BEATTY, CHESTER, papyri. — A collection of 12 groups of Greek papyri, purchased in 1930 and 1931 in Egypt by A. Chester B., possibly from the ruins of an unidentified local Christian monastery, preserved in B.’s collection in London and published between 1933 and 1937 by Frederic George Kenyon of the British Museum. The discovery of these papyri was the most sensational of ancient biblical text discoveries after that of the Codex Sinaiticus.
The contents are as follows:
*New Testament*. — Pap. I (siglum: P⁴⁵): 30 leaves, remnants of a codex of 110 leaves or 220 numbered pages, written perhaps in the first half of the 3rd century, containing the four Gospels and the Acts. Another leaf of this codex is in Vienna, published in 1933 by H. Gerstinger.
Pap. II (siglum P⁴⁶): 86 leaves in excellent condition with most of the following epistles of St Paul: Rom., Hebr., 1 and 2 Cor., Eph., Gal., Phil., Col., 1 Thess. Of these 86 leaves, 56 are in London in Ch. B.’s collection and 30 in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan, published in 1935 by H. A. Sanders. The codex of which these leaves remain, written in the first half of the 3rd century, had 104 leaves and contained all the Pauline epistles, except, it seems, the pastoral epistles.
Pap. III (siglum: P⁴⁷): 10 leaves of a 3rd-century codex containing *Apoc.*
*Old Testament*. — Pap. IV (siglum: 961): leaves of a 4th-century codex of 66 leaves containing *Gen.*
Pap. V (siglum: 962): 22 leaves of a 3rd-century codex of 84 leaves also containing *Gen.* These two manuscripts of *Gen.* are of special importance because most of *Gen.* is missing in the great Vatican (B) and Sinaitic (S) codices.
Pap. VI (siglum: 963): substantial parts of 33 leaves and identified fragments of another 22 leaves of a 2nd-century codex of 108 leaves containing *Num.* and *Deut.* This papyrus is the oldest in the entire collection.
Pap. VII (siglum: 965): fragments of 33 leaves of a codex of 104 leaves from the first half of the 3rd century containing *Is.*
Pap. VIII (siglum: 966): fragments of 2 leaves of a codex from the end of the 2nd century and the beginning of the 3rd containing *Jer.*
Paps. IX and X: Of a codex of perhaps 118 leaves from the first half of the 3rd century there survive 29 leaves of *Ez.*, 8 of *Esth.* and 13 mutilated leaves of *Dan.* (siglum: 968). 8 of the 29 leaves of *Ez.* are from Ch. B. and 21 from J. H. Scheide, being deposited in Princeton University and published in 1938 by Johnson, Gehman and Kase. The papyrus of *Dan.* is of special importance because it differs from all other Greek codices and the Vulgate; it does not give the version made by Theodotion but the Septuagint version preserved only in a 10th-century Greek codex and in a Syriac version.
Pap. XI (siglum: 964): one and a half leaves from the 4th century containing *Eccli.*
Pap. XII: 8 leaves (from Ch. B.) and 6 leaves (from the University of Michigan) are from a 4th- or 5th-century codex containing the apocryphal book of Enoch, very popular in antiquity and cited in the canonical epistle of *Jude*, and a homily by Melito of Sardis (2nd century).
The importance of these papyri is very great: a) because of their generally extensive size and generally excellent state of preservation; b) because of their form, not that of a roll but of a notebook or *codex*, which seems to have been characteristic of Christians; c) because of the abbreviations of the *nomina sacra* which appear to have been already in use in the time of Hadrian; d) because of their age, most of the papyri dating to the 3rd century, and papyrus VI even to the 2nd. They reveal to us the condition of the sacred text a century before the oldest Vatican (B) and Sinaitic (S) codices.
BEATTY, CHESTER, papyri — Papyrus IV, Gen. 23, 13-27 (4th century). British Museum.
(from F. G. Kenyon, *The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri*, London 1933, fasc. I, tav. IV)
BEATTY, CHESTER, papyri — Papyrus IV, Gen. 29, 15-27 (4th century). British Museum.
a century before the oldest Vatican (B) and Sinaitic (S) codices.