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Gothenburg Papyrus 21 and the Coptic Version of the Letter to Abgar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2011

Herbert C. Youtie
Herbert C. Youtie
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

In the last number of the Harvard Theological Review I gave what I believe to be a definitive identification of the Gothenburg Papyrus 21. By way of demonstration I reproduced the text of the papyrus as reported by Frisk, with textual corrections and illustrative restorations of my own. I appended to the text a discussion in which I sought to establish its relations to other Greek versions of the Letter to Abgar. In my desire to bring to the attention of scholars a new Greek version of the Letter, the text of which presents remarkable departures from the traditional Eusebian version, my examination was restricted to the better known Greek sources. A subsequent examination of four additional Greek specimens of the Letter and of all the copies of the Coptic version, while necessitating no essential modification of my conclusions, has revealed in the Gothenburg papyrus important textual filiations which I did not then suspect.

Type
Notes
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 1931 , pp. 61 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1931

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References

1 Frisk, Hjalmar, Papyrus grecs de la Bibliothèque Municipale de Gothembourg, Göteborg, 1929, p. 42Google Scholar. See also Gnomon, November 1930, p. 611.

2 In the course of experimenting with 1. 4 of the text, I allowed a grammatical inconsistency to escape my attention. The masculine participle διαυγάξ[ων, both there and in the subsequent discussion, should be corrected to the corresponding neuter διαύγαξ[oν.

3 R. Heberdey, Jahreshefte des österreichischen archäologischen Institutes in Wien, III, 1900, Beiblatt 2, cols. 90 ff.

4 Journal of Hellenic Studies, XX, 1900, p. 157.

5 Athenaeum, Sept. 5, 1885, p. 304.

6 Athenaeum, Oct. 17, 1885, p. 506.

7 See Harvard Theological Review, October 1930, p. 300.

8 E. Drioton, Revue de l'Orient Chrétien, 2d series, X (XX), pp. 307 ff. (On p. 308 ‘Regn. 55’ should be ‘Regn. 65.’ The final paragraph on p. 309 might prove misleading: ‘la lettre de Notre-Seigneur à Abgar’ should be ‘la lettre d'Abgar à Notre-Seigneur.’) An independent examination of the Coptic texts has shown me that Drioton was justified in speaking of the “unique version” of the Coptic Letter to Abgar. The relations of the Greek versions are more complex. However, a recent addition on the Coptic side has brought us a shorter text which ought to prove important for a closer estimate of the value of P Got 21.

9 Drioton, p. 319.

10 Migne, Patrologia Graeca, CX, 381.

11 Schwartz-Mommsen, Eusebius Werke, II, 1, p. 88. The text with French translation is given by Drioton, pp. 306 f.

12 Eusebius: γέγραπται γὰρ περὶ ἐμοῦ τοὺς ἑορακóτας με μὴ πιστεύσειν ἐν ἐμοί, καὶ ἴνα οὶ μὴ ἑορακóτες με αὐτοὶ πιστεύσωσι καὶ ξήσονται.

13 Drioton, p. 319.

14 This was the burden of my note in Harvard Theological Review, October 1930.

15 Drioton, p. 340.

16 Crum, W. E. and White, H. G. Evelyn, Monastery of Epiphanius at Thebes, New York, 1926, p. 11Google Scholar.

17 Drioton, pp. 318 ff.