SAYINGS of Jesus other than those in the Authorized Version of the New Testament are known as agrapha. That such sayings may be authentic is shown by the first four verses of the Gospel according to Luke and the last verse of the Gospel according to John. Incidentally, it is to be observed or remembered that not all of the Master's sayings in the New Testament are in the Gospels. There are others in Acts, and Paul has recorded two others, besides repeating another from Luke. (See I Corinthians 7:10; 11:24, 25; and I Timothy 5:18.)
Since the extracanonical sayings attributed to Jesus have been preserved in different ways, they also have different degrees of proof. In Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, one of the editors has given the opinion that of the agrapha extant now "it is only a small number that meet the tests of textual criticism, or satisfy the requirements of moral probability." The sayings quoted in this editorial are among those which appear to have been preserved in natural ways and are regarded as genuine.
On pages 178 and 179 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" Mrs. Eddy has expressed confidence in a treatise by Papias, containing sayings of Jesus, which he issued early in the second century. Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia (mentioned in Colossians 4:13), and one of the most prominent Christians of his time. His writing has been lost; only a few fragments have been preserved by later writers, chiefly by Eusebius, of Caesarea, in Palestine, another bishop, and famous as a historian. Part of what Eusebius quoted from Papias is especially interesting to Christian Scientists, because it included two marvels that were related to him by the daughters of Philip, the apostle. They told Papias that in their time the mother of Manaen (mentioned in Acts 13:1) was raised from the dead, and that Justus Barsabas (mentioned in Acts 1:23) drank a deadly poison and it did not hurt him.
