ST PAPIAS, BISHOP - 22 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 22nd of January

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST PAPIAS, BISHOP 

Saint Papias was one of the disciples of St John of Ephesus, but not of the apostle, but of a priest of the same name, and companion of St Polycarp.

HE WAS INSTRUCTED BY IMMEDIATE DISCIPLES OF JESUS

Because of the time when he lived he could still be instructed by immediate disciples of Jesus and by those who had associated with the apostles. 

"INTERPRETATIONS OF THE PROVERBS OF THE LORD"

He himself relates this to us in the preface to his five-book work, "Interpretations of the Proverbs of the Lord", of which the historian Eusebius preserved a fragment. 

"THE TEACHINGS THAT FLOWED FROM THE TRUTH ITSELF"

The words of St Papias are these: It will not annoy me to record what I have learned from my Elders and to remember them, with their interpretations, in order to confirm the truth of what they have handed down. I did not delight in those who spoke much, as many did, but in those who taught truth; not in those who brought foreign news, but in those who made known the teachings handed down by faith and which flowed from the truth itself. 

ADHERENCE TO THE APOSTOLIC TRADITION SAVED HIM FROM GOING ASTRAY

In his "Interpretation of the Proverbs of the Lord" he recorded everything he had heard and added his own comments. Only the living doctrine of the Church and his faithful adherence to the apostolic tradition saved him from going astray. 

If he had not absolutely believed their statements, the research of the Scriptures, especially the reading of the Apocalypse, would have become harmful even to him, the disciple of the disciples of the apostles.

THE FULL TRUTH CANNOT BE EXTRACTED FROM SCRIPTURE ALONE

"What I found in the books," he writes, "seemed to be less useful to me than what I learned from the living Word." 

So he is venerable to us as the earliest and most credible witness that the full truth cannot be extracted from Scripture on its own.

THE DATE OF THE TRANSLATION OF HIS RELICS

[St Papias died around A.D. 100.] St Jerome ascribes to Papias the title of saint as early as the fourth century. Some sixth-century Greek writers call him a martyr, although nothing is known of the manner of his death. January 22 is the date of the translation of his relics.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858)