing that he had heard, and to make no misstatement about it.”

Eusebius, History of the Church, trans. G. A. Williamson (London: Penguin, 1965), §3.39.15.