Explanation of the Lord's sayings

The Explanation of the Lord's sayings is a work-compilation of Papias of Hierapolis that gathers in five books some sentences that Jesus of Nazareth would have pronounced and it comments them. Papias himself mentions that his sources are not only the Gospels but also the oral traditions to which he had access. It was written around the year 130.

Few fragments of it are preserved, mostly quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea in Ecclesiastical History. The to the origin of the Gospels have been widely used in the study of the New Testament: Mark, he states, would have faithfully written all that was referred to by Simon Peter and Matthew would have written in Hebrew. In addition, he has been the subject of controversies and studies the fact that he mentions two times between his sources, John the apostle and a presbyter John.

Another interesting aspect of the fragments that remain of the work is the use, for the first time in Christian literature, of the word exegesis with a sense of explanation of a biblical text.

Eusebius places Papias among the millenarians by quoting a parable that is also part of this Explanation. The Confessor says that in Book I of the Explanation it is stated that "those who exercised themselves in innocence according to God, called them" children. " Notes Bibliography

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