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22
A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context: An Early Christian Writing Exercise from the Archive of Leonides (P.Oxy. II 209/p 10 ) annemarie luijendijk [email protected] Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 In this article I present a NT papyrus (P.Oxy. II 209/p 10 ) as part of a known archive. Although scholars have been familiar with this papyrus and its NT text, they have not known its larger social context. The identification of this piece as part of an archive allows a glimpse into the life and social milieu of its owner: a lit- erate man from the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, a flax merchant and a member of a guild, with connections to a church reader. As such, it is the first and only ancient instance where we know the owner of a Greek NT papyrus. I. The Papyrus and Its Texts P.Oxy. II 209 preserves Rom 1:1–7, the proemium of the apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans. With its Pauline pericope, this papyrus is a constant witness to the text of the NT. It ranks as Papyrus 10 (p 10 ) of the NT papyri and thus belongs I am grateful to Roger S. Bagnall for his help in identifying this archive and for his other valuable suggestions in developing this project. I thank Laura S. Nasrallah, the members of the Papyrological Seminar in New York City, and the anonymous reviewer for this journal for their helpful comments and input. I presented different parts of this paper at the 25th International Congress of Papyrology (Ann Arbor, July 2007) and at the conference “Lire les papyrus du Nou- veau Testament avec les autres papyrus d’Égypte” (Lausanne, Switzerland, October 2009) and thank the audiences for their feedback. William P. Stoneman of Houghton Library, Harvard Uni- versity, kindly sent me digital images of the papyrus in advance of their publication online. JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 575–596 This article was published in JBL 129/3 (2010) 575–96, copyright © 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature. To purchase copies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL, please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free in North America] or 404-727-9498, by fax at 404-727-2419, or visit the online SBL Store at www.sbl-site.org. 575

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A New Testament Papyrus and ItsDocumentary Context An Early

Christian Writing Exercise from theArchive of Leonides (POxy II 209p10)

annemarie luijendijkaluijendprincetonedu

Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544

In this article I present a NT papyrus (POxy II 209p10) as part of a knownarchive Although scholars have been familiar with this papyrus and its NT textthey have not known its larger social context The identification of this piece aspart of an archive allows a glimpse into the life and social milieu of its owner a lit-erate man from the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus a flax merchant and amember of a guild with connections to a church reader As such it is the first andonly ancient instance where we know the owner of a Greek NT papyrus

I The Papyrus and Its Texts

POxy II 209 preserves Rom 11ndash7 the proemium of the apostle Paulrsquos Letterto the Romans With its Pauline pericope this papyrus is a constant witness to thetext of the NT It ranks as Papyrus 10 (p10) of the NT papyri and thus belongs

I am grateful to Roger S Bagnall for his help in identifying this archive and for his othervaluable suggestions in developing this project I thank Laura S Nasrallah the members of thePapyrological Seminar in New York City and the anonymous reviewer for this journal for theirhelpful comments and input I presented different parts of this paper at the 25th InternationalCongress of Papyrology (Ann Arbor July 2007) and at the conference ldquoLire les papyrus du Nou-veau Testament avec les autres papyrus drsquoEacutegypterdquo (Lausanne Switzerland October 2009) andthank the audiences for their feedback William P Stoneman of Houghton Library Harvard Uni-versity kindly sent me digital images of the papyrus in advance of their publication online

JBL 129 no 3 (2010) 575ndash596

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

575

among that elite group of most important witnesses to the text of the ChristianBible1 In their Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period Guglielmo Cavalloand Herwig Maehler described the handwriting of this papyrus as having ldquorathercrude and irregular lettersrdquo2 Underneath the biblical passage a different hand haspenned a couple of random phrases in cursive writing On the back it reads ldquoapos-tlerdquo The texts the first in uncial letters the second in cursive script are written inblack ink on a caramel-colored papyrus sheet of 251 by 199 centimeters Propertyof Harvard Universityrsquos Semitic Museum the papyrus is presently housed inHoughton Library3 The sheet has survived in relatively good condition but hassuffered some damage as a result of folding and the occasional nibbles of book-worms

Below is my new transcription of the text based on a recent digital photographof the papyrus It does not alter the reading of the editio princeps but shows the(present) state of the papyrus more accurately

AΠαῦλος δοῦλος χρυ ιηυ κλη iτὸς ἀπόστολος [ἀφ]ωρισ-μένος εἰς εὐαγ᾿γέλ iιον θυ ὃ [π]ρο[ε]πηγ᾿γείλατο διὰ τ i[ῶ]ν π iρω-φητῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν γρ[α]φαῖς ἁγ᾿είαις περὶ τοῦ υυ αὐτοῦ τοῦ5γενομένου ἐκ σπ[έ]ρματος Δαυδ᾿ κατὰ σάρκα τοῦ ὁρισθέν τος υυ θυ ἐν δυνάμει κατὰ πνα ἁγιωσσύνης ἐξ ἀνασ-τάσεως νεκρῶν ι iηυ χρυ τοῦ κυ ἡμῶν δι᾿ οὗ ἐ i[λάβο-]μεν χάριν καὶ ἀ[π]οστολων εἰς ὑπακωὸν πίστεως ἐνπᾶσι τοῖς ἔθνεσ[ι] ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος ιηυ χρυ πᾶσιν10τοὺς οὖσιν ἐν [Ῥ]ώμη ἀγαπητοῖς θυ κλητοῖς [ἁγ]ίοιςχάρις ἡμῖν καὶ ε[ἰρ]ήνη ἀπὸ θυ προς ἡμῶν καὶ κυ χρυιηυ

1 Barbara Aland Kurt Aland et al eds Novum Testamentum Graece (27th ed StuttgartDeutsche Bibelgesellschaft 1993) ldquoAppendix I Codices graeci et latini in hac editione adhibitirdquo(p10) The papyrus ranks among the ldquoconsistently cited witnesses of the first orderrdquo for the text ofthe Epistle to the Romans (ibid ldquoIntroductionrdquo 60) See also Joseph van Haelst Catalogue despapyrus litteacuteraires juifs et chreacutetiens (Papyrologie 1 Paris Sorbonne 1976) no 490 and Kurt AlandBiblische Papyri Altes Testament Neues Testament Varia Apokryphen (vol 1 of Repertorium dergriechischen christlichen Papyri PTS 18 Berlin de Gruyter 1976) ldquoVar 33 [NT10]rdquo 357ndash58 Adescription of the papyrus can also be found in Klaus Junack et al Die paulinischen Briefe Roumlm1 Kor 2 Kor (vol 21 of Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus ANTF 12 Berlin de Gruyter 1989)XXIndashXXII

2 Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period AD 300ndash800 (Bul-letin Supplement 47 London Institute of Classical Studies 1987) 8 (no 1a)

3 The inventory number is Ms Gr SM 2218 Digital images of recto and verso are availableonline at httphclharvardedulibrarieshoughtoncollectionspapyrusbibliographieshtml(accessed November 13 2009)

576 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

(blank)(2nd hand in cursive script)Αὐρήλιος Παῦλο[ς ]νυνισιου τῶν παρὰ γενήματοςπερὶ τῶν γενημάτων [ ]ου ἐπὶ τοῦ λογείας [] των(blank)15χιτOn the versoπi[ ]ση i ἀπόστολος

(1st hand) Atraces of ink

lines 3ndash4 πiρωφητῶν for πiροφητῶν line 4 ἁγ᾿είαις for ἁγ᾿ίαις line 6 ἁγιωσσύνηςfor ἁγιωσύνης line 8 ἀ[π]οστολων for ἀ[π]οστολήν4 and ὑπακωόν for ὑπακοήν line9 after ὀνόματος leaving out the words αὐτοῦ ἐν οἷς ἐστε καὶ ὑμεῖς κλητοί5 line 10τούς for τοῖς line 11 ἡμῖν for ὑμῖν lines 11ndash12 χρυ ιηυ for ιηυ χρυ

The text is copied sloppily The writer made several spelling mistakes as indi-cated below the transcription The one variant reading ldquoChrist Jesusrdquo instead ofldquoJesus Christrdquo (lines 11ndash12) does not contribute in any meaningful way to exeget-ical or other discussions on the apostlersquos longest letter6 As we will discover theimportance and interest of this papyrus stretch beyond textual technicalities of theLetter to the Romans The papyrus is an artifact that allows us to catch glimpses intothe circles in which it was produced and the people who owned it

The sentences scribbled underneath the passage from Romans in cursivehandwriting begin with the name ldquoAurelius Paulusrdquo followed by ungrammaticalexpressions containing the words ldquoproducerdquo and ldquoaccountrdquo (γενήματοςγενημά-των and λογείας) They may have served to test the pen7 Incomprehensible asthese lines remain these terms fit in the mercantile environment of the archive towhich this papyrus belongs as we will see next

4 The papyrus has a lacuna at this spot that has obliterated the top parts of the letters How-ever the reading of the omega is indisputable as its bottom half has survived it cannot have beenan eta

5 Conceivably these words were already absent in the Vorlage The strained handwritinghowever suggests that this scribe omitted them

6 The expression ldquoChrist Jesusrdquo occurs in Rom 11 The ancient manuscripts are dividedbetween reading ldquoChrist Jesusrdquo and ldquoJesus Christrdquo in Rom 11 but only POxy II 209p10 has adifferent order in Rom 17 Grenfell and Hunt already observed this (POxy II 209 8 Bernard PGrenfell and Arthur S Hunt The Oxyrhynchus Papyri [London Egypt Exploration Fund 1898ndash]ad loc)

7 See also eg the verso of the Karanis Tax Roll PMich IV 357 C

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 577

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

II Identifying the Archive

In their edition of this papyrus in the second volume of The OxyrhynchusPapyri Bernard P Grenfell and Arthur S Hunt made the tantalizing remark oftenrepeated in scholarship that ldquothe papyrus was found tied up with a contract datedin 316 ad and other documents of the same periodrdquo8 This means that they foundthis papyrus as part of an archive in Alain Martinrsquos strict definition of the wordnamely a group of texts deliberately organized by their ancient users9 But whatarchive Grenfell and Hunt did not provide any further clues They were not par-ticularly interested in the social context of the texts they had unearthed or per-haps they were too busy editing their enormous find

Modern search engines and old-fashioned historical detective work led to theidentification of this archive A search on the Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis(HGV) for documents from Oxyrhynchus that date to the year 316 ce gives thir-teen results10 Only two of those documents qualify as contracts POxy I 103 alease of a plot of land and SB XIV 11278 a contract for the sale of a donkey11 Gren-fell and Hunt cannot have referred to the latter papyrus for it did not come fromtheir excavations conducted under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration SocietySB XIV 11278 also does not belong to a larger archive That leaves POxy I 103 asthe contract found attached to our papyrus Indeed the fact that Grenfell and Hunthad already published that contract in the first volume explains their mention of the

8 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 8 Cited eg by Colin H Roberts Manuscript Societyand Belief in Early Christian Egypt (Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1977 LondonOxford University Press 1979) 5ndash6 Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack etal Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXII Raffaella Cribiore Writing Teachers and Studentsin Graeco-Roman Egypt (American Studies in Papyrology 36 Atlanta Scholars Press 1996) 247(no 302)

9 Martin ldquoArchives priveacutees et cachettes documentairesrdquo in Proceedings of the 20th Interna-tional Congress of Papyrologists (ed Adam Buumllow-Jacobsen Copenhagen Museum Tusculanum1994) 569ndash77 here 572 ldquoensembles pour lesquels nous avons de bonnes raisons de penser qursquoilsont eacuteteacute deacutelibeacutereacutement constitueacutes et organiseacutes par leurs utilisateurs anciensrdquo The data bank PapyrusArchives in Graeco-Roman Egypt gives this definition ldquoAn archive is a group of texts which werecollected in antiquity with a specific purpose The purpose may even be to discard some itemsfrom a larger archive and then throw them awayrdquo (httpwwwtrismegistosorgarchaboutphp[accessed November 13 2009]) See also Katelijn Vandorpe ldquoArchives and Dossiersrdquo in The OxfordHandbook of Papyrology (ed Roger S Bagnall Oxford Oxford University Press 2009) 216ndash55

10 A search for ldquoJ(ahr) = 316rdquo and ldquoOrt = Oxyrhynchosrdquo at httpaquilapapyuni-heidelbergdegvzFMhtml (accessed November 13 2009)

11 The papyrus belongs to the collection of the Universitagrave Cattolica in Milan (PMed inv7173) and was first published by Carla Balconi ldquoContratto di compravendita di un asinordquo Aegyp-tus 54 (1974) 61ndash63

578 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

exact date of that document in the second volume of the Oxyrhynchus PapyriMoreover and also in accordance with Grenfell and Huntrsquos description this leaseforms part of a larger archive the so-called Archive of Leonides as can be foundby searching the database for Papyrus Archives in Graeco-Roman Egypt12 Thisarchive consists of twelve documentsmdashwith the addition of this NT papyrus nowthirteenmdashrelating to the flax merchant Leonides I have appended a list of the textsin this archive13

I can further demonstrate this identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive by following a different investigative approach namely by check-ing the date of publication and the excavation seasons Grenfell and Hunt con-ducted six excavation seasons at OxyrhynchusBehnasa collecting about half amillion fragments14 Our NT papyrus appeared in the second volume of the seriesThe Oxyrhynchus Papyri published in 1899 This means that Grenfell and Huntmust have found this papyrus POxy II 209 during their first excavation season atOxyrhynchus in 1896ndash1897 for their second season of excavating at Oxyrhynchustook place only in 1903 Published in 1898 POxy I 103 evidently also came withthe first batch from Oxyrhynchus Furthermore the inventory numbers15 of thepapyri belonging to the Leonides archive published in volume 45 of theOxyrhynchus Papyri (POxy XLV) indicate that these texts were found together dur-ing the first excavation season at Oxyrhynchus16 This confirms conclusively theassociation of POxy II 209 with the archive of Leonides This identification has aslight implication for the date of POxy II 209 and is especially important for under-standing the social context of this NT papyrus issues to which I now turn

12 Conducting a search for ldquoPublication = Oxy and 103rdquo httpwwwtrismegistosorgarchsearchphp (accessed November 13 2009)

13 The archive was published by Susan Stephens in POxy XLV (1977) 14 Peter Parsons City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish Greek Lives in Roman Egypt (London

Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 2007) 1715 Beginning with the publication of POxy XL (1972) Oxyrhynchus papyri have inventory

numbers that reflect the season in which they were found and the box in which they were storedAn explanation for the system appeared in POxy XLII (1974) xiv ldquoNote on Inventory Numbersrdquo

16 Although Grenfell and Hunt did not conduct a stratigraphy of their finds they noted intheir archaeological reports that they attempted to keep together papyri that were found at thesame time Grenfell stated ldquoEach lot [of papyri] found by a pair man and boy had to be kept sep-arate for the knowledge that papyri are found together is frequently of the greatest importance fordetermining their date and since it is inevitable that so fragile a material should sometimes be bro-ken in the process of extricating it from the closely packed soil it is imperative to keep togetheras far as possible fragments of the same documentrdquo (ldquoExcavations at Oxyrhynchus (1896ndash1907)rdquoin Oxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts [ed A K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007] 349) Apparently one of the documents from the Leonides Archive PSI V 469 becameseparated from the archive (at what time is unclear) and ended up among the finds of the Italianexcavators

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 579

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

III A New Testament Papyrus from a Documentary Archive

With only the knowledge that the papyrus was found together with a contractfrom the year 316 as reported in the editio princeps scholars dated the papyruseither as ldquoearly fourth centuryrdquo or ldquofourth centuryrdquo17 The additional informationnow provided by the archival context of the NT papyrus allows for a more precisedating The dates in the Leonides archive range from 315 ce to 334 ce (see theappendix) It is unknown when the archive was discarded but in view of the datesin the archive it is likely that the NT papyrus was written early in the second quar-ter of the fourth century that is in the 320s or 330s

The identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of the archive of Leonides hasimportant implications for its ldquosocial liferdquo18 What we have here is a rare instance ofa ldquoliterary papyrus in a documentary archiverdquo19 In an article on that topic WillyClarysse rightly emphasized that unlike the division among scholarly disciplinesliterary and documentary papyri do not constitute two separate worlds rather thepeople that figure in the papyrus documents were the ones who possessed the lit-erary fragments20 But only seldom can we catch glimpses of the owners of books

17 According to Junack et al the date is ldquosicher 4 Jahrhundertrdquo (Das Neue Testament aufPapyrus 21XXII for other examples see Aland Repertorium 1228 357) The sixth- or seventh-century date assigned by G H R Horsley (ldquoAD VIndashVIIrdquo) must be a slip (ldquoReconstructing a Bib-lical Codex The Prehistory of MPER ns XVII 10 [PVindob G 29831]rdquo in Akten des 21 Inter-nationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin 1995 [ed Baumlrbel Kramer Wolfgang Luppe HerwigMaehler and Guumlnter Poethke APF Beiheft 3 Stuttgart Teubner 1997] 1473ndash81 here 481)

18 The expression comes from Arjun Appadurai The Social Life of Things Commodities inCultural Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology Cambridge Cam-bridge University Press 1986)

