This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
at |http : //books . google . com/
X
"m
i .1
i. '
'« )
; I'
I i
:b5
/^
.^\ ^ ^.^ L^>
k
NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
AND
FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL
GRENFELL AND HUNT
jo z^^^-.mr' . ,,.^^
■Vol'
■M
NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND
GRAECO-ROMAN BRANCH
rwUx ,\f\.T,
Q^ot'wAvVvftA VvvW. Ccr«u.e* j
lAOt*^.
NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
AND
FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL
FROM OXYRHYNCHUS
EDITED, WITH TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY,
BERNARD P^RENFELL, D.Litt., M.A.
, HON. LITT.D., DUBLIN; HON. PH.D., KOENIGSBERG
FELLOW OF QUEEN'S|COLLEGB, OXFORD
ARTHUR S.'^HUNT, D.Litt., M.A.
HON. PH.D.. KOENIGSBERG; FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD
WITH ONE PLATE
AND
THE TEXT OF THE 'LOGIA' DISCOVERED IN 1897
rmiSD IMPRESSION
PUBLISHED FOR THE EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND BY
HENRY FROWDE
AMEN CORNER, LONDON, E.C
1904
OXFORD
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
PREFACE
The present edition of the New Sayings of Jesus and
Fragment of a lost Gospel is reprinted with some alterations,
principally by way of abridgement, from the publication of
the two texts in The 0:>cyrhynchus Papyri, Part IV, nos. 654
and 655, where a fuller discussion of the more technical
points will be found, as well as coUotjrpe reproductions
of both fragments. The ' Logia * discovered in 1897
(AOriA IHCOY, Sayings of our Lord) are reprinted from
the revised text and translation given in The Oxyrhynchus
Papyri^ Part I, no. 1.
BERNARD P. GRENFELL.
ARTHUR S. HUNT.
Oxford,
April 1904.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface 5
I. New Sayings of Jesus :
(a) Introduction 9
ib) Text 10
(c) The Sayings with Translations and Notes . 11
(d) General Rebiarks 19
II. The 'Logia' discovered m 1897 35
III. Fragment of a lost Gospel:
(a) Introduction 37
(b) Text 38
(c) Translation and Notes 40
(d) General Remarks • 42
I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
(a) INTRODUCTION.
Our first excavations in 1897 on the site of Oxyrhynchus, one
of the chief cities of ancient Egypt, situated on the edge of the
western desert 120 miles south of Cairo, were rewarded by the
discovery of a very large collection of Greek papyri dating from
the first to the seventh century of the Christian era. Of the
numerous theological and classical texts which were then brought
to light, none aroused wider interest than a page from a book
containing Sayings of Jesus and published by us under the
title AOriA IHCOY, Sayings of our Lord. After an interval of six
years, during which we were principally engaged in the search
for documents of the first three centuries b.c. in the Fayflm, we
returned in February 1903 to Oxyrhynchus, with a view to an
exhaustive examination of what has been on the whole the
richest site in Egypt for papyri. This process of clearing the
numerous mounds on a large scale has already resulted in
further important discoveries, but will necessarily be both long
and costly in the case of a town which is more than a mile in
length ; and after the termination of a third season's work there,
the end is still far from being in sight.
By a curious stroke of good fortune our second excavations at
Oxyrhynchus were, like the first, signalized by the discovery of
a fragment of a collection of Sayings of Jesus. This consists of
forty-two incomplete lines on the back of a survey-list of various
pieces of land (see Frontispiece). The survey-list, which was
written in a cursive hand of the end of the second or early part
of the third century before the back of the papyrus came to be
used, provides a terminus a quo for the writing on the other side.
This, which is an upright informal imcial of medium size, we
should assign to the middle or end of the third century ; a later
date than a.d. 300 is most unlikely. The present text is therefore
nearly contemporary with the 'Logia* papyrus discovered in
1897, which also belongs to the third century, though probably
to an earlier decade. In its general style and arrangement the
present series of Sayings offers great resemblance to its prede-
cessor. Here, as in the earlier ' Logia,' the individual Sayings
lo I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
are introduced by the formula 'Jesus saith/ and there is the
same mingling of new and familiar elements ; but the second
series of Sayings is remarkable for the presence of the intro-
duction to the whole collection (11. 1-5), and another novelty is
the fact that one of the Sayings (11. 36 sqq.) is an answer to
a question, the substance of which is reported (11. 32-6). It is
also noticeable that while in the first series the Sayings had little
if any connexion of thought with each other, in the second series
the first four at any rate are all concerned with the Kingdom
of Heaven. That the present text represents the beginning of
a collection which later on included the original ' Logia ' is very
probable ; this and the other general questions concerning the
papyrus are discussed on pp. 19-34.
Excluding the introduction, there are parts of five separate
Sayings. The single column of writing is complete at the top,
but broken at the bottom and also vertically, causing the loss of
the ends of lines throughout. From 11. 7-8, 15, 25, and 30,
which can be restored with certainty from extant parallel
passages, it appears that the lacunae at the ends of lines range
from twelve to sixteen or at most eighteen letters, so that of each
line, as far as 1. 33, approximately only half is preserved. The
introduction and the first and fourth Sayings admit of an almost
complete reconstruction which is nearly or quite conclusive, but
in the second, third, and fifth, which are for the most part
entirely new, though the general sense may often be caught, the
restorations are, except in a few lines, rather hazardous. The
difiiculties caused by the lacunae are enhanced by the careless-
ness of the scribe himself, who makes several clerical errors; in
two cases (11. 19 and 25) words which were at first omitted have
been added by him over the line.
(b) TEXT.
We proceed now to the text, giving first a transcription of the
papyrus and then a reconstruction in modem form. Square
brackets [] indicate a lacuna, round brackets () the resolution of
an abbreviation, angular brackets <) a mistaken omission in the
original, braces {} a mistaken addition. Dots within brackets
represent the approximate number of letters lost ; dots outside
brackets indicate letters of Which illegible traces remain. In the
accompanying translation supplements which are not practically
certain are enclosed in round brackets.
I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS ii
24-4 X 7-8 cm.
01 TOIOI 01 AOrOI 01 [ OYK AHOKMHCei ANe[
AHC€N mc ZCON K[ Pa)N €n€PCOTHC€ nA[
KAI eCOMA KAI €in€N [ PCON n€PI TOY TOHOY TH[
AN TON AOrCON TOYT[ OTI
5 OY MH reYCHTAI Jlh^ [ 25 C€T€ HOAAOI €CONTAl n[
MH HAYCACeO) ZH[ 01 €CXATOI HPCOTOI KAI [
€YPH KAI OTAN €YPH [ CI N A€r€l (HC 3^ . [
BHOeiC BACIAeYCH KA[ 0€N THC OYECOC COY KAI [
HC6TAI i^ Aerei l[ AHO coy AnOKAAYct>HC€T[
10 01 €AKONTeC HmC [ 30 TIN KPYHTON OY <t)AN?[
H BACIA€IA €N OYPA[ KAI e€0AMM€NON 0[
TA n€T€INA TOY OYP[
Tl VnO THN THN €CT[ t- .]€TAZOYCIN AYTON 0[
01 rXBYeC THC eAAA[ [. .jrOYCIN nCOC NHCT€Y[
X5 T€C YMAC KAI H BAC[ [ JMCGA KAI HOC [
€NTOC YMCON [.]?TI [ 35 [ ]AI Tl HAPATHPHq
TNO) TAYTHN €YPH[ [ ]N >- A6r€l iHC[
€AYTOYC TNCOCeCGAI [ [. ]€ITAI MH HOieiJE
?M€IC [. ]HC AAHOeiAC AN[
eCTe TOY nATPOC toy T[ i JN A[.]0K€KP[
20 TNcacee caytoyc €ti[ 40 [ ]kapi[. .] ecTiN [
KAI ¥M€IC eCTe HHTQE [. • J^ €CT[
[ ]!N[
(c) THE SAYINGS WITH TRANSLATIONS
AND NOTES.
Introduction. U. 1-5.
{ot\ TOioi ot X6yoi ol [ ot^ iXd-
Xfl(r€v ^Iri{(jov)s i C&v i^pios ?
Kol &c^ii^ Kal dir^v [abroi^* ftas B<ms
dv T&v X&ywv Toih[ci>p dKo^aij Bavdrov
5 oi iitj y€6<niTai.
'These are the (wonderful P) words which Jesus the living
(Lord) spake to • • . and Thomas, and he said unto (them).
Every one that hearkens to these words shall never taste
of death.'
12 I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
The general sense of the introduction is clear, and most of
the restorations are fairly certain. In 1. i an adjective such as
'wonderful' is necessary after ot [• For 'shall never taste
of death ' cf. Matt. xvi. 28, Mark ix. i, Luke ix. 27, and especially
John viii. 52 ' If a man keep my word, he shall never taste of
death.' In these passages of the Synoptists ' taste of death '
simply means ' die ' in the literal sense ; but here no doubt, as
in the passage in St. John, the phrase has the deeper and
metaphorical meaning that those who obey Christ's words and
attain to the kingdom reach a state unaffected by the death of
the body. The beginning of 1. i requires some correction,
oi TOMM ot Xoyot ot being extremely ugly. The corruption of oSrot
into ot rotot is not very likely, and since roios is found in late
prose writers for rotoo-Se, the simplest course is to omit the initial
ot. The restoration of 1. 2 presents the chief diflSculty. K[vpto9
is very doubtful; i^cu followed by e.g. airoOaviSiv ('Jesus who
liveth, though dead') is equally likely, and several of the
possible supplements at the end of the line require a longer
word than i^vfnxys to precede. Another dative before 'and to
Thomas' is required, and three alternatives suggest them-
selves : — (i) a proper name, in which case Philip or Matthias
is most likely to have been coupled with Thomas. Apocryphal
Gospels assigned to Thomas, Philip, and Matthias are known,
and in the second or third century Gnostic work called Pistis
Sophia 70-1 Philip, Thomas, and Matthias are associated
as the recipients of a special revelation ; (2) a phrase such as
'to the other disciples' (so Dr. Bartlet, cf. 1. 32 and John xx. 26
' his disciples were within and Thomas with them ') ; (3) 'Iov8^
T<g] Kat ©co/i^, suggested by Professor Lake, who compares the
frequent occurrence of the double name 'Judas also called
Thomas' in the Acts of Thomas. The uncertainty attaching
to the restoration is the more unfortunate, since much depends
on it. If we adopt the first hypothesis, Thomas has only
a secondary place ; but on either of the other two he occupies
the chief position, and this fact would obviously be of great
importance in deciding the origin of the Sayings.
