A NEW GOSPEL

Evening Star, Issue 21974, 9 March 1935, Page 2

A NEW GOSPEL

FRAGMENTS IN PAPYRI FROM EGYPT Below the Keeper of the Manu■cripts in the British Museum (Mr H. Idris Bell) describes and briefly discusses fragments of Greek papyri from Egypt, recently acquired by the Museum, which relate to the Gospel story and are believed to he older than any New Testament manuscript hitherto known. The report is from ‘ The Times.’ “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely •believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, which from the . beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word: it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most •xeellent Theophilus.” So did St. Luke begin the work in which for the first time a Christian writer “ took in hand ” to set forth and commend to the Gentile world the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. The church recognises four Gospels—including St. Luke’s own, and St. Luke cannot have known any of the other three except St. Mark’s. Who, then, were the “ many ” who had told the life of Jesus before him? Scholars have assumed the existence of lost books, Q, “ Proto-Mark,” “Proto-Luke,” and the like, which were incorporated into the Gospels we know; and it is likely enough that other and similar works have disappeared without leaving a trace. A probable hypothesis is that each of the canonical Gospels was originally written for the use of some particular church or group of churches (Mark, for example, for Rome, John for Ephesus), and other churches may well have had their own Gospel, which, whether be- ■ cause they were intrinsically of less merit or because the churches which authenticated them possessed no great importance, were “crowded out ” by the superior authority of the canonical four. OF THE SECOND CENTURY. We know, either through existing fragments or on the testimony of early Path ers, of various apocryphal Gospels; and the lands of Egypt, which from their stores of buried papyri have so much enriched our stock of ancient literature, have yielded various fragments, notably the “ Sayings of Jesus,” which might be thought to represent some early local Gospel; hut in no case is such an identification very probable, and most of these works are obviously later than the Apostolic age. A recent discovery has, however, stronger claims to consideration. Among a collection of Greek papyri from Egypt acquired last summer by the British Museum were some fragments written in a literary hand which appeared to date from a period not later than the middle of the second century A.n. At the first glance attention was attracted by the letters IH, a known but not common form of the abbreviation of the “ sacred name ” Jesus. Such compendia are common enough in even the oldest theological manuscripts; but it was startling to find an obvioiisly Christian manuscript cf so early a date as the middle of the second century, for even the Chester Beatty papyri of the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline Epistles, hitherto our oldest manuscripts of the New Testament, take us no farther back than the early third. A cursory examination showed that, though the new fragments certainly came from a Gospel, they formed no part of any of the canonical four; and subsequent research has served but to enhance their importance and confirm tho early date originally assigned to them. They seem, therefore, to deservo a wider publicity than can be expected for the volume shortly to be published by the Trustees of the British ■Museum —‘ Fragments of an Unknown Gospel and Other Early Christian Papyri ’—in which the text will appear. The fragments consist of two imperfect leaves (four pages) and a small scrap (just possibly from the top of one of these leaves but more probably from a different leaf) of a papyrus codex, or volume of modern form, as opposed to the roll. Neither of the leaves is complete either in height or in breadth, hut by the help of parallels in the New Testament and from the recognisable sense it is possible to complete most of the lines with certainty or with a high degree of probability. It is unfortunate that the one page which, because the surface of the papyrus is damaged, offers the . greatest difficulties of decipherment is also the one where no help can be obtained from the canonical Gospels. The episode recorded, which occurred on the banks of the Jordan, ig curious and unparalleled, and Jesus asks a “ strange question,” which astonishes His hearers; but the context is at present largely obscure. The incident may just possibly be a practical illustration of the truth expressed in the saying recorded by St. John (xii., 24), “ Verily, verily. I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” “ TELL US THEREFORE—” The other page of this leaf is easier both to read and to restore, but it, too, has it difficulties. Certain persons, we learn, probably the Pharisees and the Herodiaris, “coming to Him (Jesus) began to tempt him with a question, saying, Master Jesus, we know that Thou art come from God, for the things which Thou doest testify above all the Tell us therefore ” —and