19 I use here a broad definition of literary texts following Peter van Minnen who stated forhis research on literary texts in the Fayum villages ldquoschool texts have been included Ancientschools provided a context for getting acquainted with at least some literaturerdquo (ldquoBoorish or Book-ish Literature in Egyptian Villages in the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman Periodrdquo JJP 28 [1998]99ndash184 here 102) NT textual critics disagree about the question whether a school exercise countsas a literary papyrus For Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland p10 should not feature on the official listof NT papyri because it is a school exercise ldquoUnter den heute 96 Nummern der offiziellen Listeder Papyri des NT is auch manches verzeichnet was eigentlich nicht hierhin gehoumlrt ja selbstSchreibuumlbungen (P10)rdquo (Der Text des Neuen Testaments Einfuumlhrung in die wissenschaftlichen Aus-gaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modernen Textkritik [Stuttgart Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft1982] 95) With more appreciation for a childrsquos hand David C Parker approves of school exer-cises on that list writing ldquowe should not exclude a document on the grounds that it is a childrsquoswriting exercise If the child made an accurate copy of a page of an ancient manuscript how happyshould we berdquo (An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts [CambridgeCambridge University Press 2008] 42) On the borderline status of school exercises between lit-erary and documentary text see also Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 26

20 Clarysse ldquoLiterary Papyri in Documentary lsquoArchivesrsquordquo in Egypt and the Hellenistic World

580 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

in antiquity Clarysse cautioned ldquoOne must keep in mind that it is often very dif-ficult to connect literary texts with an archive because we usually cannot base our-selves on internal evidence of the texts and secondly that in many cases a personrsquospapers are preserved but not his library (or vice versa)rdquo21 This dearth of evidencefor the owners of literary texts pertains not only to those who possessed classicalwritings but equally to those who had Christian texts on their shelves For mostearly NT manuscripts we do not know where they were found let alone who hadowned them

In his article ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testa-mentrdquo Eldon Jay Epp provides a useful overview and discussion of all NT papyri forwhich we possess more or less reliable archaeological data22 In a few cases a knownarchaeological provenance ranging from city or village level to building givesglimpses into the milieu of the texts Epp calculated that the site of Oxyrhynchushas yielded the majority of NT papyri with a known provenance and that theseldquoprovide an unparalleled opportunity to assess a large number of copies of Chris-tianityrsquos earliest writings within the literary and intellectual environment ofOxyrhynchusrdquo23 Other NT papyri have been discovered in or near churches andmonasteriesmdashan indication it seems to me that they had been used in an ecclesi-astical or monastic setting24 A fragmentary third- or fourth-century papyrus codexwith parts of Pauline epistles (p92) was found in ancient Narmouthis (MedinatMadi) in the Fayum Oasis in a building filled with debris near the sacred way (dromos) to the main local temple of Renenutet25

Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leuven 24ndash26 May 1982 (ed E Van rsquot Dack P VanDessel and W Van Gucht Studia Hellenistica 27 Leuven Peeters 1983) 43ndash61 esp 43

21 Ibid 61 See also van Minnenrsquos combined archaeological and papyrological approach tomaterials found at Karanis in his ldquoHouse-to-house Enquiries An Interdisciplinary Approach toRoman Karanisrdquo ZPE 100 (1994) 227ndash51

22 Epp ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testamentrdquo inOxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts (ed Alan K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007) 315ndash31 here 322ndash24

23 Ibid 32424 NT papyri (reportedly) found at ancient churches or monasteries are p43 p45 p46 p47 p59

p60 p61 p66 p72 p75 p83 and p8425 Published by Claudio Gallazzi ldquoFrammenti di un codice con le Epistole di Paolordquo ZPE 46

(1982) 117ndash22 He remarks that the codex was ldquofound in the winter of rsquo69 in the debris that hadfilled a building west of the dromos of Medicircnet Macircdi (ldquorinvenuti nellrsquo inverno del rsquo69 in mezzo aidetriti che colmavano un edificio a ovest del dromos di Medicircnet Macircdirdquo [p 117]) The excavationreport for 1969 mentions the find of some one hundred Greek papyri among them a ldquoframmentobiblicordquo but not the exact location where these papyri were found see Edda Bresciani Missionedi scavo a Medinet Madi (FayumndashEgitto) Rapporto preliminare delle campagne di scavo 1968 e1969 (Istituto di papirologia dellrsquouniversitagrave degli studi di Milano Milan CisalpinondashLa Goliardica1976) 29 I agree with Paola Davoli when she complains about the lack of recording of the spe-cific archaeological context of the papyri in that publication (Lrsquoarcheologia urbana nel Fayyum di

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 581

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Even in those instances of identifiable origin the actual owners of these man-uscripts still elude us26 With the identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive we now have a NT papyrus with a known owner In fact this isthe first and only instance where we can get to know the ancient owner of a NTpapyrus So let us make our acquaintance with this person and some of the peoplementioned in his papers

IV Leonides Son of TheonMerchant and Member of a Professional Association

The protagonist of the archive is Aurelius Leonides son of Theon resident ofOxyrhynchus City The newly identified addition to the archive the NT papyrusreveals Leonidesrsquo religious affiliation Given that his business papers contained apiece with the opening verses of the apostle Paulrsquos Letter to the Romans it seemsreasonable to conclude that Leonides was a Christian27 Further examination of thedocuments leads to other insights into his background and position in society

Leonidesrsquo appearances in the archive span almost twenty years the earliestone falls in the year 315 the latest in 334 Leonides was therefore probably born inthe last quarter of the third century We behold his family only in the vaguest con-tours The name of his father Theon occurs as a patronymic in most documentsin the archive as is standard in official papers28 His mother remains nameless also

etagrave ellenistica e romana [Missione congiunta delle Universitagrave di Bologna e di Lecce in EgittoMonografia 1 Napoli Generoso Procaccini 1998] ch 10 ldquoKom Medinet Madi [Gia Nar-mouthis]rdquo 223ndash52 here 235) Van Minnen noted ldquoThe village had several early churches sug-gesting that it was an important Christian settlement throughout late antiquity The excavatedchurches eight in number were built not later than the seventh century some already in thefourthrdquo (ldquoBoorish or Bookishrdquo 139)

26 For the contextualization of a fragment of a third-century Christian copy of the book ofPsalms within the archive of Aurelius Isidorus from the Fayum town of Karanis see GreggSchwendner ldquoA Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and Its Contextrdquo in Jewish and Christian Scrip-ture as Artifact and Canon (ed Craig A Evans and H Daniel Zacharias Library of Second Tem-ple Studies 13 London TampT Clark 2009) 117ndash36 In third-century Oxyrhynchus AureliaPtolemaisrsquos family possessed a copy of Julius Africanusrsquos Cestoi as Bagnall has shown (ldquoAn Ownerof Literary Papyrirdquo CP 87 [1992] 137ndash40) The Cestoi however is not a biblical book and despiteits Christian author not a Christian text

27 There are no other indications in the archive that denote Leonides as a Christian Forinstance he does not bear a Christian name nor do the documents preserved in the archive fea-ture nomina sacramdashto mention two common markers of Christian identity For discussion ofthese and other markers see AnneMarie Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord Early Christians and theOxyrhynchus Papyri (HTS 60 Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2008)

28 Theon is mentioned as Leonidesrsquo father in POxy I 1034 XXXI 25855 XLV 3254532563ndash4 32574 32585 32597 32604 and PSI V 4695 In his own letter POxy XLV 3262

582 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

a common feature of such documents just as we cannot ascertain whether Leonideshad a wife and children

One document subtly discloses that Leonides probably came from a some-what well-to-do family because the archive includes a letter penned in his ownhand with his subscription ldquoI the same Leonides have signedrdquo (ὁ αὐτὸς Λεωνί-δης [σε]ση(μείωμαι) POxy 32627) Leonides was thus a literate man who hadenjoyed an education29 This then indicates that his parents had some means sincethey would have paid for their sonrsquos schooling As we will see later it appears thatLeonides himself also valued education for he kept among his papers a writingexercise

In addition to these glimpses of Leonidesrsquo religion family and education thedocuments in the archive provide interesting information about his business activ-ities and social status In the archive we encounter him sometimes in partnershipwith a man called Dioscorus conducting business in two villages in the uppertoparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome (the administrative region of which Oxyrhyn-chus City was the capital)30 Most documents in the archive are applications for thelease of land for the cultivation of flax another records Leonidesrsquo purchase of flax(POxy XLV 3254) Through these business papers Leonides emerges as a mer-chant ldquoengaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre tow and perhapslinseedrdquo and a member of the tow guild31 Leonides even occupied a rotating lead-

Leonides does not give his patronymic but styles himself as meniarch The Theon that appears asone of the four meniarchs in POxy XLV 32613 cannot be securely identified He may have beenLeonidesrsquo father but could also have been an unrelated man

29 On ancient education see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students and eadem Gym-nastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton Princeton Uni-versity Press 2001) On the topic of literacy see William A Johnson and Holt N Parker AncientLiteracies The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford Oxford University Press 2009)Thomas J Kraus ldquo(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt Further Aspectsof the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Timesrdquo Mnemosyne 53 (2000)322ndash42 and William V Harris Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press1989)

30 In the villages of Ision Panga (POxy I 103 XXXI 2585 XLV 3255 3257 and PSI V 469)and Antipera Pela (POxy XLV 3256 3258ndash60) A schematic drawing of the upper toparchy canbe found in Julian Kruumlger Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit Studien zur Topographie und Literatur-rezeption (Europaumlische Hochschulschriften 3 441 Frankfurt am Main Lang 1990) 51 273 Seealso Stefan Timm Das christlich-koptische Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit Eine Sammlung christlicherStaumltten in Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit unter Ausschluss von Alexandria Kairo des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Dēr Abū Mina) der Skētis (Wādīn-Nat irūn) und der Sinai-Region (7 vols Beihefte zumTuumlbinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Geisteswissenschaften 41 Wiesbaden Reichert1984) 31181 (no 149 ldquoIsieion Pangardquo) and Jane Rowlandson Landowners and Tenants in RomanEgypt The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford Classical Mono-graphs Oxford Clarendon OxfordNew York Oxford University Press 1996) 10 18ndash19 map onp xiv

31 Stephens POxy XLV 129

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 583

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ership position in this professional association for he functioned repeatedly as itsmonthly president (μηνιάρχης)32

Guilds or better professional associations formed strong and colorful piecesin the quilt of ancient local society These groups provided business advantages fortheir members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations33 Thatlatter aspect is recorded in one papyrus when Leonides and three fellow meniarchstake on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits34 This samepapyrus also gives an indication of Leonidesrsquo financial situation as Susan Stephensits editor concluded ldquoIf guild officials were selected like other officials at this timeon their ability to assume financial burdens then Leonides may have been a manof some affluencerdquo35 Indeed as a member and monthly president of a professionalorganization Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a ldquomiddlingrdquo groupin society36 Onno van Nijf observed ldquoThe craftsmen and traders who formed thecore of the demos were in an economic sense spread across a broad band of soci-ety Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial eacutelite theywere often in local terms relatively well offrdquo37

32 Leonidesrsquo functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectivelyPOxy XLV 3261 and 3262) The precise reconstruction of POxy XLV 32621 μ[η]νιάρχηςσιππ is not clear but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens POxy XLV 3262143) In one lease Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί) ldquotow-valuersrdquo (POxyI 10328 trans LSJ 1646 with reference to this papyrus) In POxy LIV 3753 dated March 26 319there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild just as in POxy XLV 3261 For Oxyrhynchite guildssee Revel Coles POxy LIV appendix II ldquoThe Guilds of Oxyrhynchusrdquo 230ndash32

33 On ldquothe economic activities of collegia and guildsrdquo see Onno M van Nijf The Civic Worldof Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History andArchaeology 17 Amsterdam Gieben 1997) 12ndash18 On the fiscal obligations of professional asso-ciations see Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLes associations professionnelles agrave lrsquoeacutepoque tardive entre munuset convivialiteacuterdquo in ldquoHumana sapitrdquo Eacutetudes drsquoAntiquiteacute tardive offertes agrave Lellia Cracco Ruggini (edJean-Michel Carrieacute and Rita Lizzi Testa Bibliothegraveque de lrsquoAntiquiteacute tardive 3 Turnhout Brepols2002) 309ndash32

34 POxy XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens POxy XLV 141 On army recruitmentsee Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLe systegraveme de recrutement des armeacutees romaines de Diocleacutetien aux Valen-tiniensrdquo in Lrsquoarmeacutee romaine de Diocleacutetien agrave Valentinien Ier Actes du Congregraves de Lyon (12ndash14 sep-tembre 2002)(ed Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff Collection du Centre drsquoeacutetudes romaines etgallo-romaines 26 Paris Diffusion de Boccard 2004) 371ndash87 esp 373 383 where Carrieacute dis-cusses POxy XLV 3261 and Richard Alston Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt A Social History(London Routledge 1995) ch 3 ldquoRecruitment and Veteran Settlementrdquo 39ndash52

35 Stephens POxy XLV 12936 So van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 243 ldquoin social and economic terms

the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seemsa particularly apt descriptionrdquo

37 Ibid 21 (emphasis in the original) Also ldquoThe members of collegia came from a levelof society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes) they constituted thegroups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi and of which the Romans used the specific termplebs media We should not of course confuse these men with a lsquomiddle classrsquordquo (p 22)

584 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

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leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

among that elite group of most important witnesses to the text of the ChristianBible1 In their Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period Guglielmo Cavalloand Herwig Maehler described the handwriting of this papyrus as having ldquorathercrude and irregular lettersrdquo2 Underneath the biblical passage a different hand haspenned a couple of random phrases in cursive writing On the back it reads ldquoapos-tlerdquo The texts the first in uncial letters the second in cursive script are written inblack ink on a caramel-colored papyrus sheet of 251 by 199 centimeters Propertyof Harvard Universityrsquos Semitic Museum the papyrus is presently housed inHoughton Library3 The sheet has survived in relatively good condition but hassuffered some damage as a result of folding and the occasional nibbles of book-worms

Below is my new transcription of the text based on a recent digital photographof the papyrus It does not alter the reading of the editio princeps but shows the(present) state of the papyrus more accurately

AΠαῦλος δοῦλος χρυ ιηυ κλη iτὸς ἀπόστολος [ἀφ]ωρισ-μένος εἰς εὐαγ᾿γέλ iιον θυ ὃ [π]ρο[ε]πηγ᾿γείλατο διὰ τ i[ῶ]ν π iρω-φητῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν γρ[α]φαῖς ἁγ᾿είαις περὶ τοῦ υυ αὐτοῦ τοῦ5γενομένου ἐκ σπ[έ]ρματος Δαυδ᾿ κατὰ σάρκα τοῦ ὁρισθέν τος υυ θυ ἐν δυνάμει κατὰ πνα ἁγιωσσύνης ἐξ ἀνασ-τάσεως νεκρῶν ι iηυ χρυ τοῦ κυ ἡμῶν δι᾿ οὗ ἐ i[λάβο-]μεν χάριν καὶ ἀ[π]οστολων εἰς ὑπακωὸν πίστεως ἐνπᾶσι τοῖς ἔθνεσ[ι] ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος ιηυ χρυ πᾶσιν10τοὺς οὖσιν ἐν [Ῥ]ώμη ἀγαπητοῖς θυ κλητοῖς [ἁγ]ίοιςχάρις ἡμῖν καὶ ε[ἰρ]ήνη ἀπὸ θυ προς ἡμῶν καὶ κυ χρυιηυ

1 Barbara Aland Kurt Aland et al eds Novum Testamentum Graece (27th ed StuttgartDeutsche Bibelgesellschaft 1993) ldquoAppendix I Codices graeci et latini in hac editione adhibitirdquo(p10) The papyrus ranks among the ldquoconsistently cited witnesses of the first orderrdquo for the text ofthe Epistle to the Romans (ibid ldquoIntroductionrdquo 60) See also Joseph van Haelst Catalogue despapyrus litteacuteraires juifs et chreacutetiens (Papyrologie 1 Paris Sorbonne 1976) no 490 and Kurt AlandBiblische Papyri Altes Testament Neues Testament Varia Apokryphen (vol 1 of Repertorium dergriechischen christlichen Papyri PTS 18 Berlin de Gruyter 1976) ldquoVar 33 [NT10]rdquo 357ndash58 Adescription of the papyrus can also be found in Klaus Junack et al Die paulinischen Briefe Roumlm1 Kor 2 Kor (vol 21 of Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus ANTF 12 Berlin de Gruyter 1989)XXIndashXXII

2 Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period AD 300ndash800 (Bul-letin Supplement 47 London Institute of Classical Studies 1987) 8 (no 1a)

3 The inventory number is Ms Gr SM 2218 Digital images of recto and verso are availableonline at httphclharvardedulibrarieshoughtoncollectionspapyrusbibliographieshtml(accessed November 13 2009)

576 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

(blank)(2nd hand in cursive script)Αὐρήλιος Παῦλο[ς ]νυνισιου τῶν παρὰ γενήματοςπερὶ τῶν γενημάτων [ ]ου ἐπὶ τοῦ λογείας [] των(blank)15χιτOn the versoπi[ ]ση i ἀπόστολος

(1st hand) Atraces of ink

lines 3ndash4 πiρωφητῶν for πiροφητῶν line 4 ἁγ᾿είαις for ἁγ᾿ίαις line 6 ἁγιωσσύνηςfor ἁγιωσύνης line 8 ἀ[π]οστολων for ἀ[π]οστολήν4 and ὑπακωόν for ὑπακοήν line9 after ὀνόματος leaving out the words αὐτοῦ ἐν οἷς ἐστε καὶ ὑμεῖς κλητοί5 line 10τούς for τοῖς line 11 ἡμῖν for ὑμῖν lines 11ndash12 χρυ ιηυ for ιηυ χρυ

The text is copied sloppily The writer made several spelling mistakes as indi-cated below the transcription The one variant reading ldquoChrist Jesusrdquo instead ofldquoJesus Christrdquo (lines 11ndash12) does not contribute in any meaningful way to exeget-ical or other discussions on the apostlersquos longest letter6 As we will discover theimportance and interest of this papyrus stretch beyond textual technicalities of theLetter to the Romans The papyrus is an artifact that allows us to catch glimpses intothe circles in which it was produced and the people who owned it

