Hort. They range themselves with the Codices
NB and their allies, thus supporting not merely the
type of text which WH have shown to be earlier
than the Textus Receptus, but that particular form of it (WH’s ‘ Neutral’) which there is good reason to associate with Egypt. In the OT nearly all the papyrus fragments yet discovered are later than the great vellum uncials, and throw no new light on the textual problems of the LXX; but No. 12 is noticeable as containing a Hexaplaric text, with the earliest extant specimens of the symbols used by Origen. Outside the range of the canonical books, the Vienna fragment (No. 23) is too small to admit of any secure deductions ; but the ‘ Logia’ papyrus is exceptionally interesting, though there is no evidence to establish either the immediate source of its contents or the amount of authenticity which can be allowed to them. The ‘ Ascension of
Isaiah’ MS is also of considerable value as the
only extant witness to the Greek text of the work ;
and the same may be said, to a less degree, of the
Hermas fragments (No. 28). The other theological
papyri do not amount to very much.
whe greater part, however, of the value of the papyri lies in another direction, and arises from the light which they throw on the circumstances under which the LXX and the NT were written and circulated in the earlier ages. Occasionally they provide us with direct evidences of early
Christianity, as in the case of Nos. 61-63 in .the
foregoing list ; but the indirect evidence is greater,
both in bulk and in importance. In the Greek papyri of the Ptolemaic period we have a mass of documents, literary and non-literary, written in the very country in which the LXX was produced and at the very same time, and showing us both how books were written at that time and what manner of Greek was spoken by the foreign rest-
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
dents in Egypt. Similarly, in the papyri of the early Roman period, from the Ist to the 4th cent., we have examples of books, letters, and business documents contemporary with the writers of the NT books, and illustrating the methods of book production and book circulation before the adop- tion of vellum and the date of the great vellum uncials which are the foundation of our textual knowledge. The results can be indicated only in outline within the limits of this article.
(a) Lingwistic.—Previous to the great discoveries of papyri, it was usual to treat biblical Greek as a thing apart, due to a combination of Hebrew influences with the common Greek dialect, which operated only in Hellenistic (Jewish-Greek) circles. There is, no doubt, a considerable amount of truth in this view. Hebrew idioms naturally in- fluenced the translators of the LXX, and acquaint- ance with the LXX naturally affected the style of the writers of the NT; but it is a view which re- quires modification. The papyri show us the dia- lect of Greek Egypt in many forms,—the language of the Government official, of the educated private person, of the dwellers in the temples, of the peasantry in the villages; and in many of them, which cannot be suspected of being subject to Jewish influences, we find words and phrases previously known only in the LXX or the NT. Thus the ‘instrumental’ use of the preposition év by St. Paul in 1 Co 4” (év pa 8dy Ow pds twas) has habitually been regarded as a Hebraism ; yet an exact parallel to it occurs in a group of petitions from a village in the Fayum (Tebtunis Papp. 16" 415 4517 4615 4711. 12 4819 Mappelous adv ddXors ahelooe Ev paxalpars mapaywopuévov, émeOay Avxos aby &\dous ev 8mdows, K.T.A.). Another papyrus from the same neighbourhood (50) contains the expression ém- Bartdov ovéxwoev, in the sense ‘he twrned to* and blocked up’ (a canal), which may be compared with the obscure use of the same participle in Mk 147 Kat émiBaddv éxraev. Prof. A. Deissmann, who, if not the first to notice this topic of interest in the papyri, was the first to develop it at length, has given the following list of words occurring in the LXX or NT, the use of which is elucidated or con- firmed by the papyri :—
dyyapedw, ddekpés (of members of religious com- munities), ddodos, dbérnows, dkard-yyworos, dpeTavdyTos, dvapddavros, dvriAnumTwp, dvTiinuyis, améxw, dpKeros, dpxitwparopirak, domdfoua, dpeois (Vddrwr), yh ev dpécer (but here D.’s explanation cannot be Bech iee: the phrase meaning land not held directly of the king), Baordgfw, BeBalwors, yevnua, yoyyifw, ypamua- revs, ypapw (yéypamrTar), duddoxos, Siakovw, di@pvé, Soxlucos, edv (=av), ef way, hardy, els (=dat. commodi), évrapiaorhs, evrevéus, evismiov, épyoorwKT ys, épwr ay (=re- quest), éo@nors, eviharos, Oewédov, KaOapds dmrd, Kard- Kpiyua, Kupuaxds, Necroupyla, Aukudw, iy (=west, which is normal in the papyri), Aoyela, wera Kal (or ody Kal), puxpbs (=iunior), vedguros, vouos (=nome, the terri- torial division of Egypt), 8voua (in such phrases as evrevius els Td TOO Baoiéws dvoua), dperdy, éWwviov, mapddewos, mapemldnuos, mdperts, TacTopoplor, qepoe- tov, meploracis, mepiréuverdae (but D.’s interpretation of donuos as=daepuréuryros is untenable), dd répvor, maxus (genitive rnxv), roricuds, mpdyua exew, Tpak- Twp, mpecBirepos (designating an official), mpd0ecs (dprwv), mpopiyrns, Tuppaxns, CLTOMETpLOV, TkKEvoPUAAE, chapdydivos, covddpiov, ovyyerjs (as court-title), cup- BovAov, cuvéxw, oppaylfo, opupls, cua ( = slave), Thpnots, vids Oeod (used as title of Augustus), v7o- irycov (= ass), vrromddtov, Pidros (as court-title), xdpayya,