papyrus, there is an unfortunate ambiguity. The question relates to “ Kings,” which may be an indirect allusion to either Caesar or Herod, and though it is clear that it was intended to embarrass Jesus, as tending to embroil Him with the authorities, it is as yet uncertain what its exact bearing was, or, consequently, whether we have here a variant form of the Herodians’ question recorded by the Synoptists (Matth. xxii,, 16-22; Mark xii, 13-17 ; Cuke xx., 20-26). Or is it perhaps an incident in Galilee, such as may perhaps bo inferred from Mark iii., 6? Jesus replies by a counter-question: “ Why call ye me with your mouth Master when ye hear not what I say?” and He proceeds to quote, but in a form apparently nearer to the Septuagint version than that of the Synoptists, the words of Isaiah cited in a quite different context by Matthew (xv., 7-9) and Mark (vii,, 6-7). The other leaf is more amenable to restoration and not less interesting. The whole, of one page and the first half of the next are occupied with a dialogue between Jesus and the Jewish authorities. Here there are striking agreements between the new Gospel and John; but these coincidences are found in several different passages of John, recording various incidents. The nature of the problems raised may be judged by a quotation in which passages paralleled in John are printed in italics and tde Johannine reference cited;

And turning to the rulers of the people he spake this saying, Search (he scrip tares, in which ye think that ye have lift; these are they which bear witness of me (John v., 39). 1 Think not that I came to accuse you to my Father; there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, on whom ye have set your hope (John v., 45). And when they said, Wc know well that God spake unto Moses, but as for thee, we know not whence thou art (John ix., 29), Jesus answered and said unto them, Now is your belief accused. . . . ( X A comparison of these two sentences with the parallel passage of John in the Revised Version will reveal some differences of wording. Now it is a striking fact that certain ancient manuscripts, though giving the text as in the R.V., follow it up with a “ doublet ” version word for word the same as that which occurs in the new Gospel. It looks as if some early commentator had quoted the latter as a parallel in the margin of a manuscript, from which the authorities in question are descended, and that copyists had unintelligently incorporated it into the text.) The episode ends with attempts to stone Jesus and then to seize Him and (apparently) hand Him over to the multitude, but without success, “ because the hour of His betrayal was not yet come ” (see John vii., 30) ; and then the narrative turns to an incident which is almost certainly that recorded by the Synoptists (Matth. viii., 2-4; Mark i., 40-44 : Luke v.. 12-14) : But he himself, even the Lord, going out through the midst of them, departed from them. And behold, there cometh unto him a leper and saith, Master Jesus, journeying with lepers and eating with them in the inn, I myself also became a leper. If therefore thou wilt, I am made clean. The Lord then said unto him, I will; bo thou made clean. And straightway the leprosy departed from him. (And the Lord said unto him), Go (and show thyself) unto the (priests) HYPOTHESES. Here we seem pretty certainly to meet with a tradition, oral or written, independent of the Synoptic version and concurrent with it; and there is considerable probability that the new detail added by the papyrus is an authentic part of the story. What is to be said of the Johannine iparellels in the other passage? Was tho writer of the new Gospel culling excerpts from St. John, which, with slight and apparently pointless Verbal alterations, he wove ihto the context of his narrative? Or did St. John use materials derived from' the new Gospel to build up his highly individual presentation of Christ's teaching? Or were both St. John and our anonymous author drawing on a common source ? This is not the place in which to discuss the extremely complicated question, but reasons are adduced in the volume already referred to which seem to make it at least arguable that one or other of tho last two hypotheses is to be preferred to the first. If that is really the case, then the new papyrus brings us at last into touch, cither immediately or at one remove, with a source used by St. John in the compilation of his Gospel Tn any case the fragments may fairly claim to be the earliest bit of Christian writing at present known to bo extant; for, as already said, they probably antedate the Chester Beatty manuscripts of the New Testament by over half a century and bring ns well into the snb-Apostolic age.