RYLAND, Papiri of. - The Library dedicated to the memory of John R. was founded in Manchester in 1899 and within a few years gained a place among the most famous. An important part of its manuscripts consists of large collections of demotic, Greek, Coptic, and Arabic papyri and of a few Latin papyri. They were published one by one in large "catalogues" that give an accurate description and the text. Among the Greek and Coptic papyri are various biblical papyri, of which two Greek ones, the papyri Ryl. Gk. 457 and 458, although small, are of exceptional value.
The papyrus Ryl. Gk 457, designated P 52 in Gregory's system, was published in 1935. It is a fragment of the Gospel of St. John, found in Egypt, containing remains of 14 lines of ch. 18. Its importance comes from the fact that, in the judgment of excellent paleographers, it was written in the first part of the 2nd century A.D.; it is therefore the oldest fragment of the New Testament.
Since the papyrus was part of a codex that circulated at that time in Egypt, probably in Middle Egypt, and the Gospel of St. John originated in distant Asia Minor, this must have been written in the first century. The publication of this papyrus therefore dealt the death blow to the opinion of radical critics that the Gospel of St. John would have been composed only in the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. The fragment is written on both sides and therefore the text missing between the two preserved passages can be completed and the original size of the leaf determined.
The papyrus Ryl. Gk 458, published in 1936, contains remains of 14 verses of Deut. 23-28 in the Septuagint version. Having been written in the 2nd century B.C., barely a century after the origin of the Greek version, it is one of the oldest fragments of this version and one of the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament.
It is nevertheless already affected by some transcription errors. The agreement of later codices with this papyrus shows with how much care and fidelity the sacred text was transmitted through the centuries. Also interesting are several rather rare variants that are found in codices of the recension of Lucian and that thus show to what antiquity the roots of this recension go back.
Bibliography8 works
On pap. Ryl. Gk 457: H. J. Bell, in Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 21 (1935), pp. 266-67; G. Ghedini, in Argypsus, 15 (1935), p. 425 ff.; P. Benoit, in Revue biblique, 45 (1936), pp. 269-72; A. Merk, in Biblica, 17 (1936), pp. 99-101; L. G. da Fonseca, in Verbum Domini, 16 (1936), pp. 57-59; H. Lietzmann, in Zeitschrift für neutest. Wissenschaft, 34 (1936), p. 283. On pap. Ryl. Gk 458: P. Katz, in Theolog. Literaturzeitung, 61 (1936), p. 340; H. G. Opitz-H. H. Schaeder, in Zeitschrift für neutest. Wissenschaft, 35 (1936), pp. 115-17; W. Caspari, in Theolog. Stud. und Kritiken, 107 (1936), pp. 347-51; J. A. Montgomery, in Journal of Bibl. Literature, 55 (1936), p. 310; W. F. Albright, ibid., 56 (1937), p. 174; J. Hempel, in Zeitschrift für alttest. Wissenschaft, 14 (1937), pp. 115-27; A. Allgeier, Deut 25, 1-3 im Manchester-Papyras, in Biblica, 19 (1938), pp. 1-18.
Ernesto Vogt