Why Does Papias Say that Mark’s Gospel is “Not in Order”?

Papias of Hierapolis, writing 95-110 AD [1], is one of our most important witnesses to Gospel authorship. Our present concern is what he says about the Gospel of Mark: 

The presbyter used to say this also: “Mark became Peter’s interpreter and wrote down accurately, but not in order, all that he remembered of the things said and done by the Lord. For he had not heard the Lord or been one of his followers, but later, as I said, a follower of Peter. Peter used to teach as the occasion demanded, [2] without giving systematic arrangement to the Lord’s sayings, so that Mark did not err in writing down some things just as he recalled them…” [3]

Curiously, Papias says that Mark wrote οὐ… τάξει—“not in order”. This statement is often misunderstood, even by scholars. Colin Humphreys, for example, concluding that Mark places the temple clearing on the wrong occasion (a controversy I discuss here), adds that “it is worth noting that Papias states that Mark narrates the events of Jesus’s ministry in the wrong order.” [4] 

The faulty assumption here is that τάξις is referring to chronological order. [5] More likely, however, τάξις refers not to chronology but to literary arrangement. 

This understanding of τάξις appears in the writings of the rhetorical schools. [6] For example, Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his critique of Thucydides writes: “Some blame his τάξις on the grounds that he did not adopt the proper beginning for his history, or give it its proper conclusion.” A proper beginning, writes Dionysus, is “a point which nothing could possibly precede”, and a proper conclusion is “an ending which is felt to have nothing lacking.” [7]

Alistair Stewart-Sykes also notes that ancient historians often used different words when referring to chronology, citing Philostratus’s appraisal of Apollonius’s accuracy τοῖς δὲ χρόνοις. [8] 

Understanding τάξις to refer to literary arrangement rather than chronology also explains why Papias says that Matthew “arranged together [συνετάξατο]” the logia of Jesus in the Hebrew language. Here here is contrasting the two Gospels — Matthew has “order” and Mark’s doesn’t — even though they are similar chronologically. Papias probably had Matthew’s birth narrative in mind as something that constituted a “proper beginning”. [9] F. H. Colson gives five reasons Papias might have affirmed Matthew’s τάξις but not Mark’s: “...(1) his abrupt beginning, (2) his incomplete ending, (3) his habit of emphasizing trivial points and occasionally dealing inadequately with important ones, (4) the comparative absence of set speeches, (5) his inferior grouping, presents a complete contrast to the other.” [10] 

Thus, for Papias, a resident of Asia Minor, Mark’s gospel was “not in order” with respect to the kind of literary arrangement expected by the rhetorical schools. There is nothing to suggest that he has chronological arrangement in mind. There is especially no reason to use Papias’s statement to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of Mark’s account. And if Papias himself made a mistake, it was not in what he reports concerning the origins of Mark’s Gospel, but in his imposition of the standards of Greek rhetoric onto the more Jewish and oral-tradition-oriented genre of Mark.  

Notes 

[1] See Robert Yarbrough, “The Date of Papias: A Reassessment.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 26, no. 2 (1983): 181-191.

[2] Or “Peter used to preach in anecdotal form” (πρὸς τὰς χρείας).

[3] Eusebius, The Church History 3.39. Trans. Paul Maier. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kroeger, 2007), 114.

[4] Colin Humphreys, “The Last Days of Jesus in John and the Synoptics”. In Glimpses of Jesus trough the Johannine Lens. Vol. 3 of John, Jesus, and History, eds. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, S. J., and Tom Thatcher. (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2016), 297.

[5] Richard Bauckham argues that “Papias did have chronological order in mind” from Papias’s statement that Mark “had not heard the Lord or been one of his followers, but later… a follower of Peter…” Papias says Mark’s non-eyewitness status excuses his Gospel’s lack of “order”, which, according to Bauckham, only makes sense if chronological order and not merely literary arrangement is in view: “There seems to be no reason why a non-eyewitness should not arrange traditions about Jesus in appropriate topical order.” Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), 221. But Papias is arguing that Mark, who followed Peter’s ad hoc preaching, could not have been there to witness the events which presumably would have contributed to a proper “order”. If I am correct that the lack of a birth narrative would be one of these events, then the argument does not hold.

[6] See F. H Colson, “Τάξει in Papias. (The Gospels and the Rhetorical Schools.)” The Journal of Theological Studies 14, no. 53 (1912): 62-69.

[7] On Thucydides 10. Trans. as found in Colson, “Τάξει in Papias”, 65.

[8] Alistair Stewart-Sykes, “Τάξει in Papias: Again.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3, no. 4, (1995): 489.

[9] Trans. Dean Furlong, “Theodore of Mopsuestia: New Evidence for the Proposed Papian Fragment in Hist. eccl. 3.24.5-13.” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 39.2 (2016): 217. I am assuming here that Papias is referring to the Gospel of Matthew of as we have it today, or at least a version of Matthew whose τάξις doesn’t vary substantially from our Greek text.

[10] Colson, “Τάξει in Papias”, 67.