[Logia Iesou (romanized form)] Sayings of Our Lord from an early Greek papyrus discovered and edited, with translation and commentary, by Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt

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PLORATION FUND

AOFIA IHCOY
.AYINGS OF OUR LORD

AN EARLY GREEK PAPYRUS

\RD P. GRENFELI

ARTHUR S." H

WITH T\A

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AOTIA IHCOY

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SAYINGS OF OUR LORD

GRENFELL AND HUNT

EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND

AOTIA IHCOY
SAYINGS OF OUR LORD

FROM

AN EARLY GREEK PAPYRUS

DISCOVERED AND EDITED, WITH TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY

BY

BERNARD P. GRENFELL, M.A.

SOMETIME CRAVEN FELLOW IN THE UNIVERSITV OF OXFORD
FELLOW OF QUEEN'S. COLLEGE

AND

ARTHUR S. HUNT, M.A.

SOMETIME CRAVEN FELLOW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
SENIOR DEMY OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE

WITH TWO PLATES

PUBLISHED

FOR THE EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND

BY

HENRY FROWDE

AMEN CORNER, LONDON, E.G.
1897

HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

INTRODUCTION

ON the edge of the Libyan desert, 1 20 miles south of Cairo.
a series of low mounds, covered with Roman and early
Arab pottery, marks the spot where stood the capital
of the Oxyrhynchite nome. The wide area of the site,
and the scale of the buildings and city walls, where trace-
able, testify to its past size and importance ; but it declined
rapidly after the Arab conquest, and its modern representa-
tive, Behnesa, is a mere hamlet. A flourishing city in
Roman times, and one of the chief centres of early Chris-
tianity in Egypt, Oxyrhynchus offered a peculiarly attrac-
tive field for explorers who, like ourselves, make the
recovery of Greek papyri, with all the manifold treasures
they may bring, their principal aim. The result of our
excavations there during the last winter, an account of
which will be published in the next Archaeological Report
of the Egypt Exploration Fund, amply justified our
anticipations. The ancient cemetery, to which for various
reasons the first three weeks' work was devoted, proved on
the whole unproductive; but in the rubbish-heaps of the
town were found large quantities of papyri, chiefly Greek,
ranging in date from the first to the eighth century, and
embracing every variety of subject. No site, with the
probable exception of Arsinoe, has proved so fertile in this
respect ; and for the examination and editing of the papyri
discovered much time will be required. For the present
we are concerned with a single fragment, the remarkable
character of which seemed to demand its prompt publica-
tion. The document in question is a leaf from a papyrus
book containing a collection of Logia or Sayings of our
Lord, of which some, though presenting several novel
features, are familiar, while others are wholly new. It was

2111210

6 AOFIA IHCOY

found at the very beginning of our work upon the town, in
a mound which produced a great number of papyri belong-
ing to the first three centuries of our era, those in the
immediate vicinity of our fragment belonging to the second
and third centuries. This fact, together with the evidence
of the handwriting, which has a characteristically Roman
aspect, fixes with certainty 300 A.D. as the lowest limit for
the date at which the papyrus was written. The general
probabilities of the case, the presence of the usual con-
tractions found in biblical MSS., and the fact that the
papyrus was in book, not roll, form, put the first century
out of the question, and make the first half of the second
unlikely. The date therefore probably falls within the
period 150-300 A.D. More than that cannot be said with
any approach to certainty. Any attempt to distinguish
between second and third century uncials is, in the present
paucity of dated material, extremely precarious ; and
we are the less inclined to enter upon it now, since we
anticipate that the Oxyrhynchus collection, which contains
a large number of uncial fragments,, will eventually throw
much light upon the question. But in the meantime we are
of opinion that the hand of the Logia fragment is far from
belonging to the latest type of uncials used before 300 A.D.,
and that therefore the papyrus was probably written not
much later than the year 200.

