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The term logia (), plural of logion (), is used variously in ancient writings and modern scholarship in reference to communications of divine origin. In pagan contexts, the principal meaning was "", while Jewish and Christian writings used logia in reference especially to "the divinely inspired Scriptures". A famous and much-debated occurrence of the term is in the account by Papias of Hierapolis on the origins of the canonical Gospels. Since the 19th century, New Testament scholarship has tended to reserve the term logion for a divine saying, especially one spoken by Jesus, in contrast to narrative, and to call a collection of such sayings, as exemplified by the Gospel of Thomas, logia.
The Septuagint adapted the term logion to mean "Word of God", using it especially for translating אּמְרַת (" imrah"). For example, at Psalms 12:6, the Hebrew text reads: אִֽמֲרֹ֣ות יְהוָה֮ אֲמָרֹ֪ות טְהֹ֫רֹ֥ות. The equivalent passage from the Septuagint (numbered as Psalms 11:7—see here for explanation of numbering), reads: τὰ λόγια Κυρίου λόγια ἁγνά. The King James version reads: "The words of the Lord are pure words."
In Philo, however, the entire Old Testament was considered the Word of God and thus spoken of as the logia, with any passage of Scripture, whatever its length or content, designated a logion; the sense of the word is the same as in the Septuagint, but applied broadly to inspired Scriptures. In this sense logia is used four times in the New Testament; ; ; . and often among the Church Fathers, who also counted the New Testament books among inspired Scripture.
From logia is distinguished a related word logoi ( λόγοι), meaning simply "words", often in contrast to práxeis ( πράξεις), meaning "deeds". Words spoken by Jesus are consistently designated as logoi in ancient documents. (2025). 9780800631499, Fortress Press. ISBN 9780800631499
On Mark, Papias cites John the Elder:
And the brief excerpt regarding Matthew says:
So, Papias uses logia in his title and once in regard to each Gospel. Eusebius, who had the complete text before him, understood Papias in these passages as referring to the canonical Gospels.
In the 19th century, however, scholars began to question whether this tradition actually refers to those texts, especially in the case of what Papias ascribes to Matthew. In 1832, Schleiermacher, believing Papias to be writing before these Gospels were regarded as inspired Scripture and before the formation of any New Testament canon, argued that logia could not be understood in its usual sense but must rather be interpreted as utterances ( Aussprüche), and that Papias was referring to collections of the sayings of Jesus. Soon afterwards, a new theory of the Synoptic problem emerged, the two-source hypothesis, positing that the double tradition in Matthew and Luke derived from a lost document containing mostly sayings of Jesus. Holtzmann's defense of this theory, which has dominated scholarship ever since, seized upon Schleiermacher's thesis and argued that Papias was attesting a Logienquelle ( logia-source), which he designated Λ (lambda). When later scholars abandoned the evidence of Papias as an argument, this hypothetical source came to be more neutrally designated as Q source (for Quelle), but the reinterpretation of the word logia already had firmly taken hold in scholarship.
Modern scholars are divided on what Papias actually meant, especially with regard to the logia he ascribes to Matthew, and what underlying historical facts this testimony alludes to. (1998). 082543811X, Kregel Publications. 082543811X Some see this logia as referring still to the Old Testament, thus a collection of prophecies and prooftexts regarding Jesus. Others still hold that Papias is speaking of a now-lost collection of sayings, noting that canonical gospel of Matthew is especially focused on the sayings of Jesus. Others, noting how in the account of Mark, the parallel to "things said or done by the Lord" requires the meaning of logia at least to be extended to deeds, see Papias as referring to some account more closely resembling the canonical Gospels. Still others hold that Papias was indeed referring to the canonical Gospels as we know them—arguably even using logia in the sense of Scriptures, and "dominical logia" as an early term for "Gospels"—and that the account of Papias thus amounts to our earliest testimony of their existence and recognition.
Another point of controversy surrounds the statement that Matthew wrote in the "Hebrew dialect", which in the Greek could refer to either Hebrew language or Aramaic language. Some, noting that "dialect" could mean not only language but also, in a technical sense, style, understand Papias to be referring to a Greek language gospel but written in a Semitic style. Others hold that Matthew wrote a Semitic-language work first, before producing a Greek recension recognized as canonical Matthew. Still others hold that whatever lost work Matthew allegedly wrote—whether a collection of sayings, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, or a prototype of canonical Matthew—was composed in Semitic but translated freely into Greek by others. And some regard Papias as simply mistaken and telling nothing of value.
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