A BIBLICAL DISCOVERY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7335, 19 August 1885, Page 4

A BIBLICAL DISCOVERY.

A Vicuna telegram states that an important discovery has been made among the .manuscripts which Archduke Benier brought back two years ago from El yayoum, in Egypt,' and which are known collectively to Orientalists as " Corpus Papyrorum Eaiiiicri Archiducis." A fragment of the New Testament has been found, comprising a chapter which differs from St. Matthew, chapter xxvi, verses 30 to 34, and from St. Mark, chapter xiv, verses 26 to 30, more than these evangelists differ from each other. The fragment seems to have been written in the third century A.D., though, according to the style, it might belong to the first century. In the description of the Last Supper, the passage in which Our Lord predicts iiis betrayal is quite different from that in the two Gospels, and the words, "But after I am risen again I will go before yon into Galilee," are wanting. Peter's oath varies also in wording and length. The whole style of the fragment is vigorous, terse, and clear. According to Dr IHekell, of Innsbruck, the fragment must bo the copy of a manuscript older than those from which the accepted versions of St. Matthew and St. Mark have been taken. The papyrus is at present in the hands of the Oriental' Professor Ivarabacck, of Vienna, and a facsimile of it is to be published. Among the other manuscripts discovered is a papyrus of the Gorgias of Plato, dating from the second century, and differing a little from the known text; also a fragment containina: 200 versos of Homer's " Iliad," a copy of the "Idylls of Theocritis," another Arab manuscript, in addition to those announced some time ago, dating from the first century of the Hegira, and 88 Latin manuscripts.