The fragment measures 5f x 3! inches, but its height was
originally somewhat greater, as it is unfortunately broken
at the bottom. In the top right-hand corner of the verso
side the numeral I A has been written by a later hand. As
it was usual to foliate the right-hand pages of a book, the
position of the numeral here is one good reason for sup-
posing the leaf to have been so placed that the verso side
came uppermost. Other considerations point to the same
conclusion. The shorter lines on the verso have been
supplemented at the end by a y-shaped character in order
to give an appearance of even length, but on the recto side
this supplementary sign has not been used. Now it is
more probable that the scribe wished to make his lines

SAYINGS OF OUR LORD 7

look regular at the outer margin of the page than at the
inner, which is much less conspicuous in turning, over
the leaves of a book. Further, it is noticeable that a strip
of papyrus has been gummed along the left edge of the
recto. The outer edge is that part of the leaf which is the
first to become worn, and hence it is there that a strengthen-
ing strip would be expected. But only if the recfo^was
the under side could its left edge occupy the outer
position. The importance of this question will be seen
later (v. note on Log. i).

Some of the regular contractions used in biblical MSS.,
1C, 0C, TIP, ANOC, appear in the papyrus, and N at the end
of a line is occasionally represented by a horizontal stroke
above the final letter. Several common mistakes in spell-
ing occur, A I for € in lines 6 and 7, and €1 for I in lines 13,
i63 and 35. A more serious error is OIKOAOMHM6NH in
line 36 ; YTHAOYC, two lines lower, seems to have been
corrected. The character used to fill up superfluous space
at the end of a line has already been alluded to. There is
a slight tendency towards division of one word from another.
Stops, breathings, and accents are entirely absent.

We print first a reproduction of the Greek text as it
stands in the original. Restorations are enclosed in square
brackets, and dots inside the latter indicate the approxi-
mate number of letters lost. Dots outside brackets repre-
sent letters of which only illegible traces remain. Dote
underneath a letter mean that the reading is uncertain. We
next give the several Logia in modem form, accompanied by
an English translation and notes. Finally we proceed to
a few general remarks, suggested by a consideration of the
contents of the fragment. Here and throughout we hope
that the speed with which this little book has been produced
will be accepted as an excuse for shortcomings. During
its preparation we have consulted Mr. F. C. Conybeare,
Mr. J. Rendel Harris, Dr. M. R. James, and Mr. C. H. Turner.
To their advice and suggestions we owe much ; but for the
opinions expressed in these pages we alone must be held
responsible.

3 AOriA IHCOY

II

TEXT

Verso.

IA

KAI TOT6
6KBAA6IN TO KAP<I>OC
TO €N TO) 0<t>0AAMO) 7
TOY AA€A4>OY COY A€r€l

5 FT CAN MH NHCT6YCH
TAI TON KOCMON OY MH
6YPHTAI THN BACIA6I
AN TOY 0T KAI 6AN MH
CABBATICHT6 TO CAB 7

10 BATON OYK OY€C9e TO

TTPA Aerei TU €[CJTHN

€N M€CO) TOY KOCMOY
KAI €N CAPK6I O)4>0HN
AYTOIC KAI 6YPON HAN
15 TAC M66YONTAC KAI
OYA6NA 6YPON A6ITGJ
TA €N AYTOIC KAI TTO 7
Nei H YYXH MOY 6HI 7

TOIC YIOIC TOON ANCON
20 OTI TY<t>AOI 6ICIN TH KAP
AIA AYT(x)[N] KAI . . BA€jC

SAYINGS OF OUR LORD

Recto.

22 [ ]..[. T]HN TTTOOxfa

[Aerjei [ft OTTJOY CAN OOCIN
[ ]e[. . .] . . eeoi KAI

25 [. .]CO . €[. .] eCTIN MONOC
[. .]TGO €rO) €IMI M€T AY

T[OY] erei[p]ON TON Aieo
KAKei eYPHceic /we

CX I CON TO HYAON KAfO)

30 eKei eiMi Aerei ft OY

K eCTIN A€KTOC HPO

*HTHC eN TH TTPIAI AY
T[0]Y OYA6 IATPOC TTOI6I

eepAneiAC eic TOYC

35 reiNOOCKONTAC AYTO"

Aerei IT TTOAIC OIKOAO

MHM€NH EH AKPON
[OJPOYC YTHAOYC KAI €C
THPITM6NH OYT6 n€
40 [C]€IN AYNATAI OYT6 KPY

[B]HNAi Aerei Tc AKOYCIC

[.JjCTOe . . TION COY TO

10 AOriA IHCOY

III

•

THE LOGIA

WITH TRANSLATIONS AND NOTES

LOGION I, 11. 1-4.

