The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part 5

which is of a dramatic character, being preserved almost complete. It is preceded by the conclusion of a speech of Jesus to His disciples, exhorting them to avoid the example of certain wrong-doers and warning them of the penalties which await the latter both in this world and the next (ll. 1-7). What particular class is referred to by the word aipsis original: "αὑτοῖς" in l. 3 is not clear. Jesus, who throughout the fragment is called simply o soter original: "ὁ σωτήρ", then takes His disciples with Him inside the Temple to the hagneuterion place of purification, by which term the author of the gospel perhaps meant the 'court of the men of Israel', though how far this use of it is legitimate is doubtful (ll. 7-9; cf. l. 8, note). They are there met by a chief priest who is also a Pharisee, but whose name is quite uncertain (l. 10, note). The chief priest reproaches them for having neglected to perform the necessary ceremonies of ablution and change of garments before entering the holy place and looking upon the sacred vessels (ll. 12-21). A short dialogue ensues in which Jesus asks the chief priest if he is pure, and the latter answers recounting the different purificatory rites which he had himself observed (ll. 21-30). To this Jesus delivers an eloquent and crushing reply contrasting outward with inward purity, the external bathing prescribed by Jewish ritual with the inward cleansing which He and His followers had received in the waters of eternal life (ll. 30-45). Before the conclusion of the speech is reached the fragment breaks off.

In its general outline the episode described resembles Matt. xv. 1-20, Mark vii. 1-23, though the scene is there not Jerusalem but near Gennesaret, and the other details are of course different. The contrast between outward religious observance and inward purity was one of the most salient points in Christ's teaching, and is illustrated not only by the canonical gospels but by other uncanonical utterances ascribed to our Lord, e. g. the two series of Sayings of Jesus (1. 5-11 ean me nesteusete if you do not fast etc., 654. 32 sqq. exetazousin auton they examine him etc.). Even more clearly than 655, 840 belongs to a narrative covering the same ground as the canonical gospels. That this was composed with a view to advocating the tenets of a particular sect is not indicated by anything in our fragment; for though ll. 41-4 when separated from their context might conceivably be adduced as an argument for denying the necessity of the use of water at baptism, baptizein to baptize is not there used in its technical Christian sense (cf. l. 15, note), and in other respects the fragment is quite orthodox. A possible point of connexion with the Gnostics may be found in the noticeable fact that our Lord is called not Iesous Jesus or o kyrios the Lord but o soter the Savior, a title which Irenaeus (I. i. 3) reproaches the Valentinian Ptolemaeus for using to the exclusion of kyrios Lord; cf. Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, i. p. 124. But the use of soter savior or salvator savior simply to designate Jesus is of course common in other early Christian writers, and though its employment indicates that this gospel belongs to a later stage of development than the canonical gospels,