The sentences scribbled underneath the passage from Romans in cursivehandwriting begin with the name ldquoAurelius Paulusrdquo followed by ungrammaticalexpressions containing the words ldquoproducerdquo and ldquoaccountrdquo (γενήματοςγενημά-των and λογείας) They may have served to test the pen7 Incomprehensible asthese lines remain these terms fit in the mercantile environment of the archive towhich this papyrus belongs as we will see next

4 The papyrus has a lacuna at this spot that has obliterated the top parts of the letters How-ever the reading of the omega is indisputable as its bottom half has survived it cannot have beenan eta

5 Conceivably these words were already absent in the Vorlage The strained handwritinghowever suggests that this scribe omitted them

6 The expression ldquoChrist Jesusrdquo occurs in Rom 11 The ancient manuscripts are dividedbetween reading ldquoChrist Jesusrdquo and ldquoJesus Christrdquo in Rom 11 but only POxy II 209p10 has adifferent order in Rom 17 Grenfell and Hunt already observed this (POxy II 209 8 Bernard PGrenfell and Arthur S Hunt The Oxyrhynchus Papyri [London Egypt Exploration Fund 1898ndash]ad loc)

7 See also eg the verso of the Karanis Tax Roll PMich IV 357 C

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 577

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

II Identifying the Archive

In their edition of this papyrus in the second volume of The OxyrhynchusPapyri Bernard P Grenfell and Arthur S Hunt made the tantalizing remark oftenrepeated in scholarship that ldquothe papyrus was found tied up with a contract datedin 316 ad and other documents of the same periodrdquo8 This means that they foundthis papyrus as part of an archive in Alain Martinrsquos strict definition of the wordnamely a group of texts deliberately organized by their ancient users9 But whatarchive Grenfell and Hunt did not provide any further clues They were not par-ticularly interested in the social context of the texts they had unearthed or per-haps they were too busy editing their enormous find

Modern search engines and old-fashioned historical detective work led to theidentification of this archive A search on the Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis(HGV) for documents from Oxyrhynchus that date to the year 316 ce gives thir-teen results10 Only two of those documents qualify as contracts POxy I 103 alease of a plot of land and SB XIV 11278 a contract for the sale of a donkey11 Gren-fell and Hunt cannot have referred to the latter papyrus for it did not come fromtheir excavations conducted under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration SocietySB XIV 11278 also does not belong to a larger archive That leaves POxy I 103 asthe contract found attached to our papyrus Indeed the fact that Grenfell and Hunthad already published that contract in the first volume explains their mention of the

8 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 8 Cited eg by Colin H Roberts Manuscript Societyand Belief in Early Christian Egypt (Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1977 LondonOxford University Press 1979) 5ndash6 Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack etal Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXII Raffaella Cribiore Writing Teachers and Studentsin Graeco-Roman Egypt (American Studies in Papyrology 36 Atlanta Scholars Press 1996) 247(no 302)

9 Martin ldquoArchives priveacutees et cachettes documentairesrdquo in Proceedings of the 20th Interna-tional Congress of Papyrologists (ed Adam Buumllow-Jacobsen Copenhagen Museum Tusculanum1994) 569ndash77 here 572 ldquoensembles pour lesquels nous avons de bonnes raisons de penser qursquoilsont eacuteteacute deacutelibeacutereacutement constitueacutes et organiseacutes par leurs utilisateurs anciensrdquo The data bank PapyrusArchives in Graeco-Roman Egypt gives this definition ldquoAn archive is a group of texts which werecollected in antiquity with a specific purpose The purpose may even be to discard some itemsfrom a larger archive and then throw them awayrdquo (httpwwwtrismegistosorgarchaboutphp[accessed November 13 2009]) See also Katelijn Vandorpe ldquoArchives and Dossiersrdquo in The OxfordHandbook of Papyrology (ed Roger S Bagnall Oxford Oxford University Press 2009) 216ndash55

10 A search for ldquoJ(ahr) = 316rdquo and ldquoOrt = Oxyrhynchosrdquo at httpaquilapapyuni-heidelbergdegvzFMhtml (accessed November 13 2009)

11 The papyrus belongs to the collection of the Universitagrave Cattolica in Milan (PMed inv7173) and was first published by Carla Balconi ldquoContratto di compravendita di un asinordquo Aegyp-tus 54 (1974) 61ndash63

578 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

exact date of that document in the second volume of the Oxyrhynchus PapyriMoreover and also in accordance with Grenfell and Huntrsquos description this leaseforms part of a larger archive the so-called Archive of Leonides as can be foundby searching the database for Papyrus Archives in Graeco-Roman Egypt12 Thisarchive consists of twelve documentsmdashwith the addition of this NT papyrus nowthirteenmdashrelating to the flax merchant Leonides I have appended a list of the textsin this archive13

I can further demonstrate this identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive by following a different investigative approach namely by check-ing the date of publication and the excavation seasons Grenfell and Hunt con-ducted six excavation seasons at OxyrhynchusBehnasa collecting about half amillion fragments14 Our NT papyrus appeared in the second volume of the seriesThe Oxyrhynchus Papyri published in 1899 This means that Grenfell and Huntmust have found this papyrus POxy II 209 during their first excavation season atOxyrhynchus in 1896ndash1897 for their second season of excavating at Oxyrhynchustook place only in 1903 Published in 1898 POxy I 103 evidently also came withthe first batch from Oxyrhynchus Furthermore the inventory numbers15 of thepapyri belonging to the Leonides archive published in volume 45 of theOxyrhynchus Papyri (POxy XLV) indicate that these texts were found together dur-ing the first excavation season at Oxyrhynchus16 This confirms conclusively theassociation of POxy II 209 with the archive of Leonides This identification has aslight implication for the date of POxy II 209 and is especially important for under-standing the social context of this NT papyrus issues to which I now turn

12 Conducting a search for ldquoPublication = Oxy and 103rdquo httpwwwtrismegistosorgarchsearchphp (accessed November 13 2009)

13 The archive was published by Susan Stephens in POxy XLV (1977) 14 Peter Parsons City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish Greek Lives in Roman Egypt (London

Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 2007) 1715 Beginning with the publication of POxy XL (1972) Oxyrhynchus papyri have inventory

numbers that reflect the season in which they were found and the box in which they were storedAn explanation for the system appeared in POxy XLII (1974) xiv ldquoNote on Inventory Numbersrdquo

16 Although Grenfell and Hunt did not conduct a stratigraphy of their finds they noted intheir archaeological reports that they attempted to keep together papyri that were found at thesame time Grenfell stated ldquoEach lot [of papyri] found by a pair man and boy had to be kept sep-arate for the knowledge that papyri are found together is frequently of the greatest importance fordetermining their date and since it is inevitable that so fragile a material should sometimes be bro-ken in the process of extricating it from the closely packed soil it is imperative to keep togetheras far as possible fragments of the same documentrdquo (ldquoExcavations at Oxyrhynchus (1896ndash1907)rdquoin Oxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts [ed A K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007] 349) Apparently one of the documents from the Leonides Archive PSI V 469 becameseparated from the archive (at what time is unclear) and ended up among the finds of the Italianexcavators

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 579

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

III A New Testament Papyrus from a Documentary Archive

With only the knowledge that the papyrus was found together with a contractfrom the year 316 as reported in the editio princeps scholars dated the papyruseither as ldquoearly fourth centuryrdquo or ldquofourth centuryrdquo17 The additional informationnow provided by the archival context of the NT papyrus allows for a more precisedating The dates in the Leonides archive range from 315 ce to 334 ce (see theappendix) It is unknown when the archive was discarded but in view of the datesin the archive it is likely that the NT papyrus was written early in the second quar-ter of the fourth century that is in the 320s or 330s

The identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of the archive of Leonides hasimportant implications for its ldquosocial liferdquo18 What we have here is a rare instance ofa ldquoliterary papyrus in a documentary archiverdquo19 In an article on that topic WillyClarysse rightly emphasized that unlike the division among scholarly disciplinesliterary and documentary papyri do not constitute two separate worlds rather thepeople that figure in the papyrus documents were the ones who possessed the lit-erary fragments20 But only seldom can we catch glimpses of the owners of books

17 According to Junack et al the date is ldquosicher 4 Jahrhundertrdquo (Das Neue Testament aufPapyrus 21XXII for other examples see Aland Repertorium 1228 357) The sixth- or seventh-century date assigned by G H R Horsley (ldquoAD VIndashVIIrdquo) must be a slip (ldquoReconstructing a Bib-lical Codex The Prehistory of MPER ns XVII 10 [PVindob G 29831]rdquo in Akten des 21 Inter-nationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin 1995 [ed Baumlrbel Kramer Wolfgang Luppe HerwigMaehler and Guumlnter Poethke APF Beiheft 3 Stuttgart Teubner 1997] 1473ndash81 here 481)

18 The expression comes from Arjun Appadurai The Social Life of Things Commodities inCultural Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology Cambridge Cam-bridge University Press 1986)

19 I use here a broad definition of literary texts following Peter van Minnen who stated forhis research on literary texts in the Fayum villages ldquoschool texts have been included Ancientschools provided a context for getting acquainted with at least some literaturerdquo (ldquoBoorish or Book-ish Literature in Egyptian Villages in the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman Periodrdquo JJP 28 [1998]99ndash184 here 102) NT textual critics disagree about the question whether a school exercise countsas a literary papyrus For Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland p10 should not feature on the official listof NT papyri because it is a school exercise ldquoUnter den heute 96 Nummern der offiziellen Listeder Papyri des NT is auch manches verzeichnet was eigentlich nicht hierhin gehoumlrt ja selbstSchreibuumlbungen (P10)rdquo (Der Text des Neuen Testaments Einfuumlhrung in die wissenschaftlichen Aus-gaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modernen Textkritik [Stuttgart Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft1982] 95) With more appreciation for a childrsquos hand David C Parker approves of school exer-cises on that list writing ldquowe should not exclude a document on the grounds that it is a childrsquoswriting exercise If the child made an accurate copy of a page of an ancient manuscript how happyshould we berdquo (An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts [CambridgeCambridge University Press 2008] 42) On the borderline status of school exercises between lit-erary and documentary text see also Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 26

20 Clarysse ldquoLiterary Papyri in Documentary lsquoArchivesrsquordquo in Egypt and the Hellenistic World

580 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

in antiquity Clarysse cautioned ldquoOne must keep in mind that it is often very dif-ficult to connect literary texts with an archive because we usually cannot base our-selves on internal evidence of the texts and secondly that in many cases a personrsquospapers are preserved but not his library (or vice versa)rdquo21 This dearth of evidencefor the owners of literary texts pertains not only to those who possessed classicalwritings but equally to those who had Christian texts on their shelves For mostearly NT manuscripts we do not know where they were found let alone who hadowned them

In his article ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testa-mentrdquo Eldon Jay Epp provides a useful overview and discussion of all NT papyri forwhich we possess more or less reliable archaeological data22 In a few cases a knownarchaeological provenance ranging from city or village level to building givesglimpses into the milieu of the texts Epp calculated that the site of Oxyrhynchushas yielded the majority of NT papyri with a known provenance and that theseldquoprovide an unparalleled opportunity to assess a large number of copies of Chris-tianityrsquos earliest writings within the literary and intellectual environment ofOxyrhynchusrdquo23 Other NT papyri have been discovered in or near churches andmonasteriesmdashan indication it seems to me that they had been used in an ecclesi-astical or monastic setting24 A fragmentary third- or fourth-century papyrus codexwith parts of Pauline epistles (p92) was found in ancient Narmouthis (MedinatMadi) in the Fayum Oasis in a building filled with debris near the sacred way (dromos) to the main local temple of Renenutet25

Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leuven 24ndash26 May 1982 (ed E Van rsquot Dack P VanDessel and W Van Gucht Studia Hellenistica 27 Leuven Peeters 1983) 43ndash61 esp 43

21 Ibid 61 See also van Minnenrsquos combined archaeological and papyrological approach tomaterials found at Karanis in his ldquoHouse-to-house Enquiries An Interdisciplinary Approach toRoman Karanisrdquo ZPE 100 (1994) 227ndash51

22 Epp ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testamentrdquo inOxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts (ed Alan K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007) 315ndash31 here 322ndash24

23 Ibid 32424 NT papyri (reportedly) found at ancient churches or monasteries are p43 p45 p46 p47 p59

p60 p61 p66 p72 p75 p83 and p8425 Published by Claudio Gallazzi ldquoFrammenti di un codice con le Epistole di Paolordquo ZPE 46

(1982) 117ndash22 He remarks that the codex was ldquofound in the winter of rsquo69 in the debris that hadfilled a building west of the dromos of Medicircnet Macircdi (ldquorinvenuti nellrsquo inverno del rsquo69 in mezzo aidetriti che colmavano un edificio a ovest del dromos di Medicircnet Macircdirdquo [p 117]) The excavationreport for 1969 mentions the find of some one hundred Greek papyri among them a ldquoframmentobiblicordquo but not the exact location where these papyri were found see Edda Bresciani Missionedi scavo a Medinet Madi (FayumndashEgitto) Rapporto preliminare delle campagne di scavo 1968 e1969 (Istituto di papirologia dellrsquouniversitagrave degli studi di Milano Milan CisalpinondashLa Goliardica1976) 29 I agree with Paola Davoli when she complains about the lack of recording of the spe-cific archaeological context of the papyri in that publication (Lrsquoarcheologia urbana nel Fayyum di

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 581

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Even in those instances of identifiable origin the actual owners of these man-uscripts still elude us26 With the identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive we now have a NT papyrus with a known owner In fact this isthe first and only instance where we can get to know the ancient owner of a NTpapyrus So let us make our acquaintance with this person and some of the peoplementioned in his papers

IV Leonides Son of TheonMerchant and Member of a Professional Association

The protagonist of the archive is Aurelius Leonides son of Theon resident ofOxyrhynchus City The newly identified addition to the archive the NT papyrusreveals Leonidesrsquo religious affiliation Given that his business papers contained apiece with the opening verses of the apostle Paulrsquos Letter to the Romans it seemsreasonable to conclude that Leonides was a Christian27 Further examination of thedocuments leads to other insights into his background and position in society

Leonidesrsquo appearances in the archive span almost twenty years the earliestone falls in the year 315 the latest in 334 Leonides was therefore probably born inthe last quarter of the third century We behold his family only in the vaguest con-tours The name of his father Theon occurs as a patronymic in most documentsin the archive as is standard in official papers28 His mother remains nameless also

etagrave ellenistica e romana [Missione congiunta delle Universitagrave di Bologna e di Lecce in EgittoMonografia 1 Napoli Generoso Procaccini 1998] ch 10 ldquoKom Medinet Madi [Gia Nar-mouthis]rdquo 223ndash52 here 235) Van Minnen noted ldquoThe village had several early churches sug-gesting that it was an important Christian settlement throughout late antiquity The excavatedchurches eight in number were built not later than the seventh century some already in thefourthrdquo (ldquoBoorish or Bookishrdquo 139)

26 For the contextualization of a fragment of a third-century Christian copy of the book ofPsalms within the archive of Aurelius Isidorus from the Fayum town of Karanis see GreggSchwendner ldquoA Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and Its Contextrdquo in Jewish and Christian Scrip-ture as Artifact and Canon (ed Craig A Evans and H Daniel Zacharias Library of Second Tem-ple Studies 13 London TampT Clark 2009) 117ndash36 In third-century Oxyrhynchus AureliaPtolemaisrsquos family possessed a copy of Julius Africanusrsquos Cestoi as Bagnall has shown (ldquoAn Ownerof Literary Papyrirdquo CP 87 [1992] 137ndash40) The Cestoi however is not a biblical book and despiteits Christian author not a Christian text

27 There are no other indications in the archive that denote Leonides as a Christian Forinstance he does not bear a Christian name nor do the documents preserved in the archive fea-ture nomina sacramdashto mention two common markers of Christian identity For discussion ofthese and other markers see AnneMarie Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord Early Christians and theOxyrhynchus Papyri (HTS 60 Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2008)

28 Theon is mentioned as Leonidesrsquo father in POxy I 1034 XXXI 25855 XLV 3254532563ndash4 32574 32585 32597 32604 and PSI V 4695 In his own letter POxy XLV 3262

582 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

a common feature of such documents just as we cannot ascertain whether Leonideshad a wife and children

One document subtly discloses that Leonides probably came from a some-what well-to-do family because the archive includes a letter penned in his ownhand with his subscription ldquoI the same Leonides have signedrdquo (ὁ αὐτὸς Λεωνί-δης [σε]ση(μείωμαι) POxy 32627) Leonides was thus a literate man who hadenjoyed an education29 This then indicates that his parents had some means sincethey would have paid for their sonrsquos schooling As we will see later it appears thatLeonides himself also valued education for he kept among his papers a writingexercise

In addition to these glimpses of Leonidesrsquo religion family and education thedocuments in the archive provide interesting information about his business activ-ities and social status In the archive we encounter him sometimes in partnershipwith a man called Dioscorus conducting business in two villages in the uppertoparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome (the administrative region of which Oxyrhyn-chus City was the capital)30 Most documents in the archive are applications for thelease of land for the cultivation of flax another records Leonidesrsquo purchase of flax(POxy XLV 3254) Through these business papers Leonides emerges as a mer-chant ldquoengaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre tow and perhapslinseedrdquo and a member of the tow guild31 Leonides even occupied a rotating lead-