There is a considerable resemblance between the scheme of
!!• i-3> ' the words . . . which Jesus spake . . . and he said/ and
the formulae employed in introducing several of the earliest
citations of our Lord's Sayings, particularly First Epistle of
Clement 13 'especially remembering the words of the Lord
I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS 13
Jesus which he spake in his teaching ... for thus he said/
Acts XX. 35 'and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus how
he himself said.* Dr. Rendel Harris had ah-eady (Contemp. Rev.
ifi97> PP- 34^S) suggested that those formulae were derived
from the introduction of a primitive collection of Sayings known
to Sl Paul, Clement of Rome, and Polycarp, and this theory
gains some support from the parallel aflForded by the introduction
in the new Sayings.
First Saying. U. 5-9.
5 [Xeyci 'Ir^aoS)r
/lij nay<rd<r6(!0 i (rfj&v €a>f div
'Jesus saith. Let not him who seeks . • • cease until he
finds, and when he finds he shall be astonished ; astonished
lie shall reach the kingdom, and having reached the kingdom
lie shall rest.'
The conclusion of this Saying is quoted from the Gospel
according to the Hebrews by Clement of Alexandria {Strom.
ii. 9. 45) ' as it is also written in the Gospel according to the
Hebrews "He that wonders shall reach the kingdom, and
having reached the kingdom he shall rest."* In Strom, v.
14. 96 Clement quotes the Saying in a fuller and obviously
more accurate form which agrees almost exactly with the
papyrus, but without stating his source : — ' He who seeks shall
not cease until he finds, and when he finds he shall be
astonished, and being astonished he shall reach the kingdom,
and having reached the kingdom he shall rest.* The word
after {i^tw in 1. 6, to which there is nothing corresponding in
the Clement quotation, is very likely the object of 'seek,*
perhaps t^ iowyv, i. e. (eternal) ' life.* The purpose to which
Clement turns the passage from the Gospel according to the
Hebrews is to support the Platonic view that the beginning
of knowledge is wonder at external objects, but this interpre-
tation is clearly far removed from the real meaning of the
Saying.
14 I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
The opening sentence ' Let not him who seeks . . . cease
until he finds ' is parallel to Matt. vi. 33 * But seek ye first the
kingdom/ and vii. 7 'Seek and ye shall find'; cf. too the
and Logion ' Except ye fast to the world ye shall in no wise
find the kingdom of God.' The idea of the necessity for
strenuous effort in order to attain to the kingdom has also much
in common with the 5th Logion ('Raise the stone and there
thou shalt find. me*). The precise meaning of 'astonished * in
the second and third sentences, 'when he finds he shall be
astonished ; astonished he shall reach the kingdom/ has been
a matter of dispute; but, as Professor Harnack has recently
shown, the nearest parallel is Matt. xiii. 44 ' The kingdom of
Heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field, which a man
found and hid .; and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he
hath, and buyeth that field.* Astonishment therefore is to be
interpreted as a sign not of fear but of joy ; cf. the use of Odfifio^
for joyful astonishment in Luke v. 9 ' He (sc. Peter) was amazed
and all that were with him at the draught of the fishes.* With
the clause ' astonished he shall reach the kingdom/ i. e. reign
with the Messiah, cf. the promise to the disciples in Matt. xix. 28
' Verily I say unto you that ye which have followed me in the
regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of
his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the
twelve tribes of Israel.* For 'shall rest* cf. Matt. xi. 28-9
' I will give you rest ... ye shall find rest unto your souls.*
Both the language and thought of this Saying thus have marked
parallels in the Gospels, and there are several references to it
in early Christian literature, the most notable being in the
Second Epistle of Clement v. 5 'The promise of Christ is
great and wonderful and rest in the kingdom to come and life
eternal,* and in the Acts of Thomas (ed. Bonnet, p. 243) ' They
who worthily partake of the goods of that world have rest,
and in rest shall reign.* While the picturesque and forcible
character of thfe Saying is undeniable, very different views have
been taken concerning the genuineness of it, as is t;he case with
most of the uncanonical Sayings ascribed to our Lord ; but the
tendency of recent criticism has been to assign it a very high
place among the Sayings which do not rest on the authority
of the Gospels, and HarnAck accepts it as substantially a true
Saying of Jesus,
s
I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS 15
Second Saying, 11. 9-21,
Xeyei 'I[ri{aov9' TiVey
10 0/ eX/coi/res fjfi&s [eh rfjv PaaiKetav d
fj Pacrikua kv ovpa[v^ icrriv ;
ret TreTHyic rod ovp[avov koI t&v 6rip(cov 6-
Ti iirb T^i' yrjv ^(^[lu 1j iwl TrJ9 yrj^ Kal
ol lx6iJ€9 rfjs 6a\d[<r(n]9 odroc ol tKKov^'
15 T€y i/id^i Kal fi Pa<r[i\€ia t&v oipav&v
kvrhs ifi&v [ejcrn [koI ocrns &y iavrbu
yv& ravrrju eiptjlaei •.
iavTois yp6a€<r$€ [Kal elSrjarere 8ti viol
tare ifieis rod irarphs tov r[. , » . .
20 yi/cia'(^€a)6e iavToi>9 €p[
Kal i €L9 karl fi7rTo[. ...
'Jesus saith, (Ye ask? who are those) that draw us (to
ttie kingdom, if) the kingdom is in Heaven P . . . the fowls of
tiie air, and all beasts that are under the earth or upon the
earth, and the fishes of the sea, (these are they which draw)
you, and the kingdom of Heaven is within you ; and who-
ever shall know himself shall find it. (Strive therefore P) to
know yourselves, and ye shall be aware that ye are the
sons of the (almighty P) Father; (andp) ye shall know that
ye are in (the city of God P), and ye are (the city P).'
The reconstruction of this, the longest and most important of
the Sayings, is extremely difficult. Beyond the supplements in
1- ^5; which are based on the parallel in Luke xvii. 21 with the
substitution of ' kingdom of Heaven/ St. Matthew's phrase, for
St. Luke's ' kingdom of God ' which is too short for the lacuna,
and those in 11. 12-13, i6, and 18, the general accuracy of which
is guaranteed by the context, it is impossible to proceed without
venturing into the region of pure conjecture. There seems to
be no direct parallel to or trace of this Saying among the other
non-canonical Sayings ascribed to our Lord, and the materials
provided by 11. 10-12 — 'they that draw,' the kingdom of Heaven
and the fowls of the air — are at first sight so disparate that the
recovery of the connexion between them may seem a hopeless
task. But though no restoration of 11. 9-14 can hope to be very
i6 I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
convincing, we think that a fairly good case can be ipade out in
favour of our general interpretation. The basis of it is the close
parallelism which we have supposed to exist between 1. 15 t€s
vfm^ KCLL 17 l3qbo{iX€ia rcuv ovpavSiv and, on the other hand, L 10 oc
€X#covT€s 17/Aas followed in 1. 11 by ^ fiaxriXeia €v ovpa[v% whereby we
restore ol IXkov-] at the end of 1. 14. If this be granted 11. 9-16
divide themselves naturally into two parallel halves at the lacuna
in 1. II, 11. 9-10 corresponding to 11. 12-15, ^^^ 1. 11 to 11. 15-16.
How is this correspondence to be explained? The simplest
solution is to suppose that 11. 9-1 1 are a question to which
11. 12-16 form the answer ; hence we supply nW in 1. 9 ; cf. the
5th Saying, which is an answer to a question. A diflSculty then
arises that we have ' draw us * in 1. 10 but ' draw you ' in 11. 14-15.
This may be a mere accident due to the common confusion of
v/it€ts and i7fi€ts in pap3ni of this period, and perhaps 'you ' should
be read in both cases. But 'us* in 1. 10 can be defended in
two ways, by supposing either that Jesus here lays stress rather
on His human than on His divine nature, and associates
Himself with the disciples, or that the question is put into the
mouth of the disciples, i. e. the word before 'who' was 'ye ask *
or the like. There remains, however, the greatest crux of all,
the meaning of ' draw.* A favourable sense is here much more
likely than the reverse ; cf. John vi. 44 ' No man can come to me
except the Father which sent me draw him,* and xii. 32 ' I will
draw all men unto myself.* A phrase such as 'to the kingdom '
is required to explain 'draw,* though even with this addition the
use of that word in such a context must be admitted to be
diflBcult. The idea in 11. 12-16 seems to be that the divine
element in the world begins in the lower stages of animal
creation, and rises to a higher stage in man, who has within him
the kingdom of Heaven ; cf. Clement's discussion (Strom, v. 13)
of Xenocrates* view that even irrational creatures possibly had
some notion of the Divine, and the curious sanctity of certain
animals in the various Apocryphal Acts, e. g. Thecla's baptized
lioness, Thomas*s ass, Philip's leopard and kid buried at the
door of the church. The transition from the inward character
of the kingdom to the necessity for self-knowledge (11. 16-21) is
natural. Since the kingdom is not an external manifestation
but an inward principle, men must know themselves in order to
attain to its realization. The old Greek proverb ' know thyself*
is thus given a fresh significance. Mr. Badham well compares i
1. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS 17
* Clement, Paedag, iii. i ' It is then, as it appears, the greatest
i«jf all lessons to know one's self. For if a man knows himself
Jfc(e will know God/ For 'sons,' which is required by the
^ntext in 1. 18, cf . e. g. Luke xx. 36 ' they are . . . sons of God.*
'.iwt the end of 1. 19 tt can be read in place of r : the word is
frobably an adjective, possibly 7r[aKTo*cpaTopo9. rjfwr^ in 1. 21 is
lery obscure, and it is tempting to read 17 w:{t}o[^s, with iv [r^
' idXci tov Bidu in 1. 20, as Professor Blass suggests, comparing for
("the omission of ovras Mark vi. 20 etSois avrov avSpa StKotov.
