The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part VI

20. tess[erak]onta forty : so AQ ; m' B.
23. [Amm]oraion Amorites : Amorraion MSS. There is room for at least three letters in the lacuna; Amo]rraion cannot be read.
elabon I took : Qᵃ has anelabon I took up.
28. A stop is probably lost after kyrios Lord.

847. ST. JOHN’S GOSPEL ii.

16.2 x 14.6 cm. Fourth century. Plate VI (recto).

This leaf from a vellum MS. of St. John’s Gospel is sufficiently early in date to be of decided value. The rather large calligraphic script is more closely related to the sloping oval type of the third and fourth centuries than to the squarer heavier style which subsequently became common for biblical texts and of which 848 and 851 are examples. Especially noticeable are the small o and omega placed high in the line of writing; the omega is also remarkably shallow—shallower for instance, than that in 665 (cf. P. Oxy. IV, Plate I). We have little hesitation in referring the MS. to the fourth century, and it may well be as old as any of the great biblical codices. Stops in the middle position are freely used; a few other dots which occur seem to be accidental. The usual contractions of patros father and Iesous Jesus are used, the latter word appearing both as Is (l. 9) and Is (l. 30); meter mother, on the other hand, is written out at length (l. 4).

The leaf is practically entire, and preserves a dozen verses from chap. ii of the Gospel. Compared with the three principal MSS., the Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus (C and D are both defective here), the text is much nearest to that of the Vaticanus, with which it agrees four times against the other two, whereas there is no coincidence with ℵ against AB, one with A against ℵB, and only two with ℵA against B. Readings unsupported by any of the three are found in verse 12, tauta these things for touto this, and verse 15, where hos as is added before phragellion scourge, variants for which the new MS. is much the earliest authority.

his, and his disciples
believed in him. After
these things he went down to Capharna-
oum, he and his mother,
5 and his brothers, and his discipl-
es; and there they stayed

20 selling doves, he said,
Take these things from here; do not
make the house of my fathe[r]
a house of merchandise. His
disciples remembered [that]
25 it is written: Zeal