RYLAND, PAPYRI of. — The Library dedicated to the memory of John R. was founded in Manchester in 1899 and within a few years attained a place among the most celebrated. An important part of its manuscripts consists of large collections of demotic, Greek, Coptic, and Arabic papyri, together with a few Latin papyri. They were published successively in large “catalogues,” which provide an accurate description of them and their 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, possess 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 s. Giovanni, found in Egypt, containing remains of 14 lines of chapter 18. Its importance derives from the fact that, in the judgment of excellent palaeographers, 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 in Egypt at that time, probably in Middle Egypt, and the Gospel of s. Giovanni originated in distant Asia Minor, it must have been written in the first century. The publication of this papyrus thus dealt the deathblow to the opinion of the radical critics that the Gospel of s. Giovanni had been composed only in the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. The fragment is written on both sides and therefore the missing text between the two surviving passages can be reconstructed, 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., scarcely 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 several transcription errors. The agreement of later codices with this papyrus shows with what care and fidelity the sacred text was transmitted through the centuries. Also interesting are several rather rare variants found in codices of the Lucianic recension, which thus show how far back the roots of this recension extend.