None of his works bear his name in full; his initials were mystically interpreted as standing for Homo Novus.
Not improbably the sealing means to our author the preservation not from death, but through death from unfaithfulness, and the number 144,000 would signify mystically the entire body of true Christians, which formed the true people of God.
In his poems he mystically utilizes the connexion of the name with the same word meaning "wine-cup."
The Egyptian Pharaohs of the XVIIIth dynasty had likewise been proclaimed mystically sons of this god, who, it was asserted, had impregnated the queenmother; and on occasion wore the ram's horns of Ammon, even as Alexander is represented with them on coins.
Papias was also a pioneer in the habit, later so general, of taking the work of the Six Days (Hexaemeron) and the account of Paradise as referring mystically to Christ and His Church (so says Anastasius of Sinai).
