He [Papias] has also inserted in his work other accounts given by the above-mentioned Aristion,* respecting our Lord, as also the traditions of the Presbyter John;* to which referring those that are desirous of learning them, we shall now subjoin to the extracts from him, already given, a tradition which he sets forth concerning Mark, who wrote the Gospel, in the following words:
“And John the Presbyter also said this: Mark being the interpeter of Peter, whatsoever he recorded he wrote with great accuracy but not however, in the order in which it was spoken or done by our Lord, for he neither heard nor followed our Lord, but as before said, he was in company with Peter, who gave him such instruction as was necessary, but not to give a history of our Lord’s discourses: wherefore Mark has not erred in any thing, by writing some things as he has recorded them; for he was carefully attentive to one thing, not to pass by any thing that he heard, or to state any thing falsely in these accounts.”
Abridged.
From two passages (Book II.15 and Book III.39) in The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, translated (1850) by Isaac Boyle.
* Aristion is said to have been Bishop of Smyrna (modern İzmir, Turkey) and to have seen Jesus Christ with his own eyes.
* Papias claims to have been a companion of someone he calls John the Presbyter (or Elder, an ecclesiastical role). Evidently, some people took this to be a reference to John the Evangelist, for Eusebius, who had read Papias’s now lost book on the Apostles, took the trouble to say that he had received no impression that Papias knew any of the Apostles personally, and that this John was therefore someone else.