] KCU Tore 8iaj8A.o/feis eK/3aAeiy TO Kaptyos TO ev TU>
TOV abe\<f)ov (rov.

' . . . and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the
mote that is in thy brother's eye.'

Cf. Luke vi. 42, which agrees exactly with the wording
of this passage. Matt. vii. 5 has « TOV dtyOaXpov instead of
TO (v TO) d(f)6aXiJ.S>. If we are right in maintaining that the
verso side of this leaf came first in the book (v. p. 7), there
is nothing to show whether the whole of the saying as
found in Luke and Matthew preceded. If the recto side
had come first, there would have been good reason for
thinking that the saying appeared in a shortened form,
since it is unlikely that more than a few lines are lost at
the bottom of the leaf.

LOGION 2, 11. 4-1 1.

Ae'yei 'Irjo-ovy, eai> /AT) vrjoreva-rjTf TOV Ko<rp.ov ov /XT) euprjTe
TTjy /3a0-i\etW TOV dfov' KOL eav /ATJ o-a/3/3ano-7jTe TO (ra/3/3aToi>
OVK o\}rc<rd£ TOV TraTepa.

« Jesus saith, Except ye fast to the world, ye shall in
no wise find the kingdom of God ; and except ye keep the
sabbath, ye shall not see the Father.'

This striking saying is of course new and presents several
difficulties. If the reading noo-p-ov is correct — and there
seems to be no alternative — such an accusative after vr\-
, ' fast to the world,' is very harsh. Secondly, the

SAYINGS OP OUR LORD II

two halves of the saying are clearly intended to balance
each other, and therefore we should expect z^orewqre and
o-a/3/3aTto-7jre to be either both literal or both metaphorical.
But while o-a/3 fiarl^iv TO <ra.ppa.Tov is the ordinary phrase in
the Septuagint for ' observing the sabbath ' (Levit. xxiii.
32, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21), iTj<rreveii> cannot here mean 'fast'
literally. Can <raj3/3ari£ieip TO adpfBarov be taken in any
other than a literal sense ? We have been unable to find
a parallel, but, on the other hand, o-a/S/Sano-^o's is used
metaphorically in Heb. iv. 9, and Justin (Dial. cap. 12)
speaks of the perpetual sabbath enjoined by the new law.
Possibly the phrase has here an inner meaning, ' make the
sabbath a real sabbath.'

For the idea of 'renouncing the world' cf. Gal. vi. #4
81' ov ffj.ol K0(rp.os eorau/3ft>T(u, K<zy&> KOO-/X&), and the frequent
references in St. John to ' the world ' in a metaphorical
sense. The idea plays an important part in Gnostic
writings, though of course not in them alone. Cf. Pistis
Sophia, one of the chief Gnostic works which have been
preserved (p. 250, Schwartze's transl. p. 158), Dixi vobis
olim : aTTOTd<T<reTf Ko'oyx<{> toti et vXy toti. It is noticeable
that ' I said to you aforetime,' or some similar phrase is
the common formula used in that book for introducing
quotations from the Gospels.

The phrase ' ye shall not find the kingdom of God '
recalls Matt. vi. 33, ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God/ &c.

LOGION 3, 11. 1 1-2 1.

Ae'yei 'Irjo-ous, e[<r]r7jz> h fxeVw TOV Kooyxou, Kal ev aa/m
&(f)6r)v avrois, KOL evpov Travras nfOvovras nal ovbeva evpov
bi\l/u>VTa fv avrols, KCH Travel y V^X7? Mou ^ T0'? v'°'s ™v
av6p<oTru>v, on rv^Xoi, flcriv rf Kapbiq avroi)[y] . . .

'Jesus saith, 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 . . .'

12 AOriA IHCOY

In 1. 13 CAPK6I has been corrected by the original hand
from CAPKI. Of the latter half of 1. 21 only very faint
vestiges remain. At the end of it the horizontal stroke
which looks like the top of C might only be part of a long
cross-bar of € ; and the dot which is discernible before
this stroke, and which we have doubtfully transcribed as
I, could be the bottom of a long P in the previous line.