Leonides does not give his patronymic but styles himself as meniarch The Theon that appears asone of the four meniarchs in POxy XLV 32613 cannot be securely identified He may have beenLeonidesrsquo father but could also have been an unrelated man

29 On ancient education see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students and eadem Gym-nastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton Princeton Uni-versity Press 2001) On the topic of literacy see William A Johnson and Holt N Parker AncientLiteracies The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford Oxford University Press 2009)Thomas J Kraus ldquo(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt Further Aspectsof the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Timesrdquo Mnemosyne 53 (2000)322ndash42 and William V Harris Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press1989)

30 In the villages of Ision Panga (POxy I 103 XXXI 2585 XLV 3255 3257 and PSI V 469)and Antipera Pela (POxy XLV 3256 3258ndash60) A schematic drawing of the upper toparchy canbe found in Julian Kruumlger Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit Studien zur Topographie und Literatur-rezeption (Europaumlische Hochschulschriften 3 441 Frankfurt am Main Lang 1990) 51 273 Seealso Stefan Timm Das christlich-koptische Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit Eine Sammlung christlicherStaumltten in Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit unter Ausschluss von Alexandria Kairo des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Dēr Abū Mina) der Skētis (Wādīn-Nat irūn) und der Sinai-Region (7 vols Beihefte zumTuumlbinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Geisteswissenschaften 41 Wiesbaden Reichert1984) 31181 (no 149 ldquoIsieion Pangardquo) and Jane Rowlandson Landowners and Tenants in RomanEgypt The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford Classical Mono-graphs Oxford Clarendon OxfordNew York Oxford University Press 1996) 10 18ndash19 map onp xiv

31 Stephens POxy XLV 129

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 583

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

ership position in this professional association for he functioned repeatedly as itsmonthly president (μηνιάρχης)32

Guilds or better professional associations formed strong and colorful piecesin the quilt of ancient local society These groups provided business advantages fortheir members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations33 Thatlatter aspect is recorded in one papyrus when Leonides and three fellow meniarchstake on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits34 This samepapyrus also gives an indication of Leonidesrsquo financial situation as Susan Stephensits editor concluded ldquoIf guild officials were selected like other officials at this timeon their ability to assume financial burdens then Leonides may have been a manof some affluencerdquo35 Indeed as a member and monthly president of a professionalorganization Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a ldquomiddlingrdquo groupin society36 Onno van Nijf observed ldquoThe craftsmen and traders who formed thecore of the demos were in an economic sense spread across a broad band of soci-ety Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial eacutelite theywere often in local terms relatively well offrdquo37

32 Leonidesrsquo functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectivelyPOxy XLV 3261 and 3262) The precise reconstruction of POxy XLV 32621 μ[η]νιάρχηςσιππ is not clear but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens POxy XLV 3262143) In one lease Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί) ldquotow-valuersrdquo (POxyI 10328 trans LSJ 1646 with reference to this papyrus) In POxy LIV 3753 dated March 26 319there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild just as in POxy XLV 3261 For Oxyrhynchite guildssee Revel Coles POxy LIV appendix II ldquoThe Guilds of Oxyrhynchusrdquo 230ndash32

33 On ldquothe economic activities of collegia and guildsrdquo see Onno M van Nijf The Civic Worldof Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History andArchaeology 17 Amsterdam Gieben 1997) 12ndash18 On the fiscal obligations of professional asso-ciations see Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLes associations professionnelles agrave lrsquoeacutepoque tardive entre munuset convivialiteacuterdquo in ldquoHumana sapitrdquo Eacutetudes drsquoAntiquiteacute tardive offertes agrave Lellia Cracco Ruggini (edJean-Michel Carrieacute and Rita Lizzi Testa Bibliothegraveque de lrsquoAntiquiteacute tardive 3 Turnhout Brepols2002) 309ndash32

34 POxy XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens POxy XLV 141 On army recruitmentsee Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLe systegraveme de recrutement des armeacutees romaines de Diocleacutetien aux Valen-tiniensrdquo in Lrsquoarmeacutee romaine de Diocleacutetien agrave Valentinien Ier Actes du Congregraves de Lyon (12ndash14 sep-tembre 2002)(ed Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff Collection du Centre drsquoeacutetudes romaines etgallo-romaines 26 Paris Diffusion de Boccard 2004) 371ndash87 esp 373 383 where Carrieacute dis-cusses POxy XLV 3261 and Richard Alston Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt A Social History(London Routledge 1995) ch 3 ldquoRecruitment and Veteran Settlementrdquo 39ndash52

35 Stephens POxy XLV 12936 So van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 243 ldquoin social and economic terms

the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seemsa particularly apt descriptionrdquo

37 Ibid 21 (emphasis in the original) Also ldquoThe members of collegia came from a levelof society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes) they constituted thegroups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi and of which the Romans used the specific termplebs media We should not of course confuse these men with a lsquomiddle classrsquordquo (p 22)

584 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

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leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

(blank)(2nd hand in cursive script)Αὐρήλιος Παῦλο[ς ]νυνισιου τῶν παρὰ γενήματοςπερὶ τῶν γενημάτων [ ]ου ἐπὶ τοῦ λογείας [] των(blank)15χιτOn the versoπi[ ]ση i ἀπόστολος

(1st hand) Atraces of ink

lines 3ndash4 πiρωφητῶν for πiροφητῶν line 4 ἁγ᾿είαις for ἁγ᾿ίαις line 6 ἁγιωσσύνηςfor ἁγιωσύνης line 8 ἀ[π]οστολων for ἀ[π]οστολήν4 and ὑπακωόν for ὑπακοήν line9 after ὀνόματος leaving out the words αὐτοῦ ἐν οἷς ἐστε καὶ ὑμεῖς κλητοί5 line 10τούς for τοῖς line 11 ἡμῖν for ὑμῖν lines 11ndash12 χρυ ιηυ for ιηυ χρυ

The text is copied sloppily The writer made several spelling mistakes as indi-cated below the transcription The one variant reading ldquoChrist Jesusrdquo instead ofldquoJesus Christrdquo (lines 11ndash12) does not contribute in any meaningful way to exeget-ical or other discussions on the apostlersquos longest letter6 As we will discover theimportance and interest of this papyrus stretch beyond textual technicalities of theLetter to the Romans The papyrus is an artifact that allows us to catch glimpses intothe circles in which it was produced and the people who owned it

The sentences scribbled underneath the passage from Romans in cursivehandwriting begin with the name ldquoAurelius Paulusrdquo followed by ungrammaticalexpressions containing the words ldquoproducerdquo and ldquoaccountrdquo (γενήματοςγενημά-των and λογείας) They may have served to test the pen7 Incomprehensible asthese lines remain these terms fit in the mercantile environment of the archive towhich this papyrus belongs as we will see next

4 The papyrus has a lacuna at this spot that has obliterated the top parts of the letters How-ever the reading of the omega is indisputable as its bottom half has survived it cannot have beenan eta

5 Conceivably these words were already absent in the Vorlage The strained handwritinghowever suggests that this scribe omitted them

6 The expression ldquoChrist Jesusrdquo occurs in Rom 11 The ancient manuscripts are dividedbetween reading ldquoChrist Jesusrdquo and ldquoJesus Christrdquo in Rom 11 but only POxy II 209p10 has adifferent order in Rom 17 Grenfell and Hunt already observed this (POxy II 209 8 Bernard PGrenfell and Arthur S Hunt The Oxyrhynchus Papyri [London Egypt Exploration Fund 1898ndash]ad loc)

7 See also eg the verso of the Karanis Tax Roll PMich IV 357 C

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 577

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

II Identifying the Archive

In their edition of this papyrus in the second volume of The OxyrhynchusPapyri Bernard P Grenfell and Arthur S Hunt made the tantalizing remark oftenrepeated in scholarship that ldquothe papyrus was found tied up with a contract datedin 316 ad and other documents of the same periodrdquo8 This means that they foundthis papyrus as part of an archive in Alain Martinrsquos strict definition of the wordnamely a group of texts deliberately organized by their ancient users9 But whatarchive Grenfell and Hunt did not provide any further clues They were not par-ticularly interested in the social context of the texts they had unearthed or per-haps they were too busy editing their enormous find

Modern search engines and old-fashioned historical detective work led to theidentification of this archive A search on the Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis(HGV) for documents from Oxyrhynchus that date to the year 316 ce gives thir-teen results10 Only two of those documents qualify as contracts POxy I 103 alease of a plot of land and SB XIV 11278 a contract for the sale of a donkey11 Gren-fell and Hunt cannot have referred to the latter papyrus for it did not come fromtheir excavations conducted under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration SocietySB XIV 11278 also does not belong to a larger archive That leaves POxy I 103 asthe contract found attached to our papyrus Indeed the fact that Grenfell and Hunthad already published that contract in the first volume explains their mention of the

8 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 8 Cited eg by Colin H Roberts Manuscript Societyand Belief in Early Christian Egypt (Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1977 LondonOxford University Press 1979) 5ndash6 Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack etal Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXII Raffaella Cribiore Writing Teachers and Studentsin Graeco-Roman Egypt (American Studies in Papyrology 36 Atlanta Scholars Press 1996) 247(no 302)

9 Martin ldquoArchives priveacutees et cachettes documentairesrdquo in Proceedings of the 20th Interna-tional Congress of Papyrologists (ed Adam Buumllow-Jacobsen Copenhagen Museum Tusculanum1994) 569ndash77 here 572 ldquoensembles pour lesquels nous avons de bonnes raisons de penser qursquoilsont eacuteteacute deacutelibeacutereacutement constitueacutes et organiseacutes par leurs utilisateurs anciensrdquo The data bank PapyrusArchives in Graeco-Roman Egypt gives this definition ldquoAn archive is a group of texts which werecollected in antiquity with a specific purpose The purpose may even be to discard some itemsfrom a larger archive and then throw them awayrdquo (httpwwwtrismegistosorgarchaboutphp[accessed November 13 2009]) See also Katelijn Vandorpe ldquoArchives and Dossiersrdquo in The OxfordHandbook of Papyrology (ed Roger S Bagnall Oxford Oxford University Press 2009) 216ndash55

10 A search for ldquoJ(ahr) = 316rdquo and ldquoOrt = Oxyrhynchosrdquo at httpaquilapapyuni-heidelbergdegvzFMhtml (accessed November 13 2009)

11 The papyrus belongs to the collection of the Universitagrave Cattolica in Milan (PMed inv7173) and was first published by Carla Balconi ldquoContratto di compravendita di un asinordquo Aegyp-tus 54 (1974) 61ndash63

578 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

exact date of that document in the second volume of the Oxyrhynchus PapyriMoreover and also in accordance with Grenfell and Huntrsquos description this leaseforms part of a larger archive the so-called Archive of Leonides as can be foundby searching the database for Papyrus Archives in Graeco-Roman Egypt12 Thisarchive consists of twelve documentsmdashwith the addition of this NT papyrus nowthirteenmdashrelating to the flax merchant Leonides I have appended a list of the textsin this archive13

I can further demonstrate this identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive by following a different investigative approach namely by check-ing the date of publication and the excavation seasons Grenfell and Hunt con-ducted six excavation seasons at OxyrhynchusBehnasa collecting about half amillion fragments14 Our NT papyrus appeared in the second volume of the seriesThe Oxyrhynchus Papyri published in 1899 This means that Grenfell and Huntmust have found this papyrus POxy II 209 during their first excavation season atOxyrhynchus in 1896ndash1897 for their second season of excavating at Oxyrhynchustook place only in 1903 Published in 1898 POxy I 103 evidently also came withthe first batch from Oxyrhynchus Furthermore the inventory numbers15 of thepapyri belonging to the Leonides archive published in volume 45 of theOxyrhynchus Papyri (POxy XLV) indicate that these texts were found together dur-ing the first excavation season at Oxyrhynchus16 This confirms conclusively theassociation of POxy II 209 with the archive of Leonides This identification has aslight implication for the date of POxy II 209 and is especially important for under-standing the social context of this NT papyrus issues to which I now turn

12 Conducting a search for ldquoPublication = Oxy and 103rdquo httpwwwtrismegistosorgarchsearchphp (accessed November 13 2009)

13 The archive was published by Susan Stephens in POxy XLV (1977) 14 Peter Parsons City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish Greek Lives in Roman Egypt (London

Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 2007) 1715 Beginning with the publication of POxy XL (1972) Oxyrhynchus papyri have inventory

numbers that reflect the season in which they were found and the box in which they were storedAn explanation for the system appeared in POxy XLII (1974) xiv ldquoNote on Inventory Numbersrdquo

16 Although Grenfell and Hunt did not conduct a stratigraphy of their finds they noted intheir archaeological reports that they attempted to keep together papyri that were found at thesame time Grenfell stated ldquoEach lot [of papyri] found by a pair man and boy had to be kept sep-arate for the knowledge that papyri are found together is frequently of the greatest importance fordetermining their date and since it is inevitable that so fragile a material should sometimes be bro-ken in the process of extricating it from the closely packed soil it is imperative to keep togetheras far as possible fragments of the same documentrdquo (ldquoExcavations at Oxyrhynchus (1896ndash1907)rdquoin Oxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts [ed A K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007] 349) Apparently one of the documents from the Leonides Archive PSI V 469 becameseparated from the archive (at what time is unclear) and ended up among the finds of the Italianexcavators

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 579

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

III A New Testament Papyrus from a Documentary Archive

With only the knowledge that the papyrus was found together with a contractfrom the year 316 as reported in the editio princeps scholars dated the papyruseither as ldquoearly fourth centuryrdquo or ldquofourth centuryrdquo17 The additional informationnow provided by the archival context of the NT papyrus allows for a more precisedating The dates in the Leonides archive range from 315 ce to 334 ce (see theappendix) It is unknown when the archive was discarded but in view of the datesin the archive it is likely that the NT papyrus was written early in the second quar-ter of the fourth century that is in the 320s or 330s

The identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of the archive of Leonides hasimportant implications for its ldquosocial liferdquo18 What we have here is a rare instance ofa ldquoliterary papyrus in a documentary archiverdquo19 In an article on that topic WillyClarysse rightly emphasized that unlike the division among scholarly disciplinesliterary and documentary papyri do not constitute two separate worlds rather thepeople that figure in the papyrus documents were the ones who possessed the lit-erary fragments20 But only seldom can we catch glimpses of the owners of books

17 According to Junack et al the date is ldquosicher 4 Jahrhundertrdquo (Das Neue Testament aufPapyrus 21XXII for other examples see Aland Repertorium 1228 357) The sixth- or seventh-century date assigned by G H R Horsley (ldquoAD VIndashVIIrdquo) must be a slip (ldquoReconstructing a Bib-lical Codex The Prehistory of MPER ns XVII 10 [PVindob G 29831]rdquo in Akten des 21 Inter-nationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin 1995 [ed Baumlrbel Kramer Wolfgang Luppe HerwigMaehler and Guumlnter Poethke APF Beiheft 3 Stuttgart Teubner 1997] 1473ndash81 here 481)

18 The expression comes from Arjun Appadurai The Social Life of Things Commodities inCultural Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology Cambridge Cam-bridge University Press 1986)

19 I use here a broad definition of literary texts following Peter van Minnen who stated forhis research on literary texts in the Fayum villages ldquoschool texts have been included Ancientschools provided a context for getting acquainted with at least some literaturerdquo (ldquoBoorish or Book-ish Literature in Egyptian Villages in the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman Periodrdquo JJP 28 [1998]99ndash184 here 102) NT textual critics disagree about the question whether a school exercise countsas a literary papyrus For Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland p10 should not feature on the official listof NT papyri because it is a school exercise ldquoUnter den heute 96 Nummern der offiziellen Listeder Papyri des NT is auch manches verzeichnet was eigentlich nicht hierhin gehoumlrt ja selbstSchreibuumlbungen (P10)rdquo (Der Text des Neuen Testaments Einfuumlhrung in die wissenschaftlichen Aus-gaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modernen Textkritik [Stuttgart Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft1982] 95) With more appreciation for a childrsquos hand David C Parker approves of school exer-cises on that list writing ldquowe should not exclude a document on the grounds that it is a childrsquoswriting exercise If the child made an accurate copy of a page of an ancient manuscript how happyshould we berdquo (An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts [CambridgeCambridge University Press 2008] 42) On the borderline status of school exercises between lit-erary and documentary text see also Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 26

20 Clarysse ldquoLiterary Papyri in Documentary lsquoArchivesrsquordquo in Egypt and the Hellenistic World

580 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

in antiquity Clarysse cautioned ldquoOne must keep in mind that it is often very dif-ficult to connect literary texts with an archive because we usually cannot base our-selves on internal evidence of the texts and secondly that in many cases a personrsquospapers are preserved but not his library (or vice versa)rdquo21 This dearth of evidencefor the owners of literary texts pertains not only to those who possessed classicalwritings but equally to those who had Christian texts on their shelves For mostearly NT manuscripts we do not know where they were found let alone who hadowned them

In his article ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testa-mentrdquo Eldon Jay Epp provides a useful overview and discussion of all NT papyri forwhich we possess more or less reliable archaeological data22 In a few cases a knownarchaeological provenance ranging from city or village level to building givesglimpses into the milieu of the texts Epp calculated that the site of Oxyrhynchushas yielded the majority of NT papyri with a known provenance and that theseldquoprovide an unparalleled opportunity to assess a large number of copies of Chris-tianityrsquos earliest writings within the literary and intellectual environment ofOxyrhynchusrdquo23 Other NT papyri have been discovered in or near churches andmonasteriesmdashan indication it seems to me that they had been used in an ecclesi-astical or monastic setting24 A fragmentary third- or fourth-century papyrus codexwith parts of Pauline epistles (p92) was found in ancient Narmouthis (MedinatMadi) in the Fayum Oasis in a building filled with debris near the sacred way (dromos) to the main local temple of Renenutet25

Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leuven 24ndash26 May 1982 (ed E Van rsquot Dack P VanDessel and W Van Gucht Studia Hellenistica 27 Leuven Peeters 1983) 43ndash61 esp 43

21 Ibid 61 See also van Minnenrsquos combined archaeological and papyrological approach tomaterials found at Karanis in his ldquoHouse-to-house Enquiries An Interdisciplinary Approach toRoman Karanisrdquo ZPE 100 (1994) 227ndash51

22 Epp ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testamentrdquo inOxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts (ed Alan K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007) 315ndash31 here 322ndash24

23 Ibid 32424 NT papyri (reportedly) found at ancient churches or monasteries are p43 p45 p46 p47 p59

p60 p61 p66 p72 p75 p83 and p8425 Published by Claudio Gallazzi ldquoFrammenti di un codice con le Epistole di Paolordquo ZPE 46

(1982) 117ndash22 He remarks that the codex was ldquofound in the winter of rsquo69 in the debris that hadfilled a building west of the dromos of Medicircnet Macircdi (ldquorinvenuti nellrsquo inverno del rsquo69 in mezzo aidetriti che colmavano un edificio a ovest del dromos di Medicircnet Macircdirdquo [p 117]) The excavationreport for 1969 mentions the find of some one hundred Greek papyri among them a ldquoframmentobiblicordquo but not the exact location where these papyri were found see Edda Bresciani Missionedi scavo a Medinet Madi (FayumndashEgitto) Rapporto preliminare delle campagne di scavo 1968 e1969 (Istituto di papirologia dellrsquouniversitagrave degli studi di Milano Milan CisalpinondashLa Goliardica1976) 29 I agree with Paola Davoli when she complains about the lack of recording of the spe-cific archaeological context of the papyri in that publication (Lrsquoarcheologia urbana nel Fayyum di

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 581

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Even in those instances of identifiable origin the actual owners of these man-uscripts still elude us26 With the identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive we now have a NT papyrus with a known owner In fact this isthe first and only instance where we can get to know the ancient owner of a NTpapyrus So let us make our acquaintance with this person and some of the peoplementioned in his papers

IV Leonides Son of TheonMerchant and Member of a Professional Association

The protagonist of the archive is Aurelius Leonides son of Theon resident ofOxyrhynchus City The newly identified addition to the archive the NT papyrusreveals Leonidesrsquo religious affiliation Given that his business papers contained apiece with the opening verses of the apostle Paulrsquos Letter to the Romans it seemsreasonable to conclude that Leonides was a Christian27 Further examination of thedocuments leads to other insights into his background and position in society

Leonidesrsquo appearances in the archive span almost twenty years the earliestone falls in the year 315 the latest in 334 Leonides was therefore probably born inthe last quarter of the third century We behold his family only in the vaguest con-tours The name of his father Theon occurs as a patronymic in most documentsin the archive as is standard in official papers28 His mother remains nameless also

etagrave ellenistica e romana [Missione congiunta delle Universitagrave di Bologna e di Lecce in EgittoMonografia 1 Napoli Generoso Procaccini 1998] ch 10 ldquoKom Medinet Madi [Gia Nar-mouthis]rdquo 223ndash52 here 235) Van Minnen noted ldquoThe village had several early churches sug-gesting that it was an important Christian settlement throughout late antiquity The excavatedchurches eight in number were built not later than the seventh century some already in thefourthrdquo (ldquoBoorish or Bookishrdquo 139)

26 For the contextualization of a fragment of a third-century Christian copy of the book ofPsalms within the archive of Aurelius Isidorus from the Fayum town of Karanis see GreggSchwendner ldquoA Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and Its Contextrdquo in Jewish and Christian Scrip-ture as Artifact and Canon (ed Craig A Evans and H Daniel Zacharias Library of Second Tem-ple Studies 13 London TampT Clark 2009) 117ndash36 In third-century Oxyrhynchus AureliaPtolemaisrsquos family possessed a copy of Julius Africanusrsquos Cestoi as Bagnall has shown (ldquoAn Ownerof Literary Papyrirdquo CP 87 [1992] 137ndash40) The Cestoi however is not a biblical book and despiteits Christian author not a Christian text

27 There are no other indications in the archive that denote Leonides as a Christian Forinstance he does not bear a Christian name nor do the documents preserved in the archive fea-ture nomina sacramdashto mention two common markers of Christian identity For discussion ofthese and other markers see AnneMarie Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord Early Christians and theOxyrhynchus Papyri (HTS 60 Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2008)

28 Theon is mentioned as Leonidesrsquo father in POxy I 1034 XXXI 25855 XLV 3254532563ndash4 32574 32585 32597 32604 and PSI V 4695 In his own letter POxy XLV 3262

582 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

a common feature of such documents just as we cannot ascertain whether Leonideshad a wife and children

One document subtly discloses that Leonides probably came from a some-what well-to-do family because the archive includes a letter penned in his ownhand with his subscription ldquoI the same Leonides have signedrdquo (ὁ αὐτὸς Λεωνί-δης [σε]ση(μείωμαι) POxy 32627) Leonides was thus a literate man who hadenjoyed an education29 This then indicates that his parents had some means sincethey would have paid for their sonrsquos schooling As we will see later it appears thatLeonides himself also valued education for he kept among his papers a writingexercise

In addition to these glimpses of Leonidesrsquo religion family and education thedocuments in the archive provide interesting information about his business activ-ities and social status In the archive we encounter him sometimes in partnershipwith a man called Dioscorus conducting business in two villages in the uppertoparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome (the administrative region of which Oxyrhyn-chus City was the capital)30 Most documents in the archive are applications for thelease of land for the cultivation of flax another records Leonidesrsquo purchase of flax(POxy XLV 3254) Through these business papers Leonides emerges as a mer-chant ldquoengaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre tow and perhapslinseedrdquo and a member of the tow guild31 Leonides even occupied a rotating lead-

Leonides does not give his patronymic but styles himself as meniarch The Theon that appears asone of the four meniarchs in POxy XLV 32613 cannot be securely identified He may have beenLeonidesrsquo father but could also have been an unrelated man

29 On ancient education see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students and eadem Gym-nastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton Princeton Uni-versity Press 2001) On the topic of literacy see William A Johnson and Holt N Parker AncientLiteracies The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford Oxford University Press 2009)Thomas J Kraus ldquo(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt Further Aspectsof the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Timesrdquo Mnemosyne 53 (2000)322ndash42 and William V Harris Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press1989)

30 In the villages of Ision Panga (POxy I 103 XXXI 2585 XLV 3255 3257 and PSI V 469)and Antipera Pela (POxy XLV 3256 3258ndash60) A schematic drawing of the upper toparchy canbe found in Julian Kruumlger Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit Studien zur Topographie und Literatur-rezeption (Europaumlische Hochschulschriften 3 441 Frankfurt am Main Lang 1990) 51 273 Seealso Stefan Timm Das christlich-koptische Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit Eine Sammlung christlicherStaumltten in Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit unter Ausschluss von Alexandria Kairo des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Dēr Abū Mina) der Skētis (Wādīn-Nat irūn) und der Sinai-Region (7 vols Beihefte zumTuumlbinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Geisteswissenschaften 41 Wiesbaden Reichert1984) 31181 (no 149 ldquoIsieion Pangardquo) and Jane Rowlandson Landowners and Tenants in RomanEgypt The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford Classical Mono-graphs Oxford Clarendon OxfordNew York Oxford University Press 1996) 10 18ndash19 map onp xiv

31 Stephens POxy XLV 129

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 583

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

ership position in this professional association for he functioned repeatedly as itsmonthly president (μηνιάρχης)32

Guilds or better professional associations formed strong and colorful piecesin the quilt of ancient local society These groups provided business advantages fortheir members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations33 Thatlatter aspect is recorded in one papyrus when Leonides and three fellow meniarchstake on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits34 This samepapyrus also gives an indication of Leonidesrsquo financial situation as Susan Stephensits editor concluded ldquoIf guild officials were selected like other officials at this timeon their ability to assume financial burdens then Leonides may have been a manof some affluencerdquo35 Indeed as a member and monthly president of a professionalorganization Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a ldquomiddlingrdquo groupin society36 Onno van Nijf observed ldquoThe craftsmen and traders who formed thecore of the demos were in an economic sense spread across a broad band of soci-ety Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial eacutelite theywere often in local terms relatively well offrdquo37

32 Leonidesrsquo functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectivelyPOxy XLV 3261 and 3262) The precise reconstruction of POxy XLV 32621 μ[η]νιάρχηςσιππ is not clear but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens POxy XLV 3262143) In one lease Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί) ldquotow-valuersrdquo (POxyI 10328 trans LSJ 1646 with reference to this papyrus) In POxy LIV 3753 dated March 26 319there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild just as in POxy XLV 3261 For Oxyrhynchite guildssee Revel Coles POxy LIV appendix II ldquoThe Guilds of Oxyrhynchusrdquo 230ndash32

33 On ldquothe economic activities of collegia and guildsrdquo see Onno M van Nijf The Civic Worldof Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History andArchaeology 17 Amsterdam Gieben 1997) 12ndash18 On the fiscal obligations of professional asso-ciations see Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLes associations professionnelles agrave lrsquoeacutepoque tardive entre munuset convivialiteacuterdquo in ldquoHumana sapitrdquo Eacutetudes drsquoAntiquiteacute tardive offertes agrave Lellia Cracco Ruggini (edJean-Michel Carrieacute and Rita Lizzi Testa Bibliothegraveque de lrsquoAntiquiteacute tardive 3 Turnhout Brepols2002) 309ndash32

34 POxy XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens POxy XLV 141 On army recruitmentsee Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLe systegraveme de recrutement des armeacutees romaines de Diocleacutetien aux Valen-tiniensrdquo in Lrsquoarmeacutee romaine de Diocleacutetien agrave Valentinien Ier Actes du Congregraves de Lyon (12ndash14 sep-tembre 2002)(ed Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff Collection du Centre drsquoeacutetudes romaines etgallo-romaines 26 Paris Diffusion de Boccard 2004) 371ndash87 esp 373 383 where Carrieacute dis-cusses POxy XLV 3261 and Richard Alston Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt A Social History(London Routledge 1995) ch 3 ldquoRecruitment and Veteran Settlementrdquo 39ndash52

35 Stephens POxy XLV 12936 So van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 243 ldquoin social and economic terms

the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seemsa particularly apt descriptionrdquo

37 Ibid 21 (emphasis in the original) Also ldquoThe members of collegia came from a levelof society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes) they constituted thegroups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi and of which the Romans used the specific termplebs media We should not of course confuse these men with a lsquomiddle classrsquordquo (p 22)

584 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

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agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

II Identifying the Archive

In their edition of this papyrus in the second volume of The OxyrhynchusPapyri Bernard P Grenfell and Arthur S Hunt made the tantalizing remark oftenrepeated in scholarship that ldquothe papyrus was found tied up with a contract datedin 316 ad and other documents of the same periodrdquo8 This means that they foundthis papyrus as part of an archive in Alain Martinrsquos strict definition of the wordnamely a group of texts deliberately organized by their ancient users9 But whatarchive Grenfell and Hunt did not provide any further clues They were not par-ticularly interested in the social context of the texts they had unearthed or per-haps they were too busy editing their enormous find

Modern search engines and old-fashioned historical detective work led to theidentification of this archive A search on the Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis(HGV) for documents from Oxyrhynchus that date to the year 316 ce gives thir-teen results10 Only two of those documents qualify as contracts POxy I 103 alease of a plot of land and SB XIV 11278 a contract for the sale of a donkey11 Gren-fell and Hunt cannot have referred to the latter papyrus for it did not come fromtheir excavations conducted under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration SocietySB XIV 11278 also does not belong to a larger archive That leaves POxy I 103 asthe contract found attached to our papyrus Indeed the fact that Grenfell and Hunthad already published that contract in the first volume explains their mention of the

8 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 8 Cited eg by Colin H Roberts Manuscript Societyand Belief in Early Christian Egypt (Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1977 LondonOxford University Press 1979) 5ndash6 Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack etal Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXII Raffaella Cribiore Writing Teachers and Studentsin Graeco-Roman Egypt (American Studies in Papyrology 36 Atlanta Scholars Press 1996) 247(no 302)

9 Martin ldquoArchives priveacutees et cachettes documentairesrdquo in Proceedings of the 20th Interna-tional Congress of Papyrologists (ed Adam Buumllow-Jacobsen Copenhagen Museum Tusculanum1994) 569ndash77 here 572 ldquoensembles pour lesquels nous avons de bonnes raisons de penser qursquoilsont eacuteteacute deacutelibeacutereacutement constitueacutes et organiseacutes par leurs utilisateurs anciensrdquo The data bank PapyrusArchives in Graeco-Roman Egypt gives this definition ldquoAn archive is a group of texts which werecollected in antiquity with a specific purpose The purpose may even be to discard some itemsfrom a larger archive and then throw them awayrdquo (httpwwwtrismegistosorgarchaboutphp[accessed November 13 2009]) See also Katelijn Vandorpe ldquoArchives and Dossiersrdquo in The OxfordHandbook of Papyrology (ed Roger S Bagnall Oxford Oxford University Press 2009) 216ndash55

10 A search for ldquoJ(ahr) = 316rdquo and ldquoOrt = Oxyrhynchosrdquo at httpaquilapapyuni-heidelbergdegvzFMhtml (accessed November 13 2009)

11 The papyrus belongs to the collection of the Universitagrave Cattolica in Milan (PMed inv7173) and was first published by Carla Balconi ldquoContratto di compravendita di un asinordquo Aegyp-tus 54 (1974) 61ndash63

578 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

exact date of that document in the second volume of the Oxyrhynchus PapyriMoreover and also in accordance with Grenfell and Huntrsquos description this leaseforms part of a larger archive the so-called Archive of Leonides as can be foundby searching the database for Papyrus Archives in Graeco-Roman Egypt12 Thisarchive consists of twelve documentsmdashwith the addition of this NT papyrus nowthirteenmdashrelating to the flax merchant Leonides I have appended a list of the textsin this archive13

I can further demonstrate this identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive by following a different investigative approach namely by check-ing the date of publication and the excavation seasons Grenfell and Hunt con-ducted six excavation seasons at OxyrhynchusBehnasa collecting about half amillion fragments14 Our NT papyrus appeared in the second volume of the seriesThe Oxyrhynchus Papyri published in 1899 This means that Grenfell and Huntmust have found this papyrus POxy II 209 during their first excavation season atOxyrhynchus in 1896ndash1897 for their second season of excavating at Oxyrhynchustook place only in 1903 Published in 1898 POxy I 103 evidently also came withthe first batch from Oxyrhynchus Furthermore the inventory numbers15 of thepapyri belonging to the Leonides archive published in volume 45 of theOxyrhynchus Papyri (POxy XLV) indicate that these texts were found together dur-ing the first excavation season at Oxyrhynchus16 This confirms conclusively theassociation of POxy II 209 with the archive of Leonides This identification has aslight implication for the date of POxy II 209 and is especially important for under-standing the social context of this NT papyrus issues to which I now turn

12 Conducting a search for ldquoPublication = Oxy and 103rdquo httpwwwtrismegistosorgarchsearchphp (accessed November 13 2009)

13 The archive was published by Susan Stephens in POxy XLV (1977) 14 Peter Parsons City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish Greek Lives in Roman Egypt (London

Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 2007) 1715 Beginning with the publication of POxy XL (1972) Oxyrhynchus papyri have inventory

numbers that reflect the season in which they were found and the box in which they were storedAn explanation for the system appeared in POxy XLII (1974) xiv ldquoNote on Inventory Numbersrdquo

16 Although Grenfell and Hunt did not conduct a stratigraphy of their finds they noted intheir archaeological reports that they attempted to keep together papyri that were found at thesame time Grenfell stated ldquoEach lot [of papyri] found by a pair man and boy had to be kept sep-arate for the knowledge that papyri are found together is frequently of the greatest importance fordetermining their date and since it is inevitable that so fragile a material should sometimes be bro-ken in the process of extricating it from the closely packed soil it is imperative to keep togetheras far as possible fragments of the same documentrdquo (ldquoExcavations at Oxyrhynchus (1896ndash1907)rdquoin Oxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts [ed A K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007] 349) Apparently one of the documents from the Leonides Archive PSI V 469 becameseparated from the archive (at what time is unclear) and ended up among the finds of the Italianexcavators

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 579

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III A New Testament Papyrus from a Documentary Archive

With only the knowledge that the papyrus was found together with a contractfrom the year 316 as reported in the editio princeps scholars dated the papyruseither as ldquoearly fourth centuryrdquo or ldquofourth centuryrdquo17 The additional informationnow provided by the archival context of the NT papyrus allows for a more precisedating The dates in the Leonides archive range from 315 ce to 334 ce (see theappendix) It is unknown when the archive was discarded but in view of the datesin the archive it is likely that the NT papyrus was written early in the second quar-ter of the fourth century that is in the 320s or 330s

The identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of the archive of Leonides hasimportant implications for its ldquosocial liferdquo18 What we have here is a rare instance ofa ldquoliterary papyrus in a documentary archiverdquo19 In an article on that topic WillyClarysse rightly emphasized that unlike the division among scholarly disciplinesliterary and documentary papyri do not constitute two separate worlds rather thepeople that figure in the papyrus documents were the ones who possessed the lit-erary fragments20 But only seldom can we catch glimpses of the owners of books

