Thus employed therefore, the term 'presbyters' or 'elders' denotes not office, but authority and antiquity [146:1]. It is equivalent to 'the ancient' or 'primitive worthies' [146:2]. But at its last occurrence in the extract of Papias, where it is applied to the second John, this is apparently not the case. Here it seems to be an official title, designating a member of the order of the presbyterate. Though modern critics have stumbled over this two-fold sense of the word [Greek: presbuteros] in the same context, it would create no difficulty to the contemporaries of Papias, to whom 'the Presbyter John' must have been a common mode of designation in contradistinction to 'the Apostle John,' and to whom therefore the proper meaning would at once suggest itself. Instances are not wanting elsewhere in which this word is used with two senses, official and non-official, in the same passage [146:3].
Of the elders with whom Papias was personally acquainted, we can only name with certainty Aristion and the Presbyter John; but as regards these Eusebius is explicit. To them the Apostle John may perhaps be added, as we have seen, on the authority of Irenæus. Beyond these three names we have no authority for extending the list, though there is a possibility that in very early life he may have met with others, more especially Andrew and Philip, who are known to have lived in these parts. But, however this may be, it seems to follow from the words of his preface that his direct intercourse with these elders or personal disciples of the Lord had not been great. It was probably confined to the earlier part of his life, before he had any thought of writing his book; and the information thence derived was in consequence casual and fragmentary. When he set himself to collect traditions for this special purpose, he was dependent on secondary evidence, on the information collected from scholars and followers of these primitive elders.
We are now in a position to investigate the age of Papias; but, as a preliminary to this investigation, it is necessary to say something about the authority for the one definite date which is recorded in connection with him. In my article on Polycarp, I pointed out that recent investigations had pushed the date of this father's martyrdom several years farther back, and that some chronological difficulties attaching to the commonly received date had thus been removed [147:1]. A similar difficulty meets us in the case of Papias; and it disappears in like manner, as I hope to show, before the light of criticism. The _Chronicon Paschale_, which was compiled in the first half of the seventh century [147:2], represents Papias as martyred at Pergamum about the same time when Polycarp suffered at Smyrna, and places the event in the year 164. If this statement were true, we could hardly date his birth before A.D. 80, and even then he would have lived to a very advanced age. But there is a certain difficulty [147:3] in supposing that one born at this late date should have been directly acquainted with so many personal disciples of our Lord. No earlier writer however mentions the date, or even the fact, of the martyrdom--not even Eusebius, who has much to say both about Papias and about the martyrologies of this epoch; and this absence of confirmation renders the statement highly suspicious. I believe that I have traced the error to its source, which indeed is not very far to seek. The juxtaposition of the passage in this Chronicle with the corresponding passage in the History of Eusebius [148:1], will, if I mistake not, tell its own tale.