The Washington times., 1935-12-07
Side
Of the
News
By Edwin c. Hill
PRICELESS PAPYRI

ny E0WIn L. HItL
PRICELESS PAPYRI
An oxford scholar, going
through a collection Of manu-.
scripts in the Rylands Library in
Manchester one day last month,
came upon a papyrus, measuring
three and one-half by two ano
one-third inches. The first mean.
ing of papyrus is a tall Egyp-
tian plant with a smooth, trian.
gular stem. The loose, spongy tis-
sue of this stem was cut into
strips and layers by the ancientS
and soaked into a mass. When
it had dried, they used it for
writing.paper in the form OF
scrolls, and these scrolls took the
name of papyrus and papyri.
The English scholar looked
curiously at the papyrus and at
the Greek characters thereon. In
an instant, he experienced thai
feeling which Columbus must
have senSed when he looked on
the new land and which must
have stirred Sutter when he found
the gold of California. Here was
the earliest fragment of a man.
uscript of the Bible, a priceless
relic!
The finder, C.. H. Roberts, read.
ing the Greek, learned that it
comprised verses 81, 80 and 33 of
the eighteenth chapter of the
Gospel Of st. John. dealing with
the trial of Jesus before Pontius
PLATE. How it got there he could
not tell, but his opinion is that
for centuries it lay on rubbish
heap in Egypt before being sent
to England with a miscellaneous
collection Of papyri.
REAL SIGNIFICANCE
'It is likely" he says, that it
came originally from Oxyrhynchus,
Upper Egypt, where Drs Green,
field and Hunt in 1897 found the
famous document giving new say.
ings by Jesus. In text it varies
but slightly from the present yer.
sion of the Gospel, and its varia-
ton constitutes no material diff,
ference.
Its real significance lies in the
fact that the Gospel of st. John,
hitherto regarded as the latest Of
the Gospels, was known so far
afield as Upper Egypt so soon after
the beginning of the Christian
era"
DR.. Henry Cuppy, chief Of the
Rylands Library, says that this
fragment is older than the frag.
ment of the unknown Gospel
which the British Museum &C.
quired last year.
1T is absolutely priceless" he
says, land is find which makes
previous discoveries seem common
place. 1t may have been written
in the latter part of the first cen
tury before the ink on the origi-
nal was dry"
The first Christians had no more
idea that we, today, would be
looking for their scrolls on papyri
than we have the idea that the
citizens Of 2935 A. D. will be in
terested in a newspaper of this
date. In fact, they did not believe
we would be alive, for they took
literally the words Of Jesus that
the end of the world would be at
hand when they saw "the abom1-
nation Of deSolation spoken of by
Daniel the Prophet"
It was not until the Fourth CEN
tury, when Constantine embraced
Christianity, that the copies Of
the sayings of Christ and letters
of the Apostles we're made into
books. Such a book, written on
vellum, which is lamb or cali
gut or skin, with the pages stitched
together, is called codex. Two
of these Fourth century codlces
survive: the Codex Vaticanus and
the Code Sinaitacus.
Two years ago this last codeX
was purchased from the Bolshe-
visit government of Russia by
england for $500,OOO and placed
in the British Museum. This
codex had been removed from
Caesarea, Palestine, during the
Arab invasion of 638 and had
been taken to the Monastery OF
st. Catherine on Mount Sinai.
whence the name "SinaiticuS. ="
The German scholar Constantine
Tischendorf discovered it there in
1874.
FIFTH GOSPEL?
It embraces $50 leaves, contain
ing two-fifths of the Old Testa-
ment. The monks turned it over
to the Car. The Codex Vati-
canus is in the Vatican. The
original papyri are found only in
scraps such as the Manchester
one. They are in Greek because
the early Christians were mostly
Greek subjects of Rome.
It was natural enough for the
scholars and the scribes to toss
aside the papyri as useless and out
moded after vellum and codiceS
had been introduced as the more
advanced and better form Of
work.
-Four hundred years ago this
S year the first complete Bible in
English was printed by MyleS
Coverdale. Probably no more
: than two copies of this are in
5 existence today because our an