The beginning of this Logion was probably suggested by
Baruch iii. 38 /iera TOVTO firl rrjs yf)$ a>$0r?, Kal tv rots avdput-
TTOIS (rvvaveo-Tpatyr) — a passage which was applied by several
of the early Fathers to Christ's sojourn upon earth. Cf.
Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iv. 20 ; Cyprian, Testim. ii. 6. Con-
sidered by themselves the aorists eoT^r, &tf>driv, evpov might
suggest a post-resurrection point of view ; but the present
tense -novel which follows does not support this, and there
is no difficulty in referring the sentence to the period of
the ministry. For 'athirst' cf. Matt. v. 6, and for the
general tenour of the Logion, John i. 10.

LOGION 4, 1. 22.

Traces of two letters are discernible in the middle of the
line, but, though excluding certain combinations, they are
too scanty to afford a positive clue. 61 is possible. The €
inserted above the line is by the same hand as the rest of
the MS.

As it is uncertain how much has been lost after 1. 21,
1. 22 may contain the end of the preceding saying ; but
more probably it forms part of a distinct one. The word
irrooxet'a does not occur in any saying of our Lord recorded
in the Gospels, so this Logion was very likely new.

LOGION 5, 11. 23-30.

[A.e'y]et ['lycrovs, oii]ov tav SMTIV [. . . .]e[. . .] • • #eot KCU
[. ,](ro . e [. .] eariy /xo'vos [. .]TCO eyw ei/ii per avr[ou]' lyei-

/)OZ> TOV \L00V KCLKei ev?o-6t? j,f, CTi(TOV TO v\0

* Jesus saith, Wherever there are .... and there is one
.... alone, I am with him. Raise the stone and there
thou shalt find me, cleave the wood and there am I.'

SAYINGS OF OUR LORD 13

The meaning of this remarkable Logion, the beginning
of which is unfortunately mutilated, constitutes the chief
difficulty of the fragment. First as to the reading : —

In 1. 23 immediately before OY there is part of a stroke
which may very well be the end of the cross-bar of TT.
In 1. 24 the remains of the letter before €01 are consistent
with 6 only, and those of the letter preceding suit A better
than X or A, which seem to be the only alternatives. Before
this there is the bottom of a perpendicular stroke, which
would be consistent with H, I, N, TT and perhaps r and Y.
At the beginning of 1. 25 what we have read as C may
equally well be the second half of TT ; and 0 . might possibly
be one letter, 00, though this does not correspond with the
vestiges so well. In 1. 26 the first letter of which any part
is preserved may be T, TT, or I"; but [6] TO) would not fill
the lacuna. In 1. 27 there is not room for AYT[CON], and
moreover the tip of a letter is visible, which suits Y.

It seems fairly certain that the Logion offers a general
parallel to Matt, xviii. 20 — ' For where two or three are
gathered together,' &c. — though with considerable diver-
gences. An extension of that verse which comes nearer
to our passage is found in Ephraem Syr. Evang. Concord.
Expos, c. 14 (v. Resch, Agrapha, p. 295), where the im-
portant addition ubi unus est corresponds to p.6vos here,
and suggests that 61 C should be read either at the begin-
ning of 1. 25 or before GCTTN. The meaning may then be
that wherever there are several believers, or even only one,
Jesus is always present. No explanation can however be
considered satisfactory, unless it enables the lacunae in
11. 25 and 26 to be plausibly filled up, and provides an
adequate conjecture for the word ending in 601, which is
the real key to the whole passage. If A660I is the right
reading there, a contrast seems to be intended between
the many ungodly and the one true believer : — ' Where all
men else are unbelievers, if one alone is (faithful), I am
with him.' But a0eoi is hardly a natural word in this
connexion ; and some such adjective as TTIOTOJ would be
required in 1. 25, and it is difficult to see how this can be

I4 AOriA IHCOY

obtained. Further, unless el is lost at the beginning of
1. 25, both the explanations suggested require either eorty
to be a mistake for ?y, or xat to be a mistake for *cet.