17 According to Junack et al the date is ldquosicher 4 Jahrhundertrdquo (Das Neue Testament aufPapyrus 21XXII for other examples see Aland Repertorium 1228 357) The sixth- or seventh-century date assigned by G H R Horsley (ldquoAD VIndashVIIrdquo) must be a slip (ldquoReconstructing a Bib-lical Codex The Prehistory of MPER ns XVII 10 [PVindob G 29831]rdquo in Akten des 21 Inter-nationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin 1995 [ed Baumlrbel Kramer Wolfgang Luppe HerwigMaehler and Guumlnter Poethke APF Beiheft 3 Stuttgart Teubner 1997] 1473ndash81 here 481)

18 The expression comes from Arjun Appadurai The Social Life of Things Commodities inCultural Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology Cambridge Cam-bridge University Press 1986)

19 I use here a broad definition of literary texts following Peter van Minnen who stated forhis research on literary texts in the Fayum villages ldquoschool texts have been included Ancientschools provided a context for getting acquainted with at least some literaturerdquo (ldquoBoorish or Book-ish Literature in Egyptian Villages in the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman Periodrdquo JJP 28 [1998]99ndash184 here 102) NT textual critics disagree about the question whether a school exercise countsas a literary papyrus For Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland p10 should not feature on the official listof NT papyri because it is a school exercise ldquoUnter den heute 96 Nummern der offiziellen Listeder Papyri des NT is auch manches verzeichnet was eigentlich nicht hierhin gehoumlrt ja selbstSchreibuumlbungen (P10)rdquo (Der Text des Neuen Testaments Einfuumlhrung in die wissenschaftlichen Aus-gaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modernen Textkritik [Stuttgart Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft1982] 95) With more appreciation for a childrsquos hand David C Parker approves of school exer-cises on that list writing ldquowe should not exclude a document on the grounds that it is a childrsquoswriting exercise If the child made an accurate copy of a page of an ancient manuscript how happyshould we berdquo (An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts [CambridgeCambridge University Press 2008] 42) On the borderline status of school exercises between lit-erary and documentary text see also Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 26

20 Clarysse ldquoLiterary Papyri in Documentary lsquoArchivesrsquordquo in Egypt and the Hellenistic World

580 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

in antiquity Clarysse cautioned ldquoOne must keep in mind that it is often very dif-ficult to connect literary texts with an archive because we usually cannot base our-selves on internal evidence of the texts and secondly that in many cases a personrsquospapers are preserved but not his library (or vice versa)rdquo21 This dearth of evidencefor the owners of literary texts pertains not only to those who possessed classicalwritings but equally to those who had Christian texts on their shelves For mostearly NT manuscripts we do not know where they were found let alone who hadowned them

In his article ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testa-mentrdquo Eldon Jay Epp provides a useful overview and discussion of all NT papyri forwhich we possess more or less reliable archaeological data22 In a few cases a knownarchaeological provenance ranging from city or village level to building givesglimpses into the milieu of the texts Epp calculated that the site of Oxyrhynchushas yielded the majority of NT papyri with a known provenance and that theseldquoprovide an unparalleled opportunity to assess a large number of copies of Chris-tianityrsquos earliest writings within the literary and intellectual environment ofOxyrhynchusrdquo23 Other NT papyri have been discovered in or near churches andmonasteriesmdashan indication it seems to me that they had been used in an ecclesi-astical or monastic setting24 A fragmentary third- or fourth-century papyrus codexwith parts of Pauline epistles (p92) was found in ancient Narmouthis (MedinatMadi) in the Fayum Oasis in a building filled with debris near the sacred way (dromos) to the main local temple of Renenutet25

Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leuven 24ndash26 May 1982 (ed E Van rsquot Dack P VanDessel and W Van Gucht Studia Hellenistica 27 Leuven Peeters 1983) 43ndash61 esp 43

21 Ibid 61 See also van Minnenrsquos combined archaeological and papyrological approach tomaterials found at Karanis in his ldquoHouse-to-house Enquiries An Interdisciplinary Approach toRoman Karanisrdquo ZPE 100 (1994) 227ndash51

22 Epp ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testamentrdquo inOxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts (ed Alan K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007) 315ndash31 here 322ndash24

23 Ibid 32424 NT papyri (reportedly) found at ancient churches or monasteries are p43 p45 p46 p47 p59

p60 p61 p66 p72 p75 p83 and p8425 Published by Claudio Gallazzi ldquoFrammenti di un codice con le Epistole di Paolordquo ZPE 46

(1982) 117ndash22 He remarks that the codex was ldquofound in the winter of rsquo69 in the debris that hadfilled a building west of the dromos of Medicircnet Macircdi (ldquorinvenuti nellrsquo inverno del rsquo69 in mezzo aidetriti che colmavano un edificio a ovest del dromos di Medicircnet Macircdirdquo [p 117]) The excavationreport for 1969 mentions the find of some one hundred Greek papyri among them a ldquoframmentobiblicordquo but not the exact location where these papyri were found see Edda Bresciani Missionedi scavo a Medinet Madi (FayumndashEgitto) Rapporto preliminare delle campagne di scavo 1968 e1969 (Istituto di papirologia dellrsquouniversitagrave degli studi di Milano Milan CisalpinondashLa Goliardica1976) 29 I agree with Paola Davoli when she complains about the lack of recording of the spe-cific archaeological context of the papyri in that publication (Lrsquoarcheologia urbana nel Fayyum di

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 581

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Even in those instances of identifiable origin the actual owners of these man-uscripts still elude us26 With the identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive we now have a NT papyrus with a known owner In fact this isthe first and only instance where we can get to know the ancient owner of a NTpapyrus So let us make our acquaintance with this person and some of the peoplementioned in his papers

IV Leonides Son of TheonMerchant and Member of a Professional Association

The protagonist of the archive is Aurelius Leonides son of Theon resident ofOxyrhynchus City The newly identified addition to the archive the NT papyrusreveals Leonidesrsquo religious affiliation Given that his business papers contained apiece with the opening verses of the apostle Paulrsquos Letter to the Romans it seemsreasonable to conclude that Leonides was a Christian27 Further examination of thedocuments leads to other insights into his background and position in society

Leonidesrsquo appearances in the archive span almost twenty years the earliestone falls in the year 315 the latest in 334 Leonides was therefore probably born inthe last quarter of the third century We behold his family only in the vaguest con-tours The name of his father Theon occurs as a patronymic in most documentsin the archive as is standard in official papers28 His mother remains nameless also

etagrave ellenistica e romana [Missione congiunta delle Universitagrave di Bologna e di Lecce in EgittoMonografia 1 Napoli Generoso Procaccini 1998] ch 10 ldquoKom Medinet Madi [Gia Nar-mouthis]rdquo 223ndash52 here 235) Van Minnen noted ldquoThe village had several early churches sug-gesting that it was an important Christian settlement throughout late antiquity The excavatedchurches eight in number were built not later than the seventh century some already in thefourthrdquo (ldquoBoorish or Bookishrdquo 139)

26 For the contextualization of a fragment of a third-century Christian copy of the book ofPsalms within the archive of Aurelius Isidorus from the Fayum town of Karanis see GreggSchwendner ldquoA Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and Its Contextrdquo in Jewish and Christian Scrip-ture as Artifact and Canon (ed Craig A Evans and H Daniel Zacharias Library of Second Tem-ple Studies 13 London TampT Clark 2009) 117ndash36 In third-century Oxyrhynchus AureliaPtolemaisrsquos family possessed a copy of Julius Africanusrsquos Cestoi as Bagnall has shown (ldquoAn Ownerof Literary Papyrirdquo CP 87 [1992] 137ndash40) The Cestoi however is not a biblical book and despiteits Christian author not a Christian text

27 There are no other indications in the archive that denote Leonides as a Christian Forinstance he does not bear a Christian name nor do the documents preserved in the archive fea-ture nomina sacramdashto mention two common markers of Christian identity For discussion ofthese and other markers see AnneMarie Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord Early Christians and theOxyrhynchus Papyri (HTS 60 Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2008)

28 Theon is mentioned as Leonidesrsquo father in POxy I 1034 XXXI 25855 XLV 3254532563ndash4 32574 32585 32597 32604 and PSI V 4695 In his own letter POxy XLV 3262

582 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

a common feature of such documents just as we cannot ascertain whether Leonideshad a wife and children

One document subtly discloses that Leonides probably came from a some-what well-to-do family because the archive includes a letter penned in his ownhand with his subscription ldquoI the same Leonides have signedrdquo (ὁ αὐτὸς Λεωνί-δης [σε]ση(μείωμαι) POxy 32627) Leonides was thus a literate man who hadenjoyed an education29 This then indicates that his parents had some means sincethey would have paid for their sonrsquos schooling As we will see later it appears thatLeonides himself also valued education for he kept among his papers a writingexercise

In addition to these glimpses of Leonidesrsquo religion family and education thedocuments in the archive provide interesting information about his business activ-ities and social status In the archive we encounter him sometimes in partnershipwith a man called Dioscorus conducting business in two villages in the uppertoparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome (the administrative region of which Oxyrhyn-chus City was the capital)30 Most documents in the archive are applications for thelease of land for the cultivation of flax another records Leonidesrsquo purchase of flax(POxy XLV 3254) Through these business papers Leonides emerges as a mer-chant ldquoengaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre tow and perhapslinseedrdquo and a member of the tow guild31 Leonides even occupied a rotating lead-

Leonides does not give his patronymic but styles himself as meniarch The Theon that appears asone of the four meniarchs in POxy XLV 32613 cannot be securely identified He may have beenLeonidesrsquo father but could also have been an unrelated man

29 On ancient education see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students and eadem Gym-nastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton Princeton Uni-versity Press 2001) On the topic of literacy see William A Johnson and Holt N Parker AncientLiteracies The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford Oxford University Press 2009)Thomas J Kraus ldquo(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt Further Aspectsof the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Timesrdquo Mnemosyne 53 (2000)322ndash42 and William V Harris Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press1989)

30 In the villages of Ision Panga (POxy I 103 XXXI 2585 XLV 3255 3257 and PSI V 469)and Antipera Pela (POxy XLV 3256 3258ndash60) A schematic drawing of the upper toparchy canbe found in Julian Kruumlger Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit Studien zur Topographie und Literatur-rezeption (Europaumlische Hochschulschriften 3 441 Frankfurt am Main Lang 1990) 51 273 Seealso Stefan Timm Das christlich-koptische Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit Eine Sammlung christlicherStaumltten in Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit unter Ausschluss von Alexandria Kairo des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Dēr Abū Mina) der Skētis (Wādīn-Nat irūn) und der Sinai-Region (7 vols Beihefte zumTuumlbinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Geisteswissenschaften 41 Wiesbaden Reichert1984) 31181 (no 149 ldquoIsieion Pangardquo) and Jane Rowlandson Landowners and Tenants in RomanEgypt The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford Classical Mono-graphs Oxford Clarendon OxfordNew York Oxford University Press 1996) 10 18ndash19 map onp xiv

31 Stephens POxy XLV 129

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 583

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ership position in this professional association for he functioned repeatedly as itsmonthly president (μηνιάρχης)32

Guilds or better professional associations formed strong and colorful piecesin the quilt of ancient local society These groups provided business advantages fortheir members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations33 Thatlatter aspect is recorded in one papyrus when Leonides and three fellow meniarchstake on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits34 This samepapyrus also gives an indication of Leonidesrsquo financial situation as Susan Stephensits editor concluded ldquoIf guild officials were selected like other officials at this timeon their ability to assume financial burdens then Leonides may have been a manof some affluencerdquo35 Indeed as a member and monthly president of a professionalorganization Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a ldquomiddlingrdquo groupin society36 Onno van Nijf observed ldquoThe craftsmen and traders who formed thecore of the demos were in an economic sense spread across a broad band of soci-ety Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial eacutelite theywere often in local terms relatively well offrdquo37

32 Leonidesrsquo functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectivelyPOxy XLV 3261 and 3262) The precise reconstruction of POxy XLV 32621 μ[η]νιάρχηςσιππ is not clear but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens POxy XLV 3262143) In one lease Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί) ldquotow-valuersrdquo (POxyI 10328 trans LSJ 1646 with reference to this papyrus) In POxy LIV 3753 dated March 26 319there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild just as in POxy XLV 3261 For Oxyrhynchite guildssee Revel Coles POxy LIV appendix II ldquoThe Guilds of Oxyrhynchusrdquo 230ndash32

33 On ldquothe economic activities of collegia and guildsrdquo see Onno M van Nijf The Civic Worldof Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History andArchaeology 17 Amsterdam Gieben 1997) 12ndash18 On the fiscal obligations of professional asso-ciations see Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLes associations professionnelles agrave lrsquoeacutepoque tardive entre munuset convivialiteacuterdquo in ldquoHumana sapitrdquo Eacutetudes drsquoAntiquiteacute tardive offertes agrave Lellia Cracco Ruggini (edJean-Michel Carrieacute and Rita Lizzi Testa Bibliothegraveque de lrsquoAntiquiteacute tardive 3 Turnhout Brepols2002) 309ndash32

34 POxy XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens POxy XLV 141 On army recruitmentsee Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLe systegraveme de recrutement des armeacutees romaines de Diocleacutetien aux Valen-tiniensrdquo in Lrsquoarmeacutee romaine de Diocleacutetien agrave Valentinien Ier Actes du Congregraves de Lyon (12ndash14 sep-tembre 2002)(ed Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff Collection du Centre drsquoeacutetudes romaines etgallo-romaines 26 Paris Diffusion de Boccard 2004) 371ndash87 esp 373 383 where Carrieacute dis-cusses POxy XLV 3261 and Richard Alston Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt A Social History(London Routledge 1995) ch 3 ldquoRecruitment and Veteran Settlementrdquo 39ndash52

35 Stephens POxy XLV 12936 So van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 243 ldquoin social and economic terms

the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seemsa particularly apt descriptionrdquo

37 Ibid 21 (emphasis in the original) Also ldquoThe members of collegia came from a levelof society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes) they constituted thegroups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi and of which the Romans used the specific termplebs media We should not of course confuse these men with a lsquomiddle classrsquordquo (p 22)

584 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

exact date of that document in the second volume of the Oxyrhynchus PapyriMoreover and also in accordance with Grenfell and Huntrsquos description this leaseforms part of a larger archive the so-called Archive of Leonides as can be foundby searching the database for Papyrus Archives in Graeco-Roman Egypt12 Thisarchive consists of twelve documentsmdashwith the addition of this NT papyrus nowthirteenmdashrelating to the flax merchant Leonides I have appended a list of the textsin this archive13

I can further demonstrate this identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive by following a different investigative approach namely by check-ing the date of publication and the excavation seasons Grenfell and Hunt con-ducted six excavation seasons at OxyrhynchusBehnasa collecting about half amillion fragments14 Our NT papyrus appeared in the second volume of the seriesThe Oxyrhynchus Papyri published in 1899 This means that Grenfell and Huntmust have found this papyrus POxy II 209 during their first excavation season atOxyrhynchus in 1896ndash1897 for their second season of excavating at Oxyrhynchustook place only in 1903 Published in 1898 POxy I 103 evidently also came withthe first batch from Oxyrhynchus Furthermore the inventory numbers15 of thepapyri belonging to the Leonides archive published in volume 45 of theOxyrhynchus Papyri (POxy XLV) indicate that these texts were found together dur-ing the first excavation season at Oxyrhynchus16 This confirms conclusively theassociation of POxy II 209 with the archive of Leonides This identification has aslight implication for the date of POxy II 209 and is especially important for under-standing the social context of this NT papyrus issues to which I now turn

12 Conducting a search for ldquoPublication = Oxy and 103rdquo httpwwwtrismegistosorgarchsearchphp (accessed November 13 2009)

13 The archive was published by Susan Stephens in POxy XLV (1977) 14 Peter Parsons City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish Greek Lives in Roman Egypt (London

Weidenfeld amp Nicolson 2007) 1715 Beginning with the publication of POxy XL (1972) Oxyrhynchus papyri have inventory

numbers that reflect the season in which they were found and the box in which they were storedAn explanation for the system appeared in POxy XLII (1974) xiv ldquoNote on Inventory Numbersrdquo

16 Although Grenfell and Hunt did not conduct a stratigraphy of their finds they noted intheir archaeological reports that they attempted to keep together papyri that were found at thesame time Grenfell stated ldquoEach lot [of papyri] found by a pair man and boy had to be kept sep-arate for the knowledge that papyri are found together is frequently of the greatest importance fordetermining their date and since it is inevitable that so fragile a material should sometimes be bro-ken in the process of extricating it from the closely packed soil it is imperative to keep togetheras far as possible fragments of the same documentrdquo (ldquoExcavations at Oxyrhynchus (1896ndash1907)rdquoin Oxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts [ed A K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007] 349) Apparently one of the documents from the Leonides Archive PSI V 469 becameseparated from the archive (at what time is unclear) and ended up among the finds of the Italianexcavators

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 579

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

III A New Testament Papyrus from a Documentary Archive

With only the knowledge that the papyrus was found together with a contractfrom the year 316 as reported in the editio princeps scholars dated the papyruseither as ldquoearly fourth centuryrdquo or ldquofourth centuryrdquo17 The additional informationnow provided by the archival context of the NT papyrus allows for a more precisedating The dates in the Leonides archive range from 315 ce to 334 ce (see theappendix) It is unknown when the archive was discarded but in view of the datesin the archive it is likely that the NT papyrus was written early in the second quar-ter of the fourth century that is in the 320s or 330s

The identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of the archive of Leonides hasimportant implications for its ldquosocial liferdquo18 What we have here is a rare instance ofa ldquoliterary papyrus in a documentary archiverdquo19 In an article on that topic WillyClarysse rightly emphasized that unlike the division among scholarly disciplinesliterary and documentary papyri do not constitute two separate worlds rather thepeople that figure in the papyrus documents were the ones who possessed the lit-erary fragments20 But only seldom can we catch glimpses of the owners of books

17 According to Junack et al the date is ldquosicher 4 Jahrhundertrdquo (Das Neue Testament aufPapyrus 21XXII for other examples see Aland Repertorium 1228 357) The sixth- or seventh-century date assigned by G H R Horsley (ldquoAD VIndashVIIrdquo) must be a slip (ldquoReconstructing a Bib-lical Codex The Prehistory of MPER ns XVII 10 [PVindob G 29831]rdquo in Akten des 21 Inter-nationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin 1995 [ed Baumlrbel Kramer Wolfgang Luppe HerwigMaehler and Guumlnter Poethke APF Beiheft 3 Stuttgart Teubner 1997] 1473ndash81 here 481)

18 The expression comes from Arjun Appadurai The Social Life of Things Commodities inCultural Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology Cambridge Cam-bridge University Press 1986)

19 I use here a broad definition of literary texts following Peter van Minnen who stated forhis research on literary texts in the Fayum villages ldquoschool texts have been included Ancientschools provided a context for getting acquainted with at least some literaturerdquo (ldquoBoorish or Book-ish Literature in Egyptian Villages in the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman Periodrdquo JJP 28 [1998]99ndash184 here 102) NT textual critics disagree about the question whether a school exercise countsas a literary papyrus For Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland p10 should not feature on the official listof NT papyri because it is a school exercise ldquoUnter den heute 96 Nummern der offiziellen Listeder Papyri des NT is auch manches verzeichnet was eigentlich nicht hierhin gehoumlrt ja selbstSchreibuumlbungen (P10)rdquo (Der Text des Neuen Testaments Einfuumlhrung in die wissenschaftlichen Aus-gaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modernen Textkritik [Stuttgart Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft1982] 95) With more appreciation for a childrsquos hand David C Parker approves of school exer-cises on that list writing ldquowe should not exclude a document on the grounds that it is a childrsquoswriting exercise If the child made an accurate copy of a page of an ancient manuscript how happyshould we berdquo (An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts [CambridgeCambridge University Press 2008] 42) On the borderline status of school exercises between lit-erary and documentary text see also Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 26

20 Clarysse ldquoLiterary Papyri in Documentary lsquoArchivesrsquordquo in Egypt and the Hellenistic World

580 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

in antiquity Clarysse cautioned ldquoOne must keep in mind that it is often very dif-ficult to connect literary texts with an archive because we usually cannot base our-selves on internal evidence of the texts and secondly that in many cases a personrsquospapers are preserved but not his library (or vice versa)rdquo21 This dearth of evidencefor the owners of literary texts pertains not only to those who possessed classicalwritings but equally to those who had Christian texts on their shelves For mostearly NT manuscripts we do not know where they were found let alone who hadowned them

In his article ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testa-mentrdquo Eldon Jay Epp provides a useful overview and discussion of all NT papyri forwhich we possess more or less reliable archaeological data22 In a few cases a knownarchaeological provenance ranging from city or village level to building givesglimpses into the milieu of the texts Epp calculated that the site of Oxyrhynchushas yielded the majority of NT papyri with a known provenance and that theseldquoprovide an unparalleled opportunity to assess a large number of copies of Chris-tianityrsquos earliest writings within the literary and intellectual environment ofOxyrhynchusrdquo23 Other NT papyri have been discovered in or near churches andmonasteriesmdashan indication it seems to me that they had been used in an ecclesi-astical or monastic setting24 A fragmentary third- or fourth-century papyrus codexwith parts of Pauline epistles (p92) was found in ancient Narmouthis (MedinatMadi) in the Fayum Oasis in a building filled with debris near the sacred way (dromos) to the main local temple of Renenutet25

Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leuven 24ndash26 May 1982 (ed E Van rsquot Dack P VanDessel and W Van Gucht Studia Hellenistica 27 Leuven Peeters 1983) 43ndash61 esp 43

21 Ibid 61 See also van Minnenrsquos combined archaeological and papyrological approach tomaterials found at Karanis in his ldquoHouse-to-house Enquiries An Interdisciplinary Approach toRoman Karanisrdquo ZPE 100 (1994) 227ndash51

22 Epp ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testamentrdquo inOxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts (ed Alan K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007) 315ndash31 here 322ndash24

23 Ibid 32424 NT papyri (reportedly) found at ancient churches or monasteries are p43 p45 p46 p47 p59

p60 p61 p66 p72 p75 p83 and p8425 Published by Claudio Gallazzi ldquoFrammenti di un codice con le Epistole di Paolordquo ZPE 46

(1982) 117ndash22 He remarks that the codex was ldquofound in the winter of rsquo69 in the debris that hadfilled a building west of the dromos of Medicircnet Macircdi (ldquorinvenuti nellrsquo inverno del rsquo69 in mezzo aidetriti che colmavano un edificio a ovest del dromos di Medicircnet Macircdirdquo [p 117]) The excavationreport for 1969 mentions the find of some one hundred Greek papyri among them a ldquoframmentobiblicordquo but not the exact location where these papyri were found see Edda Bresciani Missionedi scavo a Medinet Madi (FayumndashEgitto) Rapporto preliminare delle campagne di scavo 1968 e1969 (Istituto di papirologia dellrsquouniversitagrave degli studi di Milano Milan CisalpinondashLa Goliardica1976) 29 I agree with Paola Davoli when she complains about the lack of recording of the spe-cific archaeological context of the papyri in that publication (Lrsquoarcheologia urbana nel Fayyum di

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 581

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Even in those instances of identifiable origin the actual owners of these man-uscripts still elude us26 With the identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive we now have a NT papyrus with a known owner In fact this isthe first and only instance where we can get to know the ancient owner of a NTpapyrus So let us make our acquaintance with this person and some of the peoplementioned in his papers

IV Leonides Son of TheonMerchant and Member of a Professional Association

The protagonist of the archive is Aurelius Leonides son of Theon resident ofOxyrhynchus City The newly identified addition to the archive the NT papyrusreveals Leonidesrsquo religious affiliation Given that his business papers contained apiece with the opening verses of the apostle Paulrsquos Letter to the Romans it seemsreasonable to conclude that Leonides was a Christian27 Further examination of thedocuments leads to other insights into his background and position in society

Leonidesrsquo appearances in the archive span almost twenty years the earliestone falls in the year 315 the latest in 334 Leonides was therefore probably born inthe last quarter of the third century We behold his family only in the vaguest con-tours The name of his father Theon occurs as a patronymic in most documentsin the archive as is standard in official papers28 His mother remains nameless also

etagrave ellenistica e romana [Missione congiunta delle Universitagrave di Bologna e di Lecce in EgittoMonografia 1 Napoli Generoso Procaccini 1998] ch 10 ldquoKom Medinet Madi [Gia Nar-mouthis]rdquo 223ndash52 here 235) Van Minnen noted ldquoThe village had several early churches sug-gesting that it was an important Christian settlement throughout late antiquity The excavatedchurches eight in number were built not later than the seventh century some already in thefourthrdquo (ldquoBoorish or Bookishrdquo 139)

26 For the contextualization of a fragment of a third-century Christian copy of the book ofPsalms within the archive of Aurelius Isidorus from the Fayum town of Karanis see GreggSchwendner ldquoA Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and Its Contextrdquo in Jewish and Christian Scrip-ture as Artifact and Canon (ed Craig A Evans and H Daniel Zacharias Library of Second Tem-ple Studies 13 London TampT Clark 2009) 117ndash36 In third-century Oxyrhynchus AureliaPtolemaisrsquos family possessed a copy of Julius Africanusrsquos Cestoi as Bagnall has shown (ldquoAn Ownerof Literary Papyrirdquo CP 87 [1992] 137ndash40) The Cestoi however is not a biblical book and despiteits Christian author not a Christian text

27 There are no other indications in the archive that denote Leonides as a Christian Forinstance he does not bear a Christian name nor do the documents preserved in the archive fea-ture nomina sacramdashto mention two common markers of Christian identity For discussion ofthese and other markers see AnneMarie Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord Early Christians and theOxyrhynchus Papyri (HTS 60 Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2008)

28 Theon is mentioned as Leonidesrsquo father in POxy I 1034 XXXI 25855 XLV 3254532563ndash4 32574 32585 32597 32604 and PSI V 4695 In his own letter POxy XLV 3262

582 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

a common feature of such documents just as we cannot ascertain whether Leonideshad a wife and children

One document subtly discloses that Leonides probably came from a some-what well-to-do family because the archive includes a letter penned in his ownhand with his subscription ldquoI the same Leonides have signedrdquo (ὁ αὐτὸς Λεωνί-δης [σε]ση(μείωμαι) POxy 32627) Leonides was thus a literate man who hadenjoyed an education29 This then indicates that his parents had some means sincethey would have paid for their sonrsquos schooling As we will see later it appears thatLeonides himself also valued education for he kept among his papers a writingexercise

In addition to these glimpses of Leonidesrsquo religion family and education thedocuments in the archive provide interesting information about his business activ-ities and social status In the archive we encounter him sometimes in partnershipwith a man called Dioscorus conducting business in two villages in the uppertoparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome (the administrative region of which Oxyrhyn-chus City was the capital)30 Most documents in the archive are applications for thelease of land for the cultivation of flax another records Leonidesrsquo purchase of flax(POxy XLV 3254) Through these business papers Leonides emerges as a mer-chant ldquoengaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre tow and perhapslinseedrdquo and a member of the tow guild31 Leonides even occupied a rotating lead-

Leonides does not give his patronymic but styles himself as meniarch The Theon that appears asone of the four meniarchs in POxy XLV 32613 cannot be securely identified He may have beenLeonidesrsquo father but could also have been an unrelated man

29 On ancient education see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students and eadem Gym-nastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton Princeton Uni-versity Press 2001) On the topic of literacy see William A Johnson and Holt N Parker AncientLiteracies The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford Oxford University Press 2009)Thomas J Kraus ldquo(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt Further Aspectsof the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Timesrdquo Mnemosyne 53 (2000)322ndash42 and William V Harris Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press1989)

30 In the villages of Ision Panga (POxy I 103 XXXI 2585 XLV 3255 3257 and PSI V 469)and Antipera Pela (POxy XLV 3256 3258ndash60) A schematic drawing of the upper toparchy canbe found in Julian Kruumlger Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit Studien zur Topographie und Literatur-rezeption (Europaumlische Hochschulschriften 3 441 Frankfurt am Main Lang 1990) 51 273 Seealso Stefan Timm Das christlich-koptische Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit Eine Sammlung christlicherStaumltten in Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit unter Ausschluss von Alexandria Kairo des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Dēr Abū Mina) der Skētis (Wādīn-Nat irūn) und der Sinai-Region (7 vols Beihefte zumTuumlbinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Geisteswissenschaften 41 Wiesbaden Reichert1984) 31181 (no 149 ldquoIsieion Pangardquo) and Jane Rowlandson Landowners and Tenants in RomanEgypt The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford Classical Mono-graphs Oxford Clarendon OxfordNew York Oxford University Press 1996) 10 18ndash19 map onp xiv

31 Stephens POxy XLV 129

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 583

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ership position in this professional association for he functioned repeatedly as itsmonthly president (μηνιάρχης)32

Guilds or better professional associations formed strong and colorful piecesin the quilt of ancient local society These groups provided business advantages fortheir members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations33 Thatlatter aspect is recorded in one papyrus when Leonides and three fellow meniarchstake on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits34 This samepapyrus also gives an indication of Leonidesrsquo financial situation as Susan Stephensits editor concluded ldquoIf guild officials were selected like other officials at this timeon their ability to assume financial burdens then Leonides may have been a manof some affluencerdquo35 Indeed as a member and monthly president of a professionalorganization Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a ldquomiddlingrdquo groupin society36 Onno van Nijf observed ldquoThe craftsmen and traders who formed thecore of the demos were in an economic sense spread across a broad band of soci-ety Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial eacutelite theywere often in local terms relatively well offrdquo37

32 Leonidesrsquo functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectivelyPOxy XLV 3261 and 3262) The precise reconstruction of POxy XLV 32621 μ[η]νιάρχηςσιππ is not clear but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens POxy XLV 3262143) In one lease Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί) ldquotow-valuersrdquo (POxyI 10328 trans LSJ 1646 with reference to this papyrus) In POxy LIV 3753 dated March 26 319there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild just as in POxy XLV 3261 For Oxyrhynchite guildssee Revel Coles POxy LIV appendix II ldquoThe Guilds of Oxyrhynchusrdquo 230ndash32

33 On ldquothe economic activities of collegia and guildsrdquo see Onno M van Nijf The Civic Worldof Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History andArchaeology 17 Amsterdam Gieben 1997) 12ndash18 On the fiscal obligations of professional asso-ciations see Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLes associations professionnelles agrave lrsquoeacutepoque tardive entre munuset convivialiteacuterdquo in ldquoHumana sapitrdquo Eacutetudes drsquoAntiquiteacute tardive offertes agrave Lellia Cracco Ruggini (edJean-Michel Carrieacute and Rita Lizzi Testa Bibliothegraveque de lrsquoAntiquiteacute tardive 3 Turnhout Brepols2002) 309ndash32

34 POxy XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens POxy XLV 141 On army recruitmentsee Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLe systegraveme de recrutement des armeacutees romaines de Diocleacutetien aux Valen-tiniensrdquo in Lrsquoarmeacutee romaine de Diocleacutetien agrave Valentinien Ier Actes du Congregraves de Lyon (12ndash14 sep-tembre 2002)(ed Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff Collection du Centre drsquoeacutetudes romaines etgallo-romaines 26 Paris Diffusion de Boccard 2004) 371ndash87 esp 373 383 where Carrieacute dis-cusses POxy XLV 3261 and Richard Alston Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt A Social History(London Routledge 1995) ch 3 ldquoRecruitment and Veteran Settlementrdquo 39ndash52

35 Stephens POxy XLV 12936 So van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 243 ldquoin social and economic terms

the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seemsa particularly apt descriptionrdquo

37 Ibid 21 (emphasis in the original) Also ldquoThe members of collegia came from a levelof society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes) they constituted thegroups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi and of which the Romans used the specific termplebs media We should not of course confuse these men with a lsquomiddle classrsquordquo (p 22)

584 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

III A New Testament Papyrus from a Documentary Archive

With only the knowledge that the papyrus was found together with a contractfrom the year 316 as reported in the editio princeps scholars dated the papyruseither as ldquoearly fourth centuryrdquo or ldquofourth centuryrdquo17 The additional informationnow provided by the archival context of the NT papyrus allows for a more precisedating The dates in the Leonides archive range from 315 ce to 334 ce (see theappendix) It is unknown when the archive was discarded but in view of the datesin the archive it is likely that the NT papyrus was written early in the second quar-ter of the fourth century that is in the 320s or 330s

The identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of the archive of Leonides hasimportant implications for its ldquosocial liferdquo18 What we have here is a rare instance ofa ldquoliterary papyrus in a documentary archiverdquo19 In an article on that topic WillyClarysse rightly emphasized that unlike the division among scholarly disciplinesliterary and documentary papyri do not constitute two separate worlds rather thepeople that figure in the papyrus documents were the ones who possessed the lit-erary fragments20 But only seldom can we catch glimpses of the owners of books

17 According to Junack et al the date is ldquosicher 4 Jahrhundertrdquo (Das Neue Testament aufPapyrus 21XXII for other examples see Aland Repertorium 1228 357) The sixth- or seventh-century date assigned by G H R Horsley (ldquoAD VIndashVIIrdquo) must be a slip (ldquoReconstructing a Bib-lical Codex The Prehistory of MPER ns XVII 10 [PVindob G 29831]rdquo in Akten des 21 Inter-nationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin 1995 [ed Baumlrbel Kramer Wolfgang Luppe HerwigMaehler and Guumlnter Poethke APF Beiheft 3 Stuttgart Teubner 1997] 1473ndash81 here 481)

18 The expression comes from Arjun Appadurai The Social Life of Things Commodities inCultural Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology Cambridge Cam-bridge University Press 1986)

19 I use here a broad definition of literary texts following Peter van Minnen who stated forhis research on literary texts in the Fayum villages ldquoschool texts have been included Ancientschools provided a context for getting acquainted with at least some literaturerdquo (ldquoBoorish or Book-ish Literature in Egyptian Villages in the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman Periodrdquo JJP 28 [1998]99ndash184 here 102) NT textual critics disagree about the question whether a school exercise countsas a literary papyrus For Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland p10 should not feature on the official listof NT papyri because it is a school exercise ldquoUnter den heute 96 Nummern der offiziellen Listeder Papyri des NT is auch manches verzeichnet was eigentlich nicht hierhin gehoumlrt ja selbstSchreibuumlbungen (P10)rdquo (Der Text des Neuen Testaments Einfuumlhrung in die wissenschaftlichen Aus-gaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modernen Textkritik [Stuttgart Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft1982] 95) With more appreciation for a childrsquos hand David C Parker approves of school exer-cises on that list writing ldquowe should not exclude a document on the grounds that it is a childrsquoswriting exercise If the child made an accurate copy of a page of an ancient manuscript how happyshould we berdquo (An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts [CambridgeCambridge University Press 2008] 42) On the borderline status of school exercises between lit-erary and documentary text see also Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 26