Third Saying. U. 21-7.
[ Xeyci *lTi(a'ov)r
oifK i'iroKvri<T€i £v6[pOD7ros
fxoy iir^poarriaai Tra[
poav wept TOV roTTOV Trj[9 •
35 a'€T€ Sti iroWol iaovrai 7r(p5ro« €<r\aToi kol
ol ia^aTOi Trp&roi Kai [
' Jesus saith, A man shall not hesitate ... to ask . • •
]v6t>nceming his place (in the kingdom. Ye shall know) that
mainy that are first shall be last and the last first and (they
lihall have eternal life P)/
Line 24 may well have continued rrj[s fiaxriXeCas followed by
I word meaning ' know ' ; but iri the absence of a clear parallel
ve forbear to restore the earlier part of the Saying. Lines 25-6
hollow Mark x. 31 (= Matt. xix. 30) ' Many that are first shall be
last, and the last first.* Luke xiii. 30 is rather longer, ' There
ire last which shall be first and there are first which shall be
St.* a-Lv in 1. 27 is no doubt the termination of a verb : for
I' shall have eternal life' cf. John iii. 16, 36, v., 24, &c.
Fourth Saying. U. 27-31.
Xiy€i *Itf{a'ov)s' [nau rh 11^ HfiTrpoo'-
Bev TrJ9 Syjrecos (rov fcal [ri K€Kpvfifi€vov
dirh (rod diroKaXuif>(ff)'/ja€7[a( aou oi ydp ear
30 riv Kpvwrhv t ou <f>av^phu y^vrfa^rak
Koi T€$aniihoy h o[iK iycpOrja-eTat.
B
i8 I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
^ Jesus saith, Everything that is not before thy face aiitd
that which is hidden from thee shall be revealed to the a
For there is nothing hidden which shall not be made
manifest, nor buried which shall not be raised/
The sense of this Saying is clear, and the supplements ape
fairly certain. Lines 29-30 are parallel to Matt. x. 26 'FV
there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hid that
shall not be known ' ; Luke xii. 2 ' But there is nothing covered
up that shall not be revealed, and hid that shall not be known';
cf. Mark iv. 22 ' For there is nothing hid save that it should be
manifested, neither was anything made secret but that it should
come to light/ In general arrangement; the papyrus agrees with
the versions of Matthew and Luke perhaps more than with that
of Mark ; but the language of the first half of the sentence is
much closer to St. Mark's (whose expression ' save that it should
be manifested' instead of the. more pointed 'which shall not be
manifested * suggests the hand of an editor), while that of the
second half diverges from all three. ' Buried ' makes a more
forcible contrast to ' hidden * than the corresponding word in
the Synoptists, which is merely a synonym for 'hidden.' Instead
of 'shall be raised ' a more general expression such as ' shall be
made known ' can be supplied ; but this detracts from the
picturesqueness of what is in any case a striking variation of
a well-known Saying.
Fifth Saying. U. 32-42.
[€^]€r<£^oi;<r«' airov c[l /laOrjTot airov Kal
[Xi]yov<riP' ttSs v7jaT€v[(T0ii€v Kal ir&s ...
[ ]ii^6a Kal ttSs [. ,
35 [. . . . K]al t( irapaTi]prja-[o/i€u §
[ ]v; \ey€i 'Ii](a'ov)9' [
[ ]€lTai /ifj 7rOl€TT[€
[. . . . .]rj9 d\rf$€ia9 dv[.
[ y d['n']OK€Kf{v
40 [ iia]Kdpi[6s] iarii/ [
[ ]a> €(n[i
[■ ]'"[
I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS 19
'His disciples question him and say, How shall we fast
l^nd how shall we (prayP) • • • and what (commandment)
^hall we keep • • • Jesus saith, • • • do not • • • of truth • • •
]>lessed is he . • /
i Though this Saying is broken beyond hope of recovery, its
General drift may be caught. It clearly differed from the other
payings, both in this papyrus and the first series of Logia,
■jn having a preliminary paragraph giving the occasion, which
|eems to be a question put by the disciples. This question
ijconsisted of a number of short sentences,, each beginning with
f how' or 'what,' and so far as can be judged, they were con-
i^erned with the outward forms of religion^ fasting, prayer, and
^Imsgiving. How far, it was probably asked, are existing Jewish
t)rdinances to be kept ? The answer of Jesus appears to have
. J|)een a series of short commandments insisting on the inner
iide of religion as the pursuit of virtue and truth, and very
(kely concluding in 1. 40 with the promise * Blessed is he who
(^oeth these things.' If this explanation is on the right lines,
Ihere is a general parallelism between this Saying and Matt.
'j^ix. 16-22 and Luke xviii. 18-22 (the answer to the question
What shall I do to inherit eternal life?'). The reference to
asting in I. 33 suggests a connexion with the 2nd Logion
Except ye fast to the world '), which may well have been an
nswer to a similar question by the disciples.
(rf) GENERAL REMARKS.
We do not propose to enter upon a detailed examination
f the numerous and complicated problems involving the
nonical and Apocryphal Gospels and the 'Logia' of 1897,
hich are reopened by the discovery of the new Sayings. But
e may be permitted to indicate the broader issues at stake,
d in the light of the wide discussion of the Logia of 1897
point out some effects of the new elements now introduced
Lto the controversy.
We start therefore with a comparison of the two series of
ayings, which we shall henceforth call jLjt he new Sayings)
d 2 (the * Logia ' found in 1897). Both were found on the
e site and the pap3rri are of approximately the same date,
hich is not later than about the middle of the third century,
that both collections must go back at least to the second
B2
so
I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
m
:<ie
►
Since jid
•^ of th
pnninL ^
century. The outward appearance of the two papjrri is indee
different, 2 being a leaf from a handsomely-written book, whic^**"
may well have been a valuable trade-copy, while 1 is in ro. "
form and was written on the back of a comparatively trivia
document. The practice of writing important literary text
on such material was, however, extremely common, and thj'^
form of 1 lends no support to the h3rpothesis that the papynri^j.
is a collection of notes made by the writer himself. In thj^^^^
uncial character of the handwriting, the absence of abbreviation!^
and contractions other than those usually found in ear^ > .
theological MSS., and the careful punctuation, 1 shares tli^^
characteristics of an ordinary literary text such as 2. Since
is the nth page of a book, it must have formed part
large collection of Sayings, while 1 comes from the beginni ^^
of a manuscript and provides no direct evidence of the lengtj •
of the roll. But the document on the other side is not a lettai j
or contract which would be likely to be short, but an offici(|^
land-survey list, and these tend to be of very great kngthi.
so far therefore as can be judged from externals, 1 like l
probably belongs to an extensive collection of Sayings whic •
may well have numbered several hundreds. , ,
Turning next to the contents of the two papyri, no one cai i^
fail to be struck with their formal resemblance. Postponing
for the moment the introduction of 1 (11. 1-5), which, since ^
necessarily presupposes the existence of the Sayings introduce
and may have been added later, stands on a different fobtin
from the Sayings and requires separate treatment, the fi\|
Sayings partly recorded in 1 begin like those in 2 with tH
plain formula 'Jesus saith'; and both fragments contd
Sayings which to a greater or less degree have parallel passagd
in the Sjmoptic Gospels side by side with Sa3rings which at
new. In 2 the style was simple and direct, and the settinj
with the constant balancing of the words and sentences ai|
the absence of connecting particles, highly archaic ; the sanj
features, though obscured unfortunately by the incompletenej
of the pap3mis, are also distinctly traceable in 1. There i
however, one difference in the two papyri in point of forr
To the 5th Saying in 1 (11. 36 sqq.) is prefixed ^' 32-6) a bri
account of the question to which it was the answer ; but th|
is the exception, not the rule, and the fact that ^^ Sayings In
agree with the first four Sayings in 1 in oxxv^^i^^^ ^^ conte
I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
21
ather than with the 5th obviously produces no serious conflict
etween the two documents.
We proceed to a closer examination of the two series. In 2
he 7th Logion ('A city built on a hill') is connected with
t. Matthew's Gospel alone ; the 6th ('A prophet is not accept-
ble ') has a marked point of contact with St Luke in the use of
he word 'acceptable/ and the ist also agrees with St. Luke. The
th (' Wherever there are ') starts with a parallel to St. Matthew,
ut extends into a region far beyond. Nowhere in 2 can the
hfluence of St. Mark be traced, nor was there any direct parallel
ith St. John's Gospel ; but the new matter, both in thought
nd expression, tended to have a mystical and Johannine cha-
acter. In 1 we have one Saying (the 2nd) of which the central
dea is parallel to a passage found in St. Luke alone, but of
vhich the developments are new ; the conclusion of the 3rd
Saying connects with St. Matthew and St. Mark rather than
with St Luke, while the 4th is a different version of a Saying
found in all three Synoptists, and is on the whole nearer to
•t, Mark than to the other two Evangelists. The ist Sa3ring
d, so far as we can judge, the 5th have little^ if any, point of
ntact with the Canonical Gospels. As in 2, so in 1 the new
Hements tend to have a Johannine colouring, especially in
^e 2nd Saying ; and though the Sayings in 1 contain nothing
markedly Johannine in style as e. g, 'I stood in the
idst of the world • . .' in 2, the introduction contains a clear
arallel to John viiL 52. This at first sight may perhaps seem
ro imply a knowledge of St John's Gospel on the part of the
;uthor of the introduction, but it must be remembered (i) that
3t John may well not have been the sole authority for the
Attribution of that Saying to our Lord, and if so, that the author
of the introduction may have obtained it from another source,
t}2) that a knowledge of St John's Gospel on the part of the
iuthor of the introduction does not necessarily imply a corre-
sponding debt to that Gospel in the following Sayings, which,
its we have said, stand on a somewhat different footing from the
introduction.
