(i) Three Oxyrhynchite (Greek) fragments. — (i. ) A small fragment of a Gospel in a papyrus roll is as- signed by Grenfell-Hunt (Oxyrhijnchus Papyri, iv. [1904], pp. 22-28) to a period not iater than A.D. 250. The mutilated opening reads like a short para- plirase of Mt G^^^Lk \^-^, Mt 6-8- ^e^Lk \2-^- ^\ Mt 627- 31-33 = Lk 1225- 29-31: 'from morning t[ill evening, nor] from even[ing till m]orning, neither [for your food] what you shall eat [nor] for [your clothing] what you shall put on. [You are] far better than the [lil]ies which grow but spin not. . . . Having one garment, what [do you lack?]. . . . Who could add to your stature? He will give you your garment.' Then follows (cf. Jn 14'"^-) a question put by the disciples, with the answer of Jesus. ' His disciples say to him. When wilt thou be manifest to us, and when shall we see thee? He says, When you are stripped and yet not ashamed. . . .'* Finally, a mutilated frag- ment at the end may be deciphered so as to yield a saying like that preserved in Lk IP^, but the restoration is too conjectural to be of any service in determining the original sense of the passage.
The editors think the Gospel of Avhich this formed a fragment must have been composed in Egypt prior to A.D. 150, and that it Avas closely connected in some way with the Egyptian Gospel and the uncanonical source of 2 Clement. The fragment seems to be from some homily on the passage Mt 6-^^*, in Avhich the preacher dramatizes his teaching by putting it into the form of a dialogue. The edifying tendency corresponds to the primitive Christian instinct about marriage and the sexes which afterwards developed into Encratitism, but which neither then nor afterwards has been incompatible with orthodox belief. The question and answer at the close form a mystic ex- pansion of the preceding saying about the garment — an expansion which presupposes a verbal form of the Logion like that of the Gospel of the Egyp- tians as it appears in Clement's citation, not in that of 2 Clem. (seep. 495), althoiagh here the ques- tion is put by the disciples instead of by an indivi- dual (Salome?). Kesch (TU new ser. xii. [1904] 593 n.) holds that the whole fragment comes from the Egyptian Gospel ; but there is not enough evi- dence as yet to show that the Oxyrhynchite Gospel
* i.e. when the Eden-innocence (Gn 37) is restored, and sexual associations abolished. Cf. R. Reitzenstein's Bellenis- tische Wundererzdhlungen, Leipzig, 1906, pp. 67-68.
was Identical with this early document. Such ascetic tendencies were not confined to any one circle, and it is uncritical to assume that the varied expressions of them which survive in Gospel fragments belonged to the same document, or even to different recensions of the .same document. The Oxj-rhynchite Gospel may have been the source used in 2 Clement ; the difference in the wording of the two passages is not conclusive against this conjecture as it is against the theory that the Oxyrhynchite Gospel or the Clementine source is identical with the Gospel according to the Hebrews.
(ii. ) A second Oxyrhynchite fragment was pub- lished in 1907 by Grenfell and Hunt (op, cit. v. 840), from a vellum leaf of the 4th (5th ?) century. It begins with the conclusion of an address by Jesus to the disciples and proceeds to a dialogue between Jesus and a high priest in the temple * at Jerusalem (cf. Mk 1P7), the theme of which (cf. Mk 7"-) is the contrast between inward and outward purity :
' " . . . before doin;? wrong he makes all sophistical excuses {navTo. cro<i)iieTa.i). But take heed lest you suffer like them, for the evil-doers among men do not receive [their due] among the li\ ing simply, but await punishment and sore torture." And taking them [i.e. the disciples] he brought them into the sacred precinct (to ayvevrnpiov) and walked within the temple. And a Pharisee, a hi^'h priest named Levi (?), came up to them and said to the Saviour, " Who allowed you to tread the precinct and look at these holy vessels when you have not washed, neith"r have your disciples bathed their feet? Kay, you are defiled and you have trodden this holy Place which is clean, which no one treads unless he has washed and changed his clothes, neither does he [venture to look at] the holy vessels." And . . . (with ?) the disciples . . . [the Saviour said], "Then are you clean, you who are in the temple?" He says to him, "I am clean; for I have washed in the pool of David, and after descending by one stair I ascended by another, put on clean, while clothes, and then came and gazed on these holy vessels. " The Saviour said to him in reply, " Woe to you, blind folk, who see not I You have washed in these running waters, in which dogs and swine have been flung night and day ; and you have wiped clean the outside skin, which even harlots and flute-girls t anoint and wash and wipe and adorn to excite the lust of men, while within they are [full ?] of scorpions and [all vice?]. Now I and [my disciples ?], who, you say, have not bathed, have bathed in the [living ?] waters which issue from . . . But woe to . . •" '