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An Early Papyrus of the First Gospel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Colin Roberts
Affiliation:
St. John's College, Oxford, England

Extract

I am indebted to Mr. Neil Ker for first drawing my attention to the presence of these small papyrus fragments in the Library of Magdalen College, Oxford, to the Librarian, Dr. C. T. Onions, for enabling me to study them, and to the President and Fellows of the College for permitting their publication.

The fragments were purchased by the Reverend Charles B. Huleatt in Luxor in 1901 and presented by him to his old College through the then Librarian, the Reverend H. A. Wilson. It is probable that there were further fragments of the same leaf since a letter by Mr. Huleatt to the Librarian refers to purchases of fragments from the same manuscript in successive years, but nothing beyond what is published below is now extant in the Library. The fragments were correctly identified by their purchaser, and assigned by him to the third century A.D.; a note in the Librarian's report for 1901 reads: “Mr. Huleatt supposes them to be of the third century; but Dr. Hunt who recently examined the fragments thinks they may be assigned with more probability to the fourth century.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1953

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References

1 See Roberts, C. H., The Christian Book and the Greek Papyri in Journal of Theological Studies, 1, (1949), pp. 162–3Google Scholar. (In 1. 4 of p. 163 for ‘fifth century’ read ‘third century’).

2 A Eusebian section also begins at this point.

3 See H. I. Bell—T. C. Skeat, Fragments of an Unknown Gospel, p. 6 and Bell, H. I. in Harvard Theological Review, XXXVII (1944), p. 201Google Scholar.

4 An exception is the first of the Oxyrhynchus Logia (P.Oxy. I, 1) for which they were prepared to envisage a date c. A.D. 200.

5 See Mallon, H. in Emerita, XVII (1949), pp. 18Google Scholar. M. Mallon gives reasons for dating the fragment to the late first or early second century.

6 The identification is recorded in P.Oxy. IV, p. 264. For a comment on the significance of this fragment see a forthcoming article of mine in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 40 (1954)Google Scholar.

7 W. Schubart, Griechische Paläographie, p. 136.

8 Id., abb. 93.

9 Facsimile in New Palaeographical Society, II, I, 76.