I. THEOLOGICAL FRAGMENTS

1778. ARISTIDES, Apology.

12 x 14.6 cm. Fourth century. Plate I. (Fols. 1–2, recto).

THE following small but valuable fragment of the Apology of Aristides in the original Greek is contained on the upper part of a leaf from a papyrus book, adjoined by a narrow strip from the other leaf of the sheet. How the sheet was folded, i.e., what was the relative order of the two leaves, and what was the position of the sheet in the quire cannot be determined; since, however, the strip from the second leaf is inscribed with but a single word, these questions are of slight importance. The handwriting is a handsome well-formed uncial, which though somewhat smaller and more compact has a decided general resemblance to that of 847, a leaf from a vellum MS. of St. John's Gospel, and like that specimen may be assigned with probability to the fourth century. No punctuation occurs. θεός God is contracted in the usual way, but ἄνθρωπος human being and apparently οὐρανός heaven were written out in full (ll. 32, 37). Some inaccuracies may be detected in the text, which seems to have been of mediocre quality; cf. nn. on ll. 26 sqq. and 33.

The Apology is a recent addition to early Christian literature. The first step towards its recovery was made in 1878 with the publication of an Armenian translation of the first few chapters from two MSS. in the Lazarist monastery at Venice. This was followed eleven years later by Dr. Rendel Harris's find at Sinai of a complete version in Syriac; and shortly afterwards Dr. Armitage Robinson, who had seen Dr. Harris's work in proof, recognized that the Apology was actually already extant in Greek, having been embedded in the early mediaeval romance, the History of Barlaam and Josaphat. The outcome of these fortunate discoveries was the joint edition by the two scholars of the Apology of Aristides in Texts and Studies, I. i. (1891), containing the Syriac