The whole passage should be compared with an extract
from the Gnostic ' Gospel of Eve ' quoted by Epiphanius,
Haer. 26, 3 eycb <rv Kal <rv eyc6' KOI o-nov tav ys eyo> exet eiju-t, Kal

o-uAAe'ycdi; eavrbv (rvAAeyets. But the idea here, that Christ is
in His believers (cf. John xiv. 20), is rather different from
that of our passage and Matt, xviii. 20, where it is only
promised that He will be with them. It is, however, some-
what tempting to connect the quotation with the remark-
able but difficult sentence, ' Raise the stone,' &c., as imply-
ing the presence of Christ in all things ; cf. Eph. iv. 6.

Another possible explanation of these words would be to
regard them as a parallel to Matt. vii. 7, ' Ask and it shall
be given you/ and as intended to teach the effort required
in order to find Christ.

LOGION 6, 11. 30-35.

Ae'yei 'lr)<rovs, OVK lorii' Se/crds TrpotyiJTrjs ev rfj Trarpibi avr[o]u,
larpbs Trotet depaiifias tls TOVS yivuxruovra's aiiTov.

'Jesus saith, A prophet is not acceptable in his own
country, neither doth a physician work cures upon them
that know him.'

Cf. Luke iv. 24 ot»8eis Trpo^TjTJjs 8eKTo's eony tv TT)
OVTOV. Matt. xiii. 57 and Mark vi. 4 have anjuos, and the
addition K<H ev rfj otxta avrov (Mark /cat ev rdis <rv-yy€ve<nv
avrov, Kat, K.T.A.). John iv. 44 has TI/UTJZ; OVK e^ec, but omitS
Kai fv TTJ oiKia avrov. The significance of the agreement
between the text of the papyrus and that of St. Luke will
be discussed later. In connexion with the second part
of the Logion, which is new, the preceding verse in
St. Luke's narrative, 'Physician, heal thyself,' &c., and
the following verse in that of St. Mark (vi. 5) should be
noticed.

SAYINGS OF OUR LORD 15

LOGION 7, 11. 36-41.

Aeyet 'Irjaovs, iroAis a»Ko8oju,7jju,efTj eir' aKpov [olpous v\//7jAou
K.al e<m7/Kyjuei>?7 ovre 7re[o-]eu> 8warat oure Kpu[/3]^rai.

'Jesus saith, A city built upon the top of a high hill,
and stablished, can neither fall nor be hid.'

The scribe certainly wrote YYHAOYC, but he appears to
have partially rubbed out the C.

The idea in Matt. v. 14 here appears in an expanded
form. The additional matter suggests the parable of the
house built upon a rock, Matt. vii. 24, 25. But it is not
really admissible to suppose that this Logion is a mere
conflation of the two passages, since there is no reference
here to the rock, which is the essential point of the parable.

In Matt. v. 14 the ordinary reading is TTO'AIS Ket^eVrj. But
<o/co8of/,r7|u,e'in} is supported by the Syriac versions and Tatian,
Diatess. viii. 41, which all have ' built,' not ' set.'

LOGION 8, 11. 41, 42.

As at the bottom of col. i, the traces of letters in the
middle of 1. 42 are very faint. The third letter could be
T, the fifth C. [e]IC TO eNGJTTION COY is a possible
reading. The last letter of the line may be 6, and the
preceding one f or conceivably K. The Logion appears to
be new.

AOriA IHCOY

IV
GENERAL REMARKS

IT would be obviously impossible for us to attempt an
adequate discussion of the questions to which our fragment
gives rise, still less to assign its place in early Christian
literature. But though this task must be left to theological
scholars, it will not perhaps be out of place to indicate
the chief problems connected with the discovery, and the
direction in which its value seems chiefly to lie.

Since the papyrus itself was written not much later
than the beginning of the third century, this collection
of sayings must go back at least to the end of the second
century. But the internal evidence points to an earlier
date. The primitive cast and setting of the sayings, the
absence of any consistent tendency in favour of any par-
ticular sect, the wide divergences in the familiar sayings
from the text of the Gospels, the striking character of
those which are new, combine to separate the fragment
from the 'apocryphal' literature of the middle and latter
half of the second century, and to refer it back to the
period when the Canonical Gospels had not yet reached
their pre-eminent position. Taking 140 A. D., then, as the
terminus ad quern, and postponing for the present the
question of the terminus a quo, we proceed to consider
the possibility, which the provenance of the papyrus
naturally suggests, that our fragment may come from the
* Gospel according to the Egyptians.' This Gospel, of
which only a few extracts survive, was probably written
about the beginning of the second century, and seems for
a time to have attained in Egypt and even elsewhere a high
degree of authority. It was however decisively rejected
in the third century. Its chief characteristics seem to have

