The next question on which I will touch is the date of Papias, which has
a subordinate but rather important bearing upon the group of questions
with which he is connected.
I am by no means sure that the late date now commonly assigned to him is
right (c. 145-60, Harnack). It turns upon a statement in De Boor’s
fragment, supposed to be made by Papias, that some of those who were
raised from the dead by Christ lived till the time of Hadrian. A very
similar statement is quoted by Eusebius from the _Apology of Quadratus_
(_H. E._ iv. 3, 2). I suspect that there has been some confusion at work
here. Experience shows that nothing is commoner than for the same story
to be referred to different persons. In the case of Quadratus we have
his own words in black and white, whereas the attribution to Papias is
vague and may be only a slip of memory[83]. On the other hand Irenaeus
expressly calls Papias ‘one of the ancients’ (ἀρχαῖος ἀνήρ), a phrase
that I do not think he would have used of a time so near his own as
145-60. Besides, when we look into the great passage, Eus. _H. E._ iii.
39, the standpoint appears to be that, at latest of the third
generation, or more strictly where the second generation is passing into
the third, if we suppose that Aristion and the Presbyter John were still
alive. The natural date for the extracts in this chapter seems to me to
be _circa_ 100.