1 In our original edition of 2 we maintained (a) that the Sayings
iad no traceable thread of connexion with each other beyond the
jact of their being ascribed to the same speaker, (b) that none of
jhem implied a post-rcsurrectional point of view, (c) that they
Were not in themselves heretical, and that though the asceticism
22 I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
of Log. 2 and the mystic character of Log. 5 were obviousljii^
capable of development in Encratite and Gnostic directions, th(i» k
Sayings as a whole were much nearer in style to the New Testat i
ment than to the apocryphal literature of the middle and end o |if s
the second century. If these positions have been vigorously jjf fe
assailed, they have also been stoutly defended, and about th<^); si
second and third no general agreement has been reached ; vntm I
regard to the first the balance of opinion has been in favour oj^ pi
our view, and the various attempts to trace a connexion of idea:
running through the Sayings have met with little acceptance!
What answer is to be returned to the corresponding problem
inl?
We will take the third question first. Is there an3rthing i
1 to show that the Sayings originated in or circulated among*]
a particular sect? We should answer this in the negativelj
There is nothing heretical in the introduction, the ist, 3rd, and
4th Sayings, or, so far as can be judged, the 5th. The Ascetii
leanings which have been ascribed to the 2nd Logion are con
spicuously absent in 1 ; the remains of the 5th Saying in fac(
rather suggest an anti-Jewish point of view, from which howeve^
the 2nd Logion itself was not widely distant, if, as we strong]
hold^ 'fast' and 'sabbatize* are to be taken metaphoricall;
The absence of any Jewish-Christian element in 1 is the mor^
remarkable seeing that the ist Saying also occurs in the Gosp^
according to the Hebrews. The only Saying that is at all sui
picious is the 2nd, which like Log. 5 is sure to be called in som
quarters ' Gnostic' That the profoundly mystical but, as it seemllni
to us, obviously genuine Saying of our Lord recorded in Luki J^f
xvii. 21 'The kingdom of God is within you ' should have givei
rise to much speculation was to be expected, and from Hippoljrtuj
RefuU V. 7 it is known that this Saying occupied an importan
place in the doctrines of the Naassenes, one of the most pro
nounced Gnostic sects of the second or early third century
That there is a connexion between the Sayings and the Naassene
through the Gospel of Thomas is quite possible and this poim
will be discussed later ; but to import Naassene tenets into th<
2nd Saying in 1 is not only gratuitous but a vorcpov irporcpovl
Moreover, though the other ideas in the Saying connected witbs
the parallel from St. Luke, the development of the kingdom oij
Heaven through brute creation up to man (if that be the mean!
ing of 11. 9-16), and the Christian turn given to the proverbiai
L NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
23
[Know thyself (11. 16-21), may point to a later stage of thought
ban that found in the Canonical Gospels, the 2nd Saying as
L whole, if ' Gnostic,* presents a very primitive kind of Gnosti-
bism, and is widely separated from the fully-developed theosophy
pf e. g. the Pistts Sophia. In any case the ' Gnosticism * of 1 is
much the same level as that of 2.
Do any of the Sayings (apart from the introduction) imply
post-resurrectional point of view? This too we should answer
In the negative. There is not only nothing in them to indicate
■hat they were spoken after the resurrection, but substantial
^vidence for the opposite view. The familiar Sayings in the
sinonical Gospels which are parallel to those found in 1 are
^here assigned to our Lord's lifetime, including even John viii.
The Gospel according to the Hebrews with which the ist
aying is connected covered the same ground as the Synoptists,
and there is no reason to suppose that this Saying occurred there
I a post-resurrectional utterance. But the best argument is pro-
vided by the 5th Saying, especially its context which is fortunately
jiven. The questions there addressed to Jesus clearly belong to
class of problems which are known to have been raised by our
-,ord*s disciples and others in His lifetime, and, if cfcro^owtv is in
jny case a somewhat stronger term than would be expected,
beeing that the disciples seem to be the subject (though cf. John
txi. 12), it is most unlikely that this word would have been used
irith reference to the risen Christ. In fact none of the five
Jayings in 1 suggests a post-resurrectional point of view so
luch as the 3rd Logion (* I stood in the midst of the world ') ;
pf. p. 24.
Can a definite principle or train of ideas be traced through the
Sayings ? The first four are certainly linked together by the
connecting idea of the kingdom of Heaven, which is the subject
jto a greater or less degree of all of them. But between the 4th
md 5th Sayings the chain is certainly much weaker and threatens
Ito snap altogether. It is very diflScult to believe that if 1 was
Ppart of a large collection of similar Sayings a connexion of
Ithought could have been maintained throughout, and the Sayings
tin the later columns of 1 may well have been as disconnected as
■those in 2. Even in the five which are partly preserved in 1
■there is a constant change in the persons addressed, the ist and
[3rd being couched in the third singular, the 2nd and almost cer-
f tainly the 5th in the second plural, and the 4th in the second
24 I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
singular. Moreover the real link is, we think, supplied by the
introduction, the consideration of which can no longer be delayed.
Only before proceeding further we would state our conviction ;
that in all essential points, the date of the pap3rrus, the form of
the Sayings, their relation to the Canonical Gospels, and the
general character of the new elements in them, to say nothing of ■
the parallelism of thought between the ist and 3rd Sayings^
and the 5th Logion, the resemblances between I and 2 so far ^
outweigh the differences that for practical purposes they may'
be treated as parts of the same collection.
' These are ihe . . . words which Jesus the Irving (Lord) spake to
and Thomas, and he said unto (them) ** Every one that hearkens to\
these words shall never taste of deaths * Such is the remarkable]
opening prefixed to the collection of Sayings in 1 by its unknown
editor. The first point to be noticed is that the name given to;
the collection is, as was acutely divined by Dr. Lock (Two
Lectures on the Sayings (f Jesus, p. 16), Logoi not Logia, and all
questions concerning the meaning of the latter term may there-
fore be left out of account in dealing with the present series of
Sayings. The converse of this, however, in our opinion by n
means holds good, and as we have pointed out (pp. 12-13), ^^^
analogy of the present document has a considerable bearin]
upon the problems concerning an early collection of 'Logia.
Secondly, the collection is represented as being spoken eithe:
to St. Thomas alone or to St Thomas and another disciple or,
less probably, other disciples. Does the compiler mean that thi
Sayings were the subject of a special revelation to St. Thomj
and perhaps another disciple, from which the rest were excluded
The case in favour of an affirmative answer to this query woul
be greatly strengthened if the introduction provided any indica-
tion that the editor assigned his collection of Sayings to the
period after the Resurrection. But no such evidence is forth-
coming. In the Canonical Gospels St Thomas is indeed made
prominent only in connexion with that period (John xx. 24 sqq.),
but this circumstance, which is probably the strongest argument
in favour of a post-resurrectional point of view, is discounted by!
the fact that the Gospel of Thomas, so far as can be judged,^ -
was not of the nature of a post-resurrectional Gospel but rather \
a Gospel of the childhood (cf. p. 29), and, secondly, seems to' i
be outweighed by the indications in the Sayings themselves ^:
that some of them at any rate were assigned to Jesus' lifetime. ';^
I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS 25
We are not therefore disposed to consider that the introduction
to the Sayings, any more than the Sayings by themselves, implies
a post-resurrectional point of view on the part of the compiler.
What we think he did mean to imply Was that the ultimate
authority for the rfecord of these Sayings was in his opinion
St. Thomas or St. Thomas and another disciple. This hypothesis
provides a satisfactory, in fact we think the only satisfactory,
explanation of the frequent changes of persons and abrupt
transitions of subject which characterize the Sayings as a whole.
What value, if any, is to be attached to this far-reaching
.claim — that the collection of Sayings derives its authority, not
from the traditional sources of any of the four Canonical Gospels,
but from St. Thomas and perhaps another disciple? The
custom of involving the authority of a great and familiar name
^or an anonymous and later work is so common in early Christian,
in other, writings, that the mere statement of the editor
.rries no weight by itself, and is not worth considering unless
he internal evidence of the Sayings themselves can be shown
;o point in the same direction, or at any rate to be not inconsistent
ith his claim. We pass therefore to the problem of the general
ature and origin of the Sayings in 1 and 2, and as a convenient
ethod of inquiry start from an examination of some of the
arious theories already put forward in explanation of 2. A
seful bibliography and resume' of the controversy will be found
n Professors Lock and Sanday's Two Lectures on the Sayings of
fesus.
In our original edition of 2 we proposed a.d. 140 as the latest
late to which the composition of the Sayings could be referred.
This terminus ad quern has generally been accepted, even by
Dr. Sanday, who is amongst the most conservative of our critics ;
md we should propose a. d. 140 for the terminus ad quern in
reference to 1 with greater confidence than we felt about 2
in 1897.
The chief dividing line in the controversy lies between those
who agreed with our suggestion that 2 belonged to a collection
bf Sayings as such, and those who considered 2 to be a series of
extracts from one or more of the numerous extra-canonical
|gospels which are known to have circulated in Egypt in the
cond century. Does 1 help to decide the question in either
[direction? One argument which has been widely used in
Isupport of the view that 2 was really a series of extracts, viz.