SAYINGS OF OUR LORD 17

been its Encratite and mystic tendencies. Now, it might
be contended that the asceticism of Logion 2 points to an En-
cratite bias ; and that the ' mystic ' nature attributed to this
Gospel by Epiphanius and indicated in the only excerpt
of any length that is preserved (Clem. Alex. Strom, iii. 6.
45, 9. 63-66). is in keeping with the phraseology of Logion 5.
But asceticism such as that of Log. 2 finds abundant parallel
in the N. T., and the mysticism of Log. 5 is open to doubt,
and in any case it is much less marked than in the extract
referred to. A more serious and, in our opinion, fatal
objection to the identification is the setting in which these
Logia, are found. The use of the present tense Ae'yci, the
regular repetition of the opening formula, and still more
the obvious want of connexion between the individual
sayings, which clearly relate to different occasions, are
strongly opposed to the supposition that they could form
part of a narrative Gospel. The same objection of course
equally applies to the reference of our fragment not only
to the ' Gospel according to the Hebrews ' — which more-
over is the less likely a claimant since it seems to have
been closely related to St. Matthew's Gospel from which
our fragment is widely divergent — but to any so-called
'Gospels.' These, whether professing to fill up gaps left
by the Canonical Gospels, or going over the same ground
from the point of view of a particular sect, at any rate
gave a connected narrative of events and discourses, not
a series of disjointed sayings.

But it will perhaps be said that, though our fragment
may not actually form part of any one of these com-
positions, it may still be a series of excerpts from one or
more of them. It is of course impossible to disprove such
a theory. But in the absence of any clear case of parallelism
between the contents of the fragment and what is known
of these apocryphal books, it has little to recommend it. It
has no « priori probability, the general character of the
sayings lends it no support, and, since extracts would
presumably be made with some purpose, it fails to explain
the want of connexion between one saying and another.

iQ AOTIA IHCOY

A more satisfactory view, though not free from difficulties,
is that this fragment is what it professes to be, a collection
of some of our Lord's sayings. These, judging from their
archaic tone and framework, were put together not later
than the end of the first or the beginning of the second
century ; and it is quite possible that they embody a tradi-
tion independent of those which have taken shape in our
Canonical Gospels. The insistence on the observance of
the sabbath, if that be the meaning of Log. 2, suggests that
the sayings may have been current in Jewish Christian
circles. The principle of the compilation is not obvious.
Perhaps it was their picturesque force that determined
their selection; perhaps they were chosen as pregnant
utterances requiring elucidation. In any case we may here .
have got for the first time a concrete example of what was
meant by the Logia which Papias tells us were compiled by
St. Matthew, and the \6yia KvpiaKa upon which Papias him-
self wrote a commentary. The statement about St. Matthew
(ap. Euseb. H. E. iii. 39), MarOalos pev ovv 'E/3pai8i
TO. Ao'yia (rvveypd\}/a.TO' r]pp.rjvfvcrf o"' avra <us rjv bvvaros
has always been taken as the starting-point in any discus-
sion of the synoptic problem, but of the meaning of the
word Aoyta the most diverse views have been held. It is
not of course at all likely that our fragment has any actual
connexion either with the Hebrew Logia of St. Matthew or
the Aoyta nvpiaKa of Papias. It contains nothing which
suggests the one or the other, and probably many such
collections were made. But it is difficult to imagine a title
better suited to a series of sayings, each introduced by the
phrase Aeyet 'ITJO-OUS, than Logia ; and the discovery strongly
supports the view that in speaking of Aoyta Papias and
Eusebius intended some similar collection.

