SAYINGS OF JESUS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1696, 31 August 1904, Page 87 (Supplement)

SAYINGS OF JESUS

The fragments of MSS., scriptural and otherwise, found last year at o(xyrynohus, in Egypt, by Dr Bernard Grenfell and Dr Arthur Hunt, representatives of the Egypt Exploration Fund, havo been published in a small volume by Mr Henry Frowde. As might (be expected of scraps of writing 1600 or 1700 years old, they are very incomplete. The first of the “New Sayings” (says the "Spectator”) was already known. It is quoted by Clemens Aloxandrinus (Strom. 11., 9, 45), and characteristically used to support a thesis quite remote from its real meaning. The third and fourth have fairly close parallels in the Canonical Gospels, and the fifth is “broken beyond hope of recovery,” though ‘fits general drift may be caught.” it is the second that is the most important. Unfortunately, it is so mutilated that conjecture has to be very freely used before any connected meaning can be made out. Drs Grenfell and Hunt restore it thus:—Jesus saitli, (Ye ask who are) those that draw us (to the kingdom if) the kingdom (is; in Heaven. . . the fowls of the 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 (whosoever shall) know (himself) shall find it. Strive therefore to knew yourselves, and ye (shall be aware that) ye are the sons of the (alimrii Father (and ye shall know that ye are in the city of God, and ye are the city).” The words in parenthesis indicate the filling in which is proposed to make the saying intelligible. An important peculiarity of the new discovery is the existence of an “Introduction.” The Sayings are preceded by a passage which, in Drs Grenfell and Hunt's r storation, runs as follows: —“Tnese a re the wonderful words which Jesus the living Lord spake to. . . and Thomas, and lie said (unto them, Every one that hearkens) to these words shall never taste (of death).”