26 1. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
that the Sayings had no contexts, is somewhat damaged by the
appearance of a Sa3dng which has a context. But the formal
presence or absence of contexts in a series of Sayings can be
employed with equal plausibility, to prove or disprove the view
that the series consisted of extracts, and would therefore seem
a very unsound argument to introduce into the discussion. The
matter of the context of the 5th Saying, however, has perhaps
a more important bearing than the form upon the question of
extracts. The phrase ' Jesus saith ' there follows two historic
presents, 'question* and 'say,' and is therefore presumably itself
a historic present ; and if 'Jesus saith ' is a historic present in
one case, it should be so throughout 1 and 2. Is it then probable
that the formula 'Jesus saith' has been taken over without
alteration by the editor from his source, which was therefore
presumably a Gospel narrative ? To this we should answer by;
a decided negative. It is not likely that the present tens^
'saith ' would have been uniformly employed in a narrative, an
yet 1 provides at least three more instances of the phrase ' Jesu;
saith ' (11. 9, 27, and 36). It is, we think, much more probabl
that the formula is due to the editor of the collection than t
his sources, whatever they were. And though there is now n<
longer any particular reason for interpreting the tense of 'saith
as more than a historic present, a secondary meaning is not'
excluded, and may be present in 1, 36 just as much as in th<
other instances where there is no context We should b<
inclined to paraphrase 'Jesus saith' as 'This is one of thoi
Sayings of Jesus to which I referred in the introduction,' and t
explain the uniform repetition of it as marking off the seven
Sayings from each other, and giving greater impressiveness t
the whole. The fact that the editor used the aorist and not th
historic present in his introduction suggests that by his employ
ment of the present tense 'saith' throughout the Sayings h*
intended to produce a slightly different effect from that whici
would have been caused by 'said.* But this new light she
upon the formula 'Jesus saith' does not bring with it any ne
reason for regarding the Sayings as extracts from a narrative
Gospel.
A much more important factor in deciding whether the Sayin;
are extracts or not is the introduction, which though it may bef ' j
a later addition, and though the reference to St. Thomas may be); }
merely a bold invention of the editor, is there, and its presencel' l'
I
L NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS 27
*has to be accounted for. So far from stating that the Sayings
are extracts from any work, the editor asserts that they are
a collection of Sayings, a circumstance which seems to provide
an adequate explanation not only of the disconnected character
of the Sayings in part of the collection, but of the repetition of
the formula 'Jesus saith ' before each one. It is now clear that
1 was meant by the editor to be regarded as an independent
literary work, complete in itself; and though it is not necessary
to accept it as such, those who wish to maintain that the collection
is something quite different from what it purports to be must be
prepared to explain how the introduction comes to be there.
Hence we think that no theory of the origin of the Sajrings as
a whole is to be considered satisfactory unless it at the same
time provides a reasonable explanation of the fact that some one
not later than the middle of the second century published the
Sayings as specially connected with St. Thomas (and perhaps
another disciple), and that the collection attained sufficient
importance for it to be read, and presumably accepted as genuine,
in the chief towns of Upper Egypt in the century following. ^^,^^
Among the different explanations of 2 which have been put
forward the most generally accepted is probably that maintained,
with all his usual brilliant powers of analysis, by Prof. Harnack,
that 2 consisted of extracts from the Gospel according to the
Eg3rptians, an early Gospel covering apparently the same ground
as the Synoptists and circulating principally in Egypt, where it
was probably composed. The question was, however, compli-
cated by the extremely divergent views held concerning the
importance and heretical character of th^t Gospel, to which only
one passage of any length can be assigned with certainty (cf.
p. 41, where a translation of it is given). There is little if any
relation between that extract and anything in 2 ; and disagreeing
as we do with Harnack's view of the Gospel according to the
Egyptians, we have never been able to regard his explanation of
2 as satisfactory. The evidence of 1 provides fresh objections
to the theory. There is no direct point of contact between 1 and
the Gospel according to the Egyptians, and where one pf the
uncanonical Sayings happens to be known, it occurs not in this
Gospel but in that according to the Hebrews. There is, indeed,
more to be said for regarding 1 as extracts from the latter Gospel,
as has been suggested in the case of 2 by more than one critic,
Ihan from the Gospel according to the Egyptians. In their
28 I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
diverg(ence from the Canonical Gospels, the striking character of
much of the new matter, the Hebraic parallelisms of expression,
the Sayings are quite in keeping with the style of the most
venerable and important of all the uncanonical Gospels, which
is known to have been written originally in Hebrew, and which
is now generally regarded as independent of the four Canonical
Gospels and but little later than the Synoptists in date. To
these points of connexion has now to be added the far more solid
piece of evidence afforded by the ist Saying in 1. There remain
indeed the objections (cf. Sayings of our Lord, p. 17) that the
Gospel according to the Hebrews would be expected to show
greater resemblance to St Matthew than we find in 2 and 1,
which is even further away from St, Matthew's Gospel than 2,
and secondly that the Johannine colouring traceable in the new
Sayings is foreign to the extant fragments of the Gospel according
to the Hebrews, which seems to have been quite parallel to the
Synoptists. But it is quite possible that the Gospel according
to the Hebrews had a mystical side which is revealed to us
occasionally (as e.g. in the curious passage in which Jesus
speaks of His ' mother, the Holy Ghost,' and in the Saying found
also in 1), but which owing to thfe paucity of references has
hitherto been underestimated. A far graver and in fact almost
fatal objection, however, to regarding the Sayings as extractsi
culled from either the Gospel according to the Hebrews or the
Gospel according to thp Egyptians is the irreconcilability of such
a view with the introduction of 1. It is very diflScult to believe
that an editor would have had the boldness to issue extracts
from such widely known works as an independent collection of
Sayings claiming the authority of Thomas and perhaps another
disciple. Even if we supply 'to Matthew' in 1. 2 before 'and
Thomas ' and suppose that the mention of Thomas is of quite
secondary importance, it is very hard to supply a reasonable
motive for issuing a series of extracts from the Gospel according
to the Hebrews with such a preface as we find in 1, and to
account for the popularity of these supposed extracts in the
century following their publication. We are therefore on the
whole opposed to the view, attractive though it undoubtedly is,
that the Sajdngs are all directly derived from the Gospel
according to the Hebrews. But that there is a connexion
between them is certain, and it is significant that the Stromateis
of Clement of Alexandria, in which work Dr. Mayor (a/. Rendel
!• NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS 29
Harris, Conientp, Rev. 1897, PP* 344""5) l^^is with much probability
detected references to the and Logion, are also the source of
the quotation from the Gospel according to the Hebrews which
is closely parallel to the ist Saying. It is not at all unlikely
that the and Logion (' Except ye fast ') also presented a strong
similarity to a passage in the same Gospel.
Both views which we have discussed so far have, whether
satisfactory or not on other grounds, been confronted by the
initial difficulty of the introduction. Let us now consider the
Gospel ascribed to the disciple whose name occurs in 1. 3.
It is obvious that the introduction would suit a series of extracts
from the Gospel of Thomas much better than one from the
Gospel according to the Hebrews. The Gospel of Thomas
is known to have existed in more than one form, namely as
an account of Jesus' childhood which is extant in several late
recensions of varying length, and as an earlier Gospel con-
demned by Hippolytus in the following passage (Refut v. 7)
'But they (sc. the Naassenes) assert that not only is there
in favour of their doctrine testimony to be drawn from the
mysteries of the Assyrians, but also from those of the Phrygians
concerning the happy nature, concealed and yet at the same
time disclosed, of things that have been and are coming into
existence and moreover will be, (a happy nature) which, (the
Naassene) says, is the kingdom of heaven to be sought for
within a man. And concerning this (nature) they hand down
an explicit passage occurring in the Gospel inscribed "according
to Thomas," expressing themselves thus : " He who seeks me
will find me in children from seven years old; for there con-
cealed I shall in the fourteenth age (or aeon) be made manifest." *
Here we have two remarkable points of contact with 1, the
mention of Thomas coupled with the 'kingdom of heaven
within a man* (cf. the and Saying). The parallels between
2 and one of the later forms of the Thomas Gospel have been
worked out with great ingenuity and elaboration by Dr. Taylor
on pp. 90-8 of The Oxyrhynchus Logia and ihe Apocryphal
Gospels. There is much to be said for his view that the extant
Gospel of Thomas contains some traces of 2, and the proba-
bility would be increlased if 2, which Dr. Taylor was inclined
to regard as extracts from the Gospel according to the Egyptians,
be supposed to be derived from the earlier Gospel of Thomas.
1 does not seem to contain any clear points of connexion with
30 I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
the later Gospel of Thomas, but this is compensated for by the
remarkable parallel from Hippolytus quoted above. It is
moreover noteworthy, as Mr. Badham remarks, that the Acts
of Thomas, which may well have been partly built upon the
Gospel, exhibit a knowledge of that Saying which occurs both
in the Gospel according to the Hebrews and in 1 (cf. p. 14), and
that, as Prof. Lake informs us, an Athos MS. (Studia Btblica,
V. 2, p. 173) asserts that the story of Christ and the woman
taken in adultery (which has found its way from the Gospel
according to the Hebrews into St. John's Gospel) occurred
in the Gospel of Thomas, But there are serious objections
to regarding 1 and 2 as extracts from that Gospel. In the first
place though it is possible that Thomas is the only disciple
mentioned in the introduction, it is equally possible that he
stood second, and in that case the Gospel from which the
Sayings may have been extracted is more likely to have been
one which went under the name of the person who stood first ;
though indeed, if there were two disciples mentioned in the
introduction, it is not very satisfactory to derive the Sayings
from any Gospel which went under the name of only one.
