Article May 13, 1905 Issue

New sayings of Jesus

Boston Transcript

Our readers may remember that a great discovery by Dr. Bernard P. Grenfell and Dr. Arthur S. Hunt was announced at the general meeting of the Egypt Exploration Fund last November. It was nothing more nor less than the finding of new sayings of the Saviour not recorded in the Holy Bible. The papyrus containing these "sayings" was found in the winter of 1902—1903 at the site of the ancient Oxyrhynchus, which is about one hundred and twenty miles south of Cairo. In the London Graphic of July 17, 1897, may be seen an account of the discovery and publication of the "Logia," or "Sayings of Our Lord," and now we have the reproduction and translation of a papyrus found in 1903 (six years afterward) on the same site by the same explorers. The first manuscript was simply a leaf from a papyrus-book with the "sayings" on both sides, and, in the opinion of the discoverers, was dated early in the third century, A.D.

Although the last discovered papyrus is more fragmentary and does not contain so many "sayings" as the other, it is in one sense more satisfactory, because the sayings are introduced by the following words: "These are the (wonderful?) words which Jesus, the living (Lord) spake to ... and Thomas, and he said unto (them), 'Every one that hearkens to these words shall never taste of death.'" Certainly this introduction is important, because it shows that Jesus was speaking to St. Thomas, and probably to another disciple, who cannot be identified, owing to the condition of the manuscript.

These new sayings have three important features: "(1) The connection with St. Thomas, as shown in the introduction; (2) the first saying, 'Jesus saith, Let not him who seeks ... cease until he finds, and when he finds he shall be astonished; astonished he shall reach the kingdom, and having reached the kingdom he shall rest,' being found in almost the same words in the Epistle according to the Hebrews: and (3) the second saying, giving the question, as well as Jesus' answer to the same, is of special interest."

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