To sustain this theory, it is necessary to undertake some
consideration of the relations of the fragment to our Gospels.
The Logia which have clear parallels in the Gospels are the
first, fifth, sixth, and seventh. The first, so far as it is pre-
served, corresponds precisely with the language of Luke
vi. 42, but the difference between this reading and that of

SAYINGS OF OUR LORD 19

Matt. vii. 5 is too slight to be of much importance. A much
more remarkable case of agreement with St. Luke against
the other Evangelists is the occurrence in Log. 6 of the
word 8eKTo's. On the other hand, Log. 7 offers a point of
contact with St. Matthew's Gospel which alone has the
saying about the city set on a hill; and the promise
' where two or three are gathered together,' &c., which
perhaps reappears in another form in Log. 5, is also peculiar
to St. Matthew. Of the influence of St. Mark's Gospel there
is no trace, nor is there any direct connexion with St. John's ;
but two of the new Logia, both in their general tenour and
in the use of the words KO'CTJUOJ, 6 TrarTjp, and (v aapKi, have
a Johannine sound. Against these points of agreement
with our Gospels have to be set both the occurrence of
new Logia, and the divergences of reading.

The first explanation which suggests itself is that we
have here only another instance of free citation from our
Gospels. But this cannot be considered satisfactory. If
there were a perfectly clear case in our fragment of verbal
agreement with one of the Evangelists, there would be
some ground for supposing that the other passages which
approximated to the Gospel text were loose or expanded
quotations. Logion i is too incomplete to carry much
weight. The only coincidence which is at all striking is the
use of the word Se/cro's in Logion 6. Here St. Matthew and
St. Mark have cm/zos, St. John Tt.fj.rjv OVK exei, and this is
just one of the cases in which St. Luke's variation has been
explained, not as due to a difference in, or an independent
use of, the sources, but as a literary improvement. If this
assumption is correct, it would certainly be reasonable to
regard the passage in St. Luke as the origin of our
Logion, the differences between the two could be put down
to misquotation, and the following sentence about the
physician could be taken as a literary expansion. But while
the strength of this position may be admitted, it is far from
being unassailable. In the first place, its basis is after
all only a hypothesis, which, even if true for a number
of variations, need not be so in this particular instance.

20 AOriA IHCOY

It may be argued from the occurrence of the word
unaccompanied by other points of agreement, not that the
fragment borrowed from St. Luke, but that both drew from
a common source, or at least were influenced by the same
body of tradition. Should such a view be held to be
probable here, it would have an important bearing upon
the whole question of the independence of St. Luke's
Gospel. Secondly, since we have in any case to assume
a source other than the Gospels for the Logia which are
entirely new, is it not simpler to regard this as the source
of the whole collection? The validity of this argument
of course depends largely upon the view taken of the new
sayings. Those critics who put them down as ' Gnostic '
inventions will probably maintain the dependence of their
author upon the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke as
we have them. Starting from the fact that they do not
appear to be quoted by any writer, while the MS. contain-
ing them may be as late as the third century, to postulate
a Gnostic origin would be an easy explanation, and one to
which the character of Log. 5 might be held to give some
support. But, partly owing to the doubt as to the meaning
of that passage pending a restoration of the first three
lines, its ' Gnosticism ' is far from being ascertained. And
if the other new logia are to be branded as ' Gnostic,' it is
difficult to see what might not be included under that
convenient category. Of the peculiar tenets of developed
Gnosticism we have here not a vestige. Even if the
prevailing judgement of these sayings should be that
they were preserved in Gnostic circles, and themselves
show some trace of the tendencies out of which Gnosticism
developed, it does not follow that they are therefore inven-
tions. And, whether free or not from Gnostic influence,
the genuine ring of what is new in this fragment, and
the primitive cast of the whole, are all in favour of its
independence of our Gospels in their present shape.

THE END

GRAECO-ROMAN BRANCH.

THE Egypt Exploration Fund, .which has conducted arch,
logical research in Egypt continuously since 1883 now proj
to establish a special department, to be called the Graeco-Roman
Branch, for the discovery and publication of remains oi
antiquity and early Christianity in Egypt.

While it- is intended that further exploration shall proceed hand
in hand with publication, the first work of the new c\<
will be to publish the large and valuable collection of Greek
papyri discovered this year by Messrs. B. I'. Grenfell and

Hunt at Behnesa (the site of the ancient Oxyrhynchu
whirh the'Logia n tied as the first-frn-

Th> Exploration Fund would pr inual

irnile

plates of the more important papyri, under the
.renfell and Hunt.

A subscription of one guinea will entitle subs: the

annual volume, and a donation of £25 will constitute life-
membership. Subscriptions may be sent either to the under-
the honorary treasurers of the ''

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