A much greater difficulty arises from the divergence of the
Sayings from what little is known about the earlier Gospel
of Thomas. The saying quoted by Hippolytus is widely
removed in character from those in 1 and 2 ; and although the
Gospel of Thomas has been placed before a. d. 180, yet
from the quotation in Hippol3rtus, coupled with the form of the
Gospel in later times and the scanty evidence from other
sources, it has been generally considered to have been mainly
at any rate a Gospel of the childhood and of an advanced
Gnostic character. If the Sayings are to derived from it, the
current view of the Gospel of Thomas must be entirely changed ;
and it is very doubtful whether this can be done except by
postulating the existence of an original Thomas Gospel behind
that condemned by Hippolytus. This would lead us into a
region of pure conjecture upon which we are unwilling to enter,
at any rate until other less hazardous roads to a solution are
closed. That there is a connexion between the earlier Gospel
of Thomas and the Sayings is extremely likely, but this can
be better explained by supposing that the Sayings influenced
the Gospel than by the hypothesis that th^ Gospel is the source
of the Sayings.
I, NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS 31
Our conclusion, therefore, is that neither the Gospel according
to the Egyptians, nor that according to the Hebrews, nor that
according to Thomas, still less any of the other known un-
canonical Gospels, is a suitable source for the Sayings as a
whole. There is more to be said for explaining them as a series
of extracts from several of these Gospels, as was suggested with
regard to 2 by Dr. James, though this view evades rather than
solves the problem. The occurrence of a Saying, which is
known to have been also found in the Gospel according to the
Hebrews, side by side with other Sayings which it is difficult
to ascribe to the same source, rather favours the theory of an
eclectic series derived from different Gospels. But the in-
troduction connecting the Sayings with particular disciples is
not very suitable for such a collection which ex hypoihest is of
an altogether miscellaneous character ; and in our opinion the
Sajrings are much more likely to be a source utilized in one
or more of the uncanonical Gospels, than vice versa. The
probability of the general explanation of 2 which we suggested
in 1897 ^^^ which has been supported by maily critics, amongst
others Drs. Swete, Rendel Harris, Sanday, Lock, and Heinrici,
that it was part of a collection of Sayings as such, is largely
increased by the discovery of 1, with its introduction to the
whole collection stating that it was a collection of Logot, which
was obviously intended to stand as an independent literary
work. In fact we doubt if theories of extracts are any longer
justifiable ; and in any case such explanations will henceforth
be ])laced at the initial disadvantage of starting with an assump-
tion which is distinctly contradicted by the introduction of 1.
It is of course possible to explain away this introduction, but
unless very strong reasons can be adduced for doing so, the
simpler and far safer course is to accept the editor^s statement
that 1, to which, as we have said, 2 is closely allied, is a collec-
tion of Sayings of Jesus.
The opinions of those critics who agreed with our general
explanation of 2 as against the various theories of extracts may
be divided into two classes: (i) those who regarded 2 as a
collection of Sayings independent of the Gospels and belonging
to the first century, and who therefore were disposed to admit
to a greater or less extent and with much varying degrees of
confidence the presence of genuine elements in the new matter
(Drs. Swete, Rendel Harris, Lock, and Heinrici); (2) those
32 I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
who, like Dr. Sanday, regarded the new Sayings in 2 as the
product of the early second century, not directly dependent on
the Canonical Gospels, but having 'their origin under conditions
of thought which these Gospels had created * (Sanday, op. cit.
p. 41), a view which necessarily carries with it the rejection of
the new matter. It remains to ask how far 1 helps to decide
the points at issue in favour of either side.
With regard to the relation of 1 to the Canonical Gospels, the
proportion of new and old matter is about the same as in 2, and
the parallels to the Canonical Gospels in 1 exhibit the same
freedom of treatment, which can be explained either as impljring
independence of the Canonical Gospels, or as the liberties taken
by an early redactor. The introduction in 1 contains a clearer
parallel to St. John's Gospel than anything to be found in 2 ;
but even if it be conceded that the introduction implied
a knowledge of St. John's Gospel, and was therefore probably
composed in the second century, the Sayings themselves can
(and, as we shall show, do) contain at any rate some elements
which are not derived from the Canonical Gospels, and go back
to the first century. So far as the evidence of 1 goes, there is •
nothing to cause any one to renounce opinions which he may
have formed concerning the relation of 2 to the Canonical
Gospels. No one who feels certain on this point with regard
to the one, is likely to be convinced of the incorrectness of his
view by the other.
Secondly, with regard to the new matter in 1, the uncertainties
. attaching to the restoration and meaning of most of the 2nd, the
earlier part of the 3rd, and all the 5th Saying, unfortunately
prevent them from being of much use for purposes of critical
analysis. Only with regard to the ist Saying ('Let not him
that seeketh cease *) are we on quite sure ground. Concerning
this striking sentence, as we have said, the most diverse opinions
have been held ; but the balance of recent criticism is in favour
of accepting it as genuine, though on account of the absence
of widely attested authority for it, it is not placed in the highest
class of genuine Sayings which includes 'It is more blessed. to
give than to receive.' The occurrence of the Saying in 1 is
a new argument for its authority. But whatever view be taken
of its authenticity, and however the connexion between 1 and
the Gospel according to the Hebrews is to be explained, the
1st Saying in 1 establishes one important fact. Dr. Sanday may
L NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS 33
be right in regarding a.d. 100 as the terminus a quo for the
composition of 2, and the same terminus a quo can of course be
assigned . to 1 in the sense that the Sayings were not put
together and the introduction not written before that date.
But, if we may accept the agreement of the leading theologians
that the Gospel of the Hebrews was written in the first century,
it is impossible any longer to deny that 1 and therefore, as we
maintain, 2, contain some non-canonical elements which directly
or indirectly go back to the first century; and the existence
of first-century elements in one case certainly increases the
probability of their presence in others. In this respect, there-
fore, 1 provides a remarkable confirmation of the views of those
critics who were prepared to allow a first-century date for the
'Logia* of 1897, and accordingly to treat them as reflecting
a substantially authentic tradition.
Are we then, adapting to 1 Dr. Sanday's view of 2 with the
fewest possible modifications, to regard the whole collection as
a free compilation in the early part of the second century, by an
Alexandrian Jewish-Christian, of Sayings ultimately derived
from the Canonical Gospels, and very likely the Gospels
according to the Hebrews and Thomas, and perhaps others
as well; and shall we dismiss the new elements, except the
ist Saying in 1, as the spurious accretions of an age of philo-
sophic speculation, and surroundings of dubious orthodoxy?
Even 'SO the two papyri are of great interest as revealing
a hitherto unknown development of primitive belief upon the
nature of Christ's teaching, and supplying new and valuable
evidence for determining the relationship of the uncanonical
Gospels to the main current of orthodox Christianity. Or are
we rather to consider 1 and 2 to be fragments of an early
collection of our Lord's Sayings in a form which has been
influenced to some extent by the thought and literature of the
apostolic and post-apostolic age, and which may well itself have
influenced the Gospel of Thomas and perhaps others of the
heretical Gospels, but which is ultimately connected in a large
measure with a first-hand source other than th^t of any of the
Canonical Gospels ? Some such view has been maintained by
scholars of eminence, e. g, Heinrici and Rendel Harris, with
regard to 2 ; and if the claim made by the editor of the collec-
tion in his introduction, that his source was St Thomas and
perhaps another disciple, amounts to but little more, the internal
c
34 I. NEW SAYINGS OF JESUS
evidence of 1 provides no obvious reason why we should con-
cede him much less; while the occurrence of one uncanonical
Saying, which is already known to be of extreme antiquity and
has been accepted as substantially genuine by several critics,
lends considerable support to the others which rest on the
evidence of 1 and 2 alone.
That is as far as we are prepared to go ; for a really weighty
and perfectly unbiased estimate of the ultimate value of any
new discovery, resort must be made to some other quarter than
the discoverers. We conclude by pointing out that, if the view
with regard to the Sayings which we have just indicated is on
the right lines, the analogy of this collection has an obvious
bearing on the question of the sources of the Synoptic Gospels,
and that the mystical and speculative element in the early
records of Christ's Sayings which found its highest and most
widely accepted expression in St. John's Gospel, may well have
been much more general and less peculiarly Johannine than has
hitherto been taken for granted.
I II- THE 'LOGIA' DISCOVERED IN 1897
(THE OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRI, Part I, 1.)
LOGION I.
• . • KaLT&T€ SiaP\iylt€i9 iK^aXew Th Kdp^s rd kv t£
6if>6a\/i£ rod dS€\(l>ov aov,
' • • • and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote
that is in thy brother's eye/
LOGION 2.
Aiyci ^Irjcrov?, ihv /lij vrjareiinjTC rhv KSafiov oi fifj €ijpi]T€
Tfjv PacrtXetav toO 6€0xr kol khtf /ifj craPPartcri^Te Th crdfiParov
ovK Sylt€a$€ rhu iraripa.
'Jesus saith, Except ye fast to the world, ye shall in no
wise find the kingdom of God; and except ye make the
sabbath a real sabbath, ye shall not see the Father/
LOGION 3.
Aiyei 'Irjcrov^, €[a]Trjv kv fikaip tov KScrfLOv kcu kv crapxl
&<f>6riv ainoiSi Kol eSpov irdvra^ pL^B^ovra^ Kal ovSiva €ipov
Siyl^&vTa kv airoisy Kal irovci ij '^nf^q /lov km Tofy vloTs t&v
dvOpooTTODVy oTi TV<f>\oi €icriv T§ KapSfy avTo^v] Kal ov
PX^irovaiv • • .
' Jesus saithy I stood in the midst of the world and in the
flesh was I seen of them, and I found all men drunken, and
none found I athirst among them, and my soul grieveth over
the sons of men, because they are blind in their heart and
see not • . /
LOGION 4.
. . . rj^f in'ci>j(€lav.
* . . . poverty.'
02
36 II. THE 'LOGIA' DISCOVERED IN 1897
LOGION 5.
