Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (The Schweich lectures of the British Academy; 1977)

97 Pages·1979·9.15 MB·English

by  Colin H. Roberts

COLIN Η. ROBERTS
Manuscript,
Society and Belief
in Early
Christian Egypt
The Schweich Lectures 1977
PUBLISHED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY
BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1979
The origins and development of the Church
in Egypt remain one of the vexed problems
of early Christian history. In his Schweich
Lectures Dr. C. H. Roberts examines the
evidence of the Christian papyri discovered
in Egypt to see what light they cast on the
problems and how far they support state
ments in our ancient authorities or the
theories of modern scholars. Among matters
discussed are the influence of Judaism and
whether Gnosticism was really as powerful
in the first three centuries in Egypt as is
sometimes thought; particular attention is
paid to the historical significance in these
early manuscripts of the nomina sacra, the
abbreviations of the divine names.
Dr. C. H. Roberts is an Honorary
Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford.
Dominus illuminatio
mea
MANUSCRIPT, SOCIETY
AND BELIEF IN EARLY
CHRISTIAN EGYPT
C O L IN H. R O B E R TS
HON. D.LITT.
Fellow of the Academy
THE SCHWEICH LECTURES
OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY
1977
LONDON · Published for THE BRITISH ACADEMY
by THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1979
Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford 0x2 6DP
OXFORD LONDON GLASGOW
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ISBN 0 19 725982 0
© The British Academy 1979
Printed in Great Britain
at the University Press, Oxford
by Eric Buckley
Printer to the University
PREFACE
It is a pleasure to thank both the President and Council of the
British Academy for the invitation to give the Schweich Lectures
in the spring of 1977 and the President and Fellows of St. John's
College, Oxford, who in continuation of a generosity and con
sideration that now goes back over more than fifty years elected
me to a Senior Research Fellowship for the years 1974-6. This
provided me with both the incentive and facilities to put together
scattered notes I had accumulated on the subject matter of these
lectures, to re-think some old problems, and to discover some
new ones in an attempt to link palaeography and papyrology
with the history of the early church in Egypt.
The printed text is substantially that of the lectures; to this
I have added notes, sometimes discursive, and a few appendices.
These will, I hope, make clear my indebtedness to other scholars,
but there is one acknowledgement which calls for particular
mention. The publication in 1976 by the Abbe J. van Haelst of
his catalogue of Christian papyri (referred to on p. ix) has
simplified my task, makes it easier for the reader to discover
more about a particular text, and has placed all students of
early Christianity in his debt.
C.H.R.
December_1978
CONTENTS
ABBREVIATIONS ix
LECTURE I. THE EVIDENCE OF THE PAPYRI ι
LECTURE II. NOMINA SACRA: ORIGINS AND
SIGNIFICANCE 26
LECTURE III. THE CHARACTER AND DEVELOPMENT
OF THE CHURCH 49
APPENDICES 74
I. Jewish theological papyri of the Roman period 74
II. The date of P. Chester Beatty VI (Numbers and Deuteronomy) 78
III. The so-called 'Psalm of Naassenes' (P. Fayum 2) 81
IV. Christianity and magic in the papyri 82
V. Nomina Sacra; Some eccentric forms 83
INDEX 85
ADDENDA 89
ABBREVIATIONS
Publications of papyri are referred to by the standard abbreviations,
a list of which may conveniently be found in E. G. Turner's Greek
Papyri: an Introduction (Oxford, 1968). For biblical and other theological
papyri, whether Christian or Jewish, a cross-reference is given to the
Abbé van Haelst's invaluable Catalogue des papyrus litteraires juifs et
chrétiens (Paris, 1976) which gives a brief description of and some
bibliographical information on each text; it is cited as Ή', followed
by the number in the catalogue.
Other abbreviations employed are as follows:
Archiv Archiv für Papyrusforschung
CPJ V. A. Tcherikover, A. Fuks, M. Stern, Corpus Papyrorum
Judaicarum
GLH C. H. Roberts, Greek Literary Hands (Oxford, 1956)
GMA W E.G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (Oxford,
1971)
HTR Harvard Theological Review
JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
Turner, E. G. Turner, The Typology of the Early Codex (University of
Typology Pennsylvania, 1977)
ZPE Zjeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
ZTNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft