The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part 15

25 [ . . . . . . ] . . .
40 it has and [no]
The following lines are translated from the fragment's remains:
autocracy/self-rule it has
wherefore it is [not considered]
the sun [to be God]

7. miarois filthy/polluted is apparently a misspelling for miarois filthy/polluted. This word does not occur in the extant Greek, and to what context it should be referred is not clear. There are several references to pollution in ch. iv and the preceding part of ch. v in connexion with gē earth and hydōr water... As mentioned in the introduction, the relative positions of Fol. 1 and Fol. 2 are indeterminate.

8 sqq. The extant Greek of this passage is as follows: 'But those who think that the breath of the winds is God are wandering. For it is manifest that it serves another, and has been prepared for the sake of men by God for the transport of ships and the harvesting of grain, and for their other needs; it increases and ceases according to the command of God. Wherefore it is not considered that the breath of the winds is God, but a work of God.'

The Syriac is: ‘And again those who have thought concerning the blasts of winds that it is God, these also have erred: and this is evident to us, that these winds are subject to another, since sometimes their blast is increased and sometimes it is diminished and ceases, according to the commandment of him who subjects them. Since for the sake of man they were created by God, in order that they might fulfil the needs of trees and fruits and seeds, and that they might transport ships upon the sea; those ships which bring to men their necessary things from a place where they are found to a place where they are not found; and furnish the different parts of the world. Since then this wind is sometimes increased and sometimes diminished, there is one place in which it does good and another where it does harm, according to the nod of him who rules it; and even men are able by means of well-known instruments to catch and coerce it that it may fulfil for them the necessities which they demand of it; and over itself it has no power at all; wherefore it is not possible that winds should be called gods, but a work of God.’

In ll. 8–12 the agreement with the extant Greek is close... In the Syriac the simple directness of the original is obscured by unnecessary verbiage... At this point, however, the Syriac too becomes faulty. After ‘and ceases’ it proceeds ‘according to the commandment of him who subjects them’... whereas the original has an inferential sentence, apparently ‘therefore it is under some compulsion’. Further detailed comparison is precluded by the unfortunate mutilation of the