[Aiy]€i ['Iiyoroi/y, 8Tr]ou ii^v Scrip [fi oHk] ^la-iy dOeoi, kcu
[S]rrou €[??] iariu fiSvoSy [Xcjyo), cyw dfii fier. au7[ov'] iy€i[p]ov
rhv \tOov K&KU eiprjacis /i€, ir)(t<TOv rh ^iXov Kayoo kKU elfLU
< Jesus saith. Wherever there are (two), they are not
without God, and wherever there is one alone, I say, I am
with him. Raise the stone, and there thou shalt &id me ;
cleave the wood, and there am 1/
LOGION 6,
Aiyei 'IiycroOy, oAk i<mv SeKrh? irpo^^Ttjs iv tJ rrarpiSi
a6T[6)pf oiSi larphs iroicf Oepaireias €& rot^y ytvwa-Kovras avrSu.
* Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own
country, neither doth a physician work cures upon them
that know him.'
LOGION 7.
AiyH *Ifjaro€99 irSXi? <pKoSo/ifj/i€vrj in &Kpov [S]pws if^riXov
Kal iarripiy/iii/rj oCre ir€[(r]€?i' Svvarai oSre Kpi^P]rjvai,
'Jesus saith, A city built upon the top of a high hill and
stablished, can neither fall nor be hid.'
LOGION 8.
Aiyei 'Irja-ovs, dKoHeis [c]/? ri tv driov crou, rh [Si €T€pov
(rvviKXeicras].
< Jesus saith. Thou hearest with one ear, (but the other
thou hast closed).'
III. FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL
(a) INTRODUCTION.
Eight fragments of a papyrus in roll form containing a lost
Gospel, the largest {b) me^surin^ 8-2 x 8-3 cm. and comprising
parts of the middles of two narrow columns. None of the other
fragments actually joins (b), but it is practically certain that the
relation to it of Frs. (a) and (c), which come from the topsi of
columns, is as indicated in the text Frs. (d) and (e), both
of which have a margin below the writing, probably belong
to the bottom of the same two columns which are partly pre-
served in (b) ; but how much is lost in the interval is uncertain.
Since the upper portion of Col. i admits of a sure restoration
of the majority of the lacunae, the first 23 lines are nearly
complete ; but the remains of the second column are for the
most part too slight for the sense to be recovered. The hand-
writing is a small uncial of the common sloping oval type, which
in most cases belongs to the third century. The papyrus is a
well-written specimen, suggesting the earlier rather than the
later period during which this hand was in vogue, and though
we should not assign it to the second century, it is not likely to
have been written later than a. d. 250. Lines 1-16 give the
conclusion of a discourse of Jesus which is parallel to several
sentences in the Sermon on the Mount. Then follows (11. 17-23)
an account of a question put to Him by the disciples and of the
answer. This, the most important part of the papyrus, is new,
but bears an interesting resemblance to a known quotation
from the Gospel according to the Egyptians ; cf. note ad loc.
A passage in Col. ii seems to be parallel to Luke xi. 52. On
the general questions concerning the nature and origin of the
Gospel to which the fragment belonged see pp. 42-5.
1
38
III. FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL
(b) TEXT.
Col. i.
(a) I . .]TfO nPO)! ?[
[ ]€ A<l> €Cn[
[ ]Pa)l MHT6 [. . .
[ JMCON Tl <!>/>[
5 [ ] TH CT[,
[. ] Tl €NAY[.
W [. OCe? [. . JAO) KP?|[.
[. . .]€C .[...] Ta)N [. .
NOarjl ATI[. . .]YHA[.
lo N€l 0YA6 ti[. .]?j . [.
€N ??:QNT[. . .]NA[.
MA Tj *(gN[. . . .] KAI
YM€IC TIC AN nPOCGH
€ni THN eiAIKIAN
15 YMCON AYTO[. .]a)C€l
YM€IN TO €NAY/WA Y
MCON AerOYCIN AY
TO) 01 MA0HTAI AYTOY
nOT€ HMeiN €M<I>A
20 NHC ecei KAI nOT€
C€ oYO/weoA Aerei
OTAN eKAYCHCee KAI
MH AlCXYNOHTe
(d)
35
w
w
Col. ii.
e[
30 A€[
0[
• TA[
nr[
KA[
35 n'. [
KA[
HM[
C\[
I
40 [
€A[
THC [
KPYT[
€ICH)>[
45 €IC€P[
KAN[
A€ r€l[
Moia)[
K€PAI[
50 PA[
]T|N
• •
K0[
]C»)TIN
]H
]CTI|S|
]KA[
• • •
U) ...
]K.[
(A) ..
]€[
III. FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL 39
[. . d]irb nfml l[o)y 6^\
[IititY d<f> i<rn[ipa9
[liwy ir]po)2 ftiyrc [rfi
[rpo^fi i]iJi&p Ti tl>d-
, 5 [y»7T€ li^r{\ TTJ (n[o-
[Xfj i/i&v] Ti hSU-
[ar]]a6€. [ttoXJX^ Kp€l[(T'
[<roy]h [core] T&if [Kpi-
vcav &Ti{va a?pid-
lo v^i ovSk i{ri0\^ • [•
/la Ti ev[. . . .] Kal
iffieh; rk dv irpo<rd{€i)ri
kirt rfiv fiXiKiav
15 ifi&v; avTi{9 8]<ocr€i
ipXv rh ivSv/ia 6-
fjL&y, Xiyovaiv av-
T^ ol /laOrjTOi avTOV*
ir6T€ fifJLiu €/i^a-
ao vfi9 €(r€t Kal wire
ere 6ylt6fjL€0a; \iyer
orav iKSvcrrjaOe Kal
/ifj ai(r)(yv0rJT€y
• • • •
41 €X[€y€' Tfjv KXeiSa
TTJ^ [yvcia€m €-
Kpvy^aT€' avTol ovk
eiarjXlOaTe, Kal tois
45 €l(r€f^oiiivois oi-
K dv[€a>^aTe . • . •
40 III. FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL
(c) TRANSLATION AND NOTES.
1-7. * (Take no thought) from morning until even nor from
evening until morning, either for your food what ye shall
eat or for your raiment what ye shall put on. (7-18) Ye are
far better than the lilies which grow but spin not Having
one garment, what do ye (lack P) • • . (13-15) Who could
add to your stature P (16-16) He himself will give you your
garment. (17-28) His disciples say unto him, When wilt thou
be manifest to us, and when shall we see thee P He saith.
When ye shall be stripped and not be ashamed . . *
41-6. *. . . He said. The key of knowledge ye hid; ye
entered not in yourselves and to them that were entering
in ye opened not'
1-7. Cf. Matt vi. 25 'Take no thought for your life, what ye
shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye
shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body
than the raiment?', Luke xii. 22-3 'Take no thought for your
life what ye shall eat; nor yet for your body what ye shall put
on. For the life is more than the food, and the body than the
raiment.' The papyrus probably had the equivalent of 'Take
no thought' at the beginning of the sentence, but differs (i) by
the addition of 'from morning . . . until morning,' (2) by the use
of a different word for 'body* and probably for 'life,' though it
is possible that ' for your body ' or ' for your life ' preceded ' from
morning ' in 1. i, (3) by the omission of the second half of the
Saying ais recorded in the Gospels.
7-13. Cf. Matt vi. 28 (=Luke xii. 27) 'And why are ye
anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say
unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like
one of these,' and Matt vi. 26 (=Luke xii. 4) 'Are ye not of
much more value than they (sc. the birds of heaven) ? ' The
corresponding passage in the papyrus is not only much shorter,
but varies considerably, though to what extent is not quite clear
owing to the uncertainty attaching to the restoration of 11. 10-12.
13-15. Cf. Matt. vi. 27 (=Luke xii. 25) 'And which of you by
being anxious can add one cubit unto his stature ? * The papyrus
version is somewhat shorter, omitting 'by being anxious* and
III. FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL 41
' one cubit* The position in which this Saying is found in the
papyrus is also slightly different from that in the Gospels, where
it immediately precedes instead of following the verse about the
lilies.
15-16. Cf. Matt. vi. 31-3 ' Be not therefore anxious, sa3ang
What shall we eat, or What shall we drink, or Wherewithal
shall we be clothed ? ... for your heavenly Father knoweth that
ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first his kingdom
and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto
you/ and Luke xii. 29-31, which is nearly identical and
proceeds 'Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good
pleasure to give you the kingdom.* The papyrus has the
corresponding idea but expressed with extreme conciseness.
'He himself will give,* unless Sa)<r€t is an error for Scoo-co, raises
a difficulty, for we should expect 'The Father will give* or 'God
will give.* Apparently ' He himself* refers back to ' Father ' or
' God * in the column preceding, or the author of the pap3Tus
may have here incorporated from some source a Saying without
its context which would have explained ' He himself.*
17-23. For the question cf. John xiv. 19 sqq. 'Yet a little
while, and the world beholdeth me no more ; but ye behold me :
because I live ye shall live also. . • . Judas (not Iscariot) saith
unto him. Lord, what is come to pass that thou wilt manifest
thyself unto us and not unto the world ? Jesus answered . . .
If a man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will
love him.* The answer ascribed in the papyrus to Jesus bears
a striking resemblance to the answer made to a similar question
in a passage of the Gospel according to the Egyptians which is
referred to several times by Clement of Alexandria, and which
ran thus : — ' When Salome asked how long death would prevail,
the Lord said, So long as ye women bear children. For I have
come to destroy the works of the female. And Salome said to
him. Did I therefore well in bearing no children ? The Lord
answered and said, Eat every herb, but eat not that which has
bitterness. When Salome asked when those things about which
she questioned should be made known, the Lord said. When ye
trample upon the garment of shame ; when the two become one,
and the male with the female neither male nor female.* Cf. the
Second Epistle of Clement xii. 2 (an early Christian homily
employing other Gospel materials besides the Canonical Gospels)
'For the Lord himself being asked by some one when his
42 III. FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL
kingdom should come, said, When the two shall be one, and the
outside as the inside, and the male with the female neither male
nor female/ Both ' When ye shall be stripped and not be
ashamed ' and ' When ye trample upon the garment of shame *
express the same idea, a mystical reference to Gen. iii. 7, 'And
they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not
ashamed,' the meaning in either case being that Christ's kingdom
on earth would not be manifested until man had returned to the
state of innocence which existed before the Fall, and in which
sexual ideas and relations had no place. The chief differences
between the two passages are (i) the setting, the questioner
being in the Gospel according to the Egj^tians Salome, and in
the papyrus the disciples, (2) the simpler language of the papj^rus
as contrasted with the more literary and elaborated phrase
'trample upon the garment of shame,' (3) the absence in the
papyrus of the Ascetic tendency found in the earlier part of the
quotation from the Gospel according to the Egyptians. Whether
the papyrus continued after 'ashamed ' with something like ' and
when the two become one . . . ,* is of course uncertain, but
Fr. (rf), which probably belongs to the bottom of this column, is
concerned with something different.
41-6. With the remains of these lines Dr. Bartlet compares
Luke xi. 52 'Woe unto you lawyers ! for ye took away (Codex
Bezae and other MSS. 'ye hid') the key of knowledge; ye
entered not in yourselves and them that were entering in ye
hindered,* upon which passage our restorations are based. The
variant peculiar to the papyrus 'ye opened not' in place of 'ye
hindered ' is a picturesque touch.
(rf) GENERAL REMARKS.
This fragment (henceforth called 8) seems to belong to a
Gospel which was closely similar in point of form to the
Synoptists. The narrator speaks in the third person, not in
the first, and the portion preserved consists mainly of discourses
which are to a large extent parallel to passages in Matthew and
Luke, especially the latter Gospel, which alone seems to be
connected with 11. 41 sqq. The papyrus version is, as a rule,
shorter than the corresponding passages in the Gospels ; where
it is longer (11. 1-3) the expansion does not alter the meaning in
III. FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL 43
any way. The chief interest lies in the question of the disciples
and its answer, both of which so closely correspond to a passage
■ in the Gospel according to the Egyptians and the uncanonical
Gospel or collection of Sayings used by the author of the
Second Epistle of Clement, that the Gospel of which 8 is a frag-
ment clearly belongs to the same sphere of thought. Does it
actually belong to either of those works, which, though Harnack
regards them as one and the same, are, we think, more
probably to be considered distinct ? In the Gospel according
to the Egyptians Salome was the questioner who occasioned
the remarkable Saying beginning, 'When ye trample upon the
garment of shame,* and it is much more likely that 8 presents
a different version of the same incident in another Gospel,
than a repetition of the Salome question in a slightly different
form in another part of the Gospel according to the Egjrptians.
Nor is 3 likely to be the actual Gospel which the author of the
Second Epistle of Clement was quoting. It is unfortunate that
owing to the papyrus breaking off at 'ashamed* there is no
security that ' when the two become one,' or at any rate some-
thing very similar, did not follow, and the omission in the
Clement passage of a phrase corresponding to 11. 22-3 may
be a mere accident. But the fact that the question in the
Second Epistle of Clement is worded somewhat differently, and
is put into the mouth of 'some one* instead of the disciples,
as in 3, is a good reason for rejecting the h3T)othesis that 8 is
the Gospel quoted in the Epistle.
The evidence of 8 as to its origin being thus largely of
a negative character, we do not propose to discuss in detail
whether it is likely to belong to any of the other known
Apocryphal Gospels. There are several to which it might be
assigned, but direct evidence is wanting. If the Gospel accord-
ing to the Hebrews were thought of, it would be necessary
to suppose that the resemblances in 8 to Matthew and Luke
did not imply dependence upon them. In its relation to the
Canonical Gospels 8 somewhat resembles the new Sayings, and
the view that 8 was, though no doubt at least secondary, de-
pendent not on Matthew and Luke, but upon some other docu-
ment, whether behind the Synoptists or merely parallel to them,
is tenable, but is less likely to commend itself to' the majority
of critics than the opposite hypothesis that 8 is ultimately an
abridgement of Matthew and Liike with considerable alterations.
44 HI. FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL
In either case the freedom with which the author of the papyrus
Gospel handles the material grouped by St Matthew and St Luke
under the Sermon on the Mount is remarkable. The Gospel
from which 3 comes is likely to have been composed in Egypt
before a.d. 150, and to have stood in intimate relation to the
Gospel according to the Egyptians and the uncanonical source
used by the author of the Second Epistle of Clement. Whether
it was earlier or later than these is not clear. The answer to
the question put by the disciples in 3 is couched in much
simpler and clearer language than that of the corresponding
sentence in the answer to Salome, the point of which is liable
to be missed, while the meaning of 3. 22-3 is unmistakable. But
the greater directness of the allusion to Gen. iii. 7 in 8 can be
explained either by supposing that the version in the Gospel
according to the Egyptians is an Ascetic amplification of that in
3, or, almost but not quite as well, in our opinion, by the view
that the expression in 3 is a toning down of the more striking
phrase 'When ye trample upon the garment of shame.*
There remains the question of the likelihood of a genuine
element in the story of which we now have three versions,
though how far these are independent of each other is uncertain.
As is usual with uncanonical Sa3angs, the most diverse opinions
have been held about the two previously known passages.
Previous criticism, which has recently tended to favour the
view that the story possesses at least a kernel of truth, is now
somewhat discounted by the circumstance that the phrase 'When
ye trample upon the garment of shame* has generally been
considered to mean ' when ye put off the body,* L e. ' die,* whereas
the evidence of the parallel in the papyrus gives the words
a slightly different turn, and brings them more nearly into line
with the following sentences 'when the two become one, &c.*
But those critics would nevertheless seem in the light of the
new parallel to be right who maintain that the passage in the
Gospel according to the Egyptians does not go much further in
an Ascetic direction than, e. g. Matt. xxii. 30 ' For in the resur-
rection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as
angels in heaven,' and Luke xx. 34-5 'The sons of this world
nlarry and are given in marriage: but they that are accounted
worthy to attain to that world and the resurrection from the
dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.* The occurrence
of another version of the story is an important additional piece
III. FRAGMENT OF A LOST GOSPEL 45
of evidence in defence of the view that it contains at least some
elements of genuineness, and a ispecial interest attaches both to
the form of the Saying in 8 on account of the clearness of its
language, and to its context, in which other matter closely
related to the Canonical Gospels is found in immediate proximity.
All this lends fresh value to what is, on account of the far-
reaching problems connected with it, one of the most important
and remarkable, and, since the discovery of 8, one of the better
attested, of the Sayings ascribed to our Lord outside the New
Testament.
CLARENDON PRESS BOOKS.
TWO LECTURES ON THE 'SAYINGS OF JESUS/ delivered
at Oxford in 1897, by W. Lock and W. Sanday. 8vo, paper covers',
IX. 6d, net.
THE OXYRHYNCHUS LOGIA AND THE APOCRYPHAL
GOSPELS. By C. Taylor. 8vo, paper covers. 2s, 6d, net.
AN ALEXANDRIAN EROTIC FRAGMENT AND OTHER
GREEK PAPYRI, chiefly Ptolemaic. Edited by B. P. Grenfell. Small 4to,
linen back, paper boards, 8j. 6<f. net.
MENANDER'S recopfo^;, being a revised text of the Geneva Frag-
ment, with Text, Translation, and Notes, by B. P. Grenfell and A. S.
Hunt. 8vo, stiff covers, ij. 6^?.
NEW CLASSICAL FRAGMENTS AND OTHER GREEK AND
LATIN PAPYRI. Edited by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt. With
Plates. Linen back, paper boards, 1 2s, 6d, net.
REVENUE LAWS OF PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS. Edited
by B. P. Grenfell and J. P. Mahaffy. 2 vols. Text and Plates. Linen
back, paper boards, $is. 6d. net.
THE MIMES OF HERODAS. Edited, with Introduction, Critical
Notes, Commentary, and Excursus, by J. Arbuthnot Nairn. Demy 8vo,
cloth, with Facsimiles of the recently discovered Fragments and other Illus-
trations, 1 2 J. 6d, net.
HERODAS, Text. 4to, cloth, yj. 6d. net. Autotype Facsimile, 4to,
doth, 1 5 J. net. [British Museum Publication.
EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND PUBLICATIONS
(Graeco-Roman Branch).
To be obtained from Mr. Henry Frowde.
THE OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRI. Edited, with Translations and
Notes, by B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt. Crown 4to, cloth back, paper
boards. Parts I, II and IV with Eight, and Part III with Six Collotype Plates ,
price 2 5 J. net per Part.
FAYCm TOWNS AND THEIR PAPYRI. Edited, with Trans-
lations and Notes, by B. P. Grenfell, A. S. Hunt, and D. G. Hogarth.
Crown 4to, cloth back, paper boards, with Maps, Illustrations, and Four
. Collotypes and Plates, 25J. net.
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL REPORTS, comprising the work of
the Egypt Exploration Fund, and the progress of ^yptology. Published
annually. Edited by F. Ll. Griffith. With Maps. 410, paper covers,
each 2s, 6d. net
AOriA IHZOY (SAYINGS OF OUR LORD), from an early Greek
Papyrus, discovered and edited with Translation and Commentary by B. P.
Grenfell and A. S. Hunt. 8vo, stiff boards, with Two Collotypes, 2S, net ;
with Two Tone Blocks, 6d. net.
THE TEBTUNIS PAPYRI. Part L Edited by B. k Grenfelt.,
A. S. Hunt, and J. Gilbart Smvly. University of California Publications .
Graeco-Roman Archaeology, Vol. I. Crown 410, paper boards, cloth back,
lettered, with Nine Plates, 45/. net.
LONDON: HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AMEN CORNER, E.C.
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11