20 Clarysse ldquoLiterary Papyri in Documentary lsquoArchivesrsquordquo in Egypt and the Hellenistic World

580 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

in antiquity Clarysse cautioned ldquoOne must keep in mind that it is often very dif-ficult to connect literary texts with an archive because we usually cannot base our-selves on internal evidence of the texts and secondly that in many cases a personrsquospapers are preserved but not his library (or vice versa)rdquo21 This dearth of evidencefor the owners of literary texts pertains not only to those who possessed classicalwritings but equally to those who had Christian texts on their shelves For mostearly NT manuscripts we do not know where they were found let alone who hadowned them

In his article ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testa-mentrdquo Eldon Jay Epp provides a useful overview and discussion of all NT papyri forwhich we possess more or less reliable archaeological data22 In a few cases a knownarchaeological provenance ranging from city or village level to building givesglimpses into the milieu of the texts Epp calculated that the site of Oxyrhynchushas yielded the majority of NT papyri with a known provenance and that theseldquoprovide an unparalleled opportunity to assess a large number of copies of Chris-tianityrsquos earliest writings within the literary and intellectual environment ofOxyrhynchusrdquo23 Other NT papyri have been discovered in or near churches andmonasteriesmdashan indication it seems to me that they had been used in an ecclesi-astical or monastic setting24 A fragmentary third- or fourth-century papyrus codexwith parts of Pauline epistles (p92) was found in ancient Narmouthis (MedinatMadi) in the Fayum Oasis in a building filled with debris near the sacred way (dromos) to the main local temple of Renenutet25

Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leuven 24ndash26 May 1982 (ed E Van rsquot Dack P VanDessel and W Van Gucht Studia Hellenistica 27 Leuven Peeters 1983) 43ndash61 esp 43

21 Ibid 61 See also van Minnenrsquos combined archaeological and papyrological approach tomaterials found at Karanis in his ldquoHouse-to-house Enquiries An Interdisciplinary Approach toRoman Karanisrdquo ZPE 100 (1994) 227ndash51

22 Epp ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testamentrdquo inOxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts (ed Alan K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007) 315ndash31 here 322ndash24

23 Ibid 32424 NT papyri (reportedly) found at ancient churches or monasteries are p43 p45 p46 p47 p59

p60 p61 p66 p72 p75 p83 and p8425 Published by Claudio Gallazzi ldquoFrammenti di un codice con le Epistole di Paolordquo ZPE 46

(1982) 117ndash22 He remarks that the codex was ldquofound in the winter of rsquo69 in the debris that hadfilled a building west of the dromos of Medicircnet Macircdi (ldquorinvenuti nellrsquo inverno del rsquo69 in mezzo aidetriti che colmavano un edificio a ovest del dromos di Medicircnet Macircdirdquo [p 117]) The excavationreport for 1969 mentions the find of some one hundred Greek papyri among them a ldquoframmentobiblicordquo but not the exact location where these papyri were found see Edda Bresciani Missionedi scavo a Medinet Madi (FayumndashEgitto) Rapporto preliminare delle campagne di scavo 1968 e1969 (Istituto di papirologia dellrsquouniversitagrave degli studi di Milano Milan CisalpinondashLa Goliardica1976) 29 I agree with Paola Davoli when she complains about the lack of recording of the spe-cific archaeological context of the papyri in that publication (Lrsquoarcheologia urbana nel Fayyum di

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 581

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Even in those instances of identifiable origin the actual owners of these man-uscripts still elude us26 With the identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive we now have a NT papyrus with a known owner In fact this isthe first and only instance where we can get to know the ancient owner of a NTpapyrus So let us make our acquaintance with this person and some of the peoplementioned in his papers

IV Leonides Son of TheonMerchant and Member of a Professional Association

The protagonist of the archive is Aurelius Leonides son of Theon resident ofOxyrhynchus City The newly identified addition to the archive the NT papyrusreveals Leonidesrsquo religious affiliation Given that his business papers contained apiece with the opening verses of the apostle Paulrsquos Letter to the Romans it seemsreasonable to conclude that Leonides was a Christian27 Further examination of thedocuments leads to other insights into his background and position in society

Leonidesrsquo appearances in the archive span almost twenty years the earliestone falls in the year 315 the latest in 334 Leonides was therefore probably born inthe last quarter of the third century We behold his family only in the vaguest con-tours The name of his father Theon occurs as a patronymic in most documentsin the archive as is standard in official papers28 His mother remains nameless also

etagrave ellenistica e romana [Missione congiunta delle Universitagrave di Bologna e di Lecce in EgittoMonografia 1 Napoli Generoso Procaccini 1998] ch 10 ldquoKom Medinet Madi [Gia Nar-mouthis]rdquo 223ndash52 here 235) Van Minnen noted ldquoThe village had several early churches sug-gesting that it was an important Christian settlement throughout late antiquity The excavatedchurches eight in number were built not later than the seventh century some already in thefourthrdquo (ldquoBoorish or Bookishrdquo 139)

26 For the contextualization of a fragment of a third-century Christian copy of the book ofPsalms within the archive of Aurelius Isidorus from the Fayum town of Karanis see GreggSchwendner ldquoA Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and Its Contextrdquo in Jewish and Christian Scrip-ture as Artifact and Canon (ed Craig A Evans and H Daniel Zacharias Library of Second Tem-ple Studies 13 London TampT Clark 2009) 117ndash36 In third-century Oxyrhynchus AureliaPtolemaisrsquos family possessed a copy of Julius Africanusrsquos Cestoi as Bagnall has shown (ldquoAn Ownerof Literary Papyrirdquo CP 87 [1992] 137ndash40) The Cestoi however is not a biblical book and despiteits Christian author not a Christian text

27 There are no other indications in the archive that denote Leonides as a Christian Forinstance he does not bear a Christian name nor do the documents preserved in the archive fea-ture nomina sacramdashto mention two common markers of Christian identity For discussion ofthese and other markers see AnneMarie Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord Early Christians and theOxyrhynchus Papyri (HTS 60 Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2008)

28 Theon is mentioned as Leonidesrsquo father in POxy I 1034 XXXI 25855 XLV 3254532563ndash4 32574 32585 32597 32604 and PSI V 4695 In his own letter POxy XLV 3262

582 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

a common feature of such documents just as we cannot ascertain whether Leonideshad a wife and children

One document subtly discloses that Leonides probably came from a some-what well-to-do family because the archive includes a letter penned in his ownhand with his subscription ldquoI the same Leonides have signedrdquo (ὁ αὐτὸς Λεωνί-δης [σε]ση(μείωμαι) POxy 32627) Leonides was thus a literate man who hadenjoyed an education29 This then indicates that his parents had some means sincethey would have paid for their sonrsquos schooling As we will see later it appears thatLeonides himself also valued education for he kept among his papers a writingexercise

In addition to these glimpses of Leonidesrsquo religion family and education thedocuments in the archive provide interesting information about his business activ-ities and social status In the archive we encounter him sometimes in partnershipwith a man called Dioscorus conducting business in two villages in the uppertoparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome (the administrative region of which Oxyrhyn-chus City was the capital)30 Most documents in the archive are applications for thelease of land for the cultivation of flax another records Leonidesrsquo purchase of flax(POxy XLV 3254) Through these business papers Leonides emerges as a mer-chant ldquoengaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre tow and perhapslinseedrdquo and a member of the tow guild31 Leonides even occupied a rotating lead-

Leonides does not give his patronymic but styles himself as meniarch The Theon that appears asone of the four meniarchs in POxy XLV 32613 cannot be securely identified He may have beenLeonidesrsquo father but could also have been an unrelated man

29 On ancient education see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students and eadem Gym-nastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton Princeton Uni-versity Press 2001) On the topic of literacy see William A Johnson and Holt N Parker AncientLiteracies The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford Oxford University Press 2009)Thomas J Kraus ldquo(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt Further Aspectsof the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Timesrdquo Mnemosyne 53 (2000)322ndash42 and William V Harris Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press1989)

30 In the villages of Ision Panga (POxy I 103 XXXI 2585 XLV 3255 3257 and PSI V 469)and Antipera Pela (POxy XLV 3256 3258ndash60) A schematic drawing of the upper toparchy canbe found in Julian Kruumlger Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit Studien zur Topographie und Literatur-rezeption (Europaumlische Hochschulschriften 3 441 Frankfurt am Main Lang 1990) 51 273 Seealso Stefan Timm Das christlich-koptische Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit Eine Sammlung christlicherStaumltten in Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit unter Ausschluss von Alexandria Kairo des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Dēr Abū Mina) der Skētis (Wādīn-Nat irūn) und der Sinai-Region (7 vols Beihefte zumTuumlbinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Geisteswissenschaften 41 Wiesbaden Reichert1984) 31181 (no 149 ldquoIsieion Pangardquo) and Jane Rowlandson Landowners and Tenants in RomanEgypt The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford Classical Mono-graphs Oxford Clarendon OxfordNew York Oxford University Press 1996) 10 18ndash19 map onp xiv

31 Stephens POxy XLV 129

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 583

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ership position in this professional association for he functioned repeatedly as itsmonthly president (μηνιάρχης)32

Guilds or better professional associations formed strong and colorful piecesin the quilt of ancient local society These groups provided business advantages fortheir members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations33 Thatlatter aspect is recorded in one papyrus when Leonides and three fellow meniarchstake on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits34 This samepapyrus also gives an indication of Leonidesrsquo financial situation as Susan Stephensits editor concluded ldquoIf guild officials were selected like other officials at this timeon their ability to assume financial burdens then Leonides may have been a manof some affluencerdquo35 Indeed as a member and monthly president of a professionalorganization Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a ldquomiddlingrdquo groupin society36 Onno van Nijf observed ldquoThe craftsmen and traders who formed thecore of the demos were in an economic sense spread across a broad band of soci-ety Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial eacutelite theywere often in local terms relatively well offrdquo37

32 Leonidesrsquo functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectivelyPOxy XLV 3261 and 3262) The precise reconstruction of POxy XLV 32621 μ[η]νιάρχηςσιππ is not clear but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens POxy XLV 3262143) In one lease Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί) ldquotow-valuersrdquo (POxyI 10328 trans LSJ 1646 with reference to this papyrus) In POxy LIV 3753 dated March 26 319there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild just as in POxy XLV 3261 For Oxyrhynchite guildssee Revel Coles POxy LIV appendix II ldquoThe Guilds of Oxyrhynchusrdquo 230ndash32

33 On ldquothe economic activities of collegia and guildsrdquo see Onno M van Nijf The Civic Worldof Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History andArchaeology 17 Amsterdam Gieben 1997) 12ndash18 On the fiscal obligations of professional asso-ciations see Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLes associations professionnelles agrave lrsquoeacutepoque tardive entre munuset convivialiteacuterdquo in ldquoHumana sapitrdquo Eacutetudes drsquoAntiquiteacute tardive offertes agrave Lellia Cracco Ruggini (edJean-Michel Carrieacute and Rita Lizzi Testa Bibliothegraveque de lrsquoAntiquiteacute tardive 3 Turnhout Brepols2002) 309ndash32

34 POxy XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens POxy XLV 141 On army recruitmentsee Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLe systegraveme de recrutement des armeacutees romaines de Diocleacutetien aux Valen-tiniensrdquo in Lrsquoarmeacutee romaine de Diocleacutetien agrave Valentinien Ier Actes du Congregraves de Lyon (12ndash14 sep-tembre 2002)(ed Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff Collection du Centre drsquoeacutetudes romaines etgallo-romaines 26 Paris Diffusion de Boccard 2004) 371ndash87 esp 373 383 where Carrieacute dis-cusses POxy XLV 3261 and Richard Alston Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt A Social History(London Routledge 1995) ch 3 ldquoRecruitment and Veteran Settlementrdquo 39ndash52

35 Stephens POxy XLV 12936 So van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 243 ldquoin social and economic terms

the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seemsa particularly apt descriptionrdquo

37 Ibid 21 (emphasis in the original) Also ldquoThe members of collegia came from a levelof society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes) they constituted thegroups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi and of which the Romans used the specific termplebs media We should not of course confuse these men with a lsquomiddle classrsquordquo (p 22)

584 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

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leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

in antiquity Clarysse cautioned ldquoOne must keep in mind that it is often very dif-ficult to connect literary texts with an archive because we usually cannot base our-selves on internal evidence of the texts and secondly that in many cases a personrsquospapers are preserved but not his library (or vice versa)rdquo21 This dearth of evidencefor the owners of literary texts pertains not only to those who possessed classicalwritings but equally to those who had Christian texts on their shelves For mostearly NT manuscripts we do not know where they were found let alone who hadowned them

In his article ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testa-mentrdquo Eldon Jay Epp provides a useful overview and discussion of all NT papyri forwhich we possess more or less reliable archaeological data22 In a few cases a knownarchaeological provenance ranging from city or village level to building givesglimpses into the milieu of the texts Epp calculated that the site of Oxyrhynchushas yielded the majority of NT papyri with a known provenance and that theseldquoprovide an unparalleled opportunity to assess a large number of copies of Chris-tianityrsquos earliest writings within the literary and intellectual environment ofOxyrhynchusrdquo23 Other NT papyri have been discovered in or near churches andmonasteriesmdashan indication it seems to me that they had been used in an ecclesi-astical or monastic setting24 A fragmentary third- or fourth-century papyrus codexwith parts of Pauline epistles (p92) was found in ancient Narmouthis (MedinatMadi) in the Fayum Oasis in a building filled with debris near the sacred way (dromos) to the main local temple of Renenutet25

Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leuven 24ndash26 May 1982 (ed E Van rsquot Dack P VanDessel and W Van Gucht Studia Hellenistica 27 Leuven Peeters 1983) 43ndash61 esp 43

21 Ibid 61 See also van Minnenrsquos combined archaeological and papyrological approach tomaterials found at Karanis in his ldquoHouse-to-house Enquiries An Interdisciplinary Approach toRoman Karanisrdquo ZPE 100 (1994) 227ndash51

22 Epp ldquoNew Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testamentrdquo inOxyrhynchus A City and Its Texts (ed Alan K Bowman et al London Egypt Exploration Soci-ety 2007) 315ndash31 here 322ndash24

23 Ibid 32424 NT papyri (reportedly) found at ancient churches or monasteries are p43 p45 p46 p47 p59

p60 p61 p66 p72 p75 p83 and p8425 Published by Claudio Gallazzi ldquoFrammenti di un codice con le Epistole di Paolordquo ZPE 46

(1982) 117ndash22 He remarks that the codex was ldquofound in the winter of rsquo69 in the debris that hadfilled a building west of the dromos of Medicircnet Macircdi (ldquorinvenuti nellrsquo inverno del rsquo69 in mezzo aidetriti che colmavano un edificio a ovest del dromos di Medicircnet Macircdirdquo [p 117]) The excavationreport for 1969 mentions the find of some one hundred Greek papyri among them a ldquoframmentobiblicordquo but not the exact location where these papyri were found see Edda Bresciani Missionedi scavo a Medinet Madi (FayumndashEgitto) Rapporto preliminare delle campagne di scavo 1968 e1969 (Istituto di papirologia dellrsquouniversitagrave degli studi di Milano Milan CisalpinondashLa Goliardica1976) 29 I agree with Paola Davoli when she complains about the lack of recording of the spe-cific archaeological context of the papyri in that publication (Lrsquoarcheologia urbana nel Fayyum di

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 581

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Even in those instances of identifiable origin the actual owners of these man-uscripts still elude us26 With the identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive we now have a NT papyrus with a known owner In fact this isthe first and only instance where we can get to know the ancient owner of a NTpapyrus So let us make our acquaintance with this person and some of the peoplementioned in his papers

IV Leonides Son of TheonMerchant and Member of a Professional Association

The protagonist of the archive is Aurelius Leonides son of Theon resident ofOxyrhynchus City The newly identified addition to the archive the NT papyrusreveals Leonidesrsquo religious affiliation Given that his business papers contained apiece with the opening verses of the apostle Paulrsquos Letter to the Romans it seemsreasonable to conclude that Leonides was a Christian27 Further examination of thedocuments leads to other insights into his background and position in society

Leonidesrsquo appearances in the archive span almost twenty years the earliestone falls in the year 315 the latest in 334 Leonides was therefore probably born inthe last quarter of the third century We behold his family only in the vaguest con-tours The name of his father Theon occurs as a patronymic in most documentsin the archive as is standard in official papers28 His mother remains nameless also

etagrave ellenistica e romana [Missione congiunta delle Universitagrave di Bologna e di Lecce in EgittoMonografia 1 Napoli Generoso Procaccini 1998] ch 10 ldquoKom Medinet Madi [Gia Nar-mouthis]rdquo 223ndash52 here 235) Van Minnen noted ldquoThe village had several early churches sug-gesting that it was an important Christian settlement throughout late antiquity The excavatedchurches eight in number were built not later than the seventh century some already in thefourthrdquo (ldquoBoorish or Bookishrdquo 139)

26 For the contextualization of a fragment of a third-century Christian copy of the book ofPsalms within the archive of Aurelius Isidorus from the Fayum town of Karanis see GreggSchwendner ldquoA Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and Its Contextrdquo in Jewish and Christian Scrip-ture as Artifact and Canon (ed Craig A Evans and H Daniel Zacharias Library of Second Tem-ple Studies 13 London TampT Clark 2009) 117ndash36 In third-century Oxyrhynchus AureliaPtolemaisrsquos family possessed a copy of Julius Africanusrsquos Cestoi as Bagnall has shown (ldquoAn Ownerof Literary Papyrirdquo CP 87 [1992] 137ndash40) The Cestoi however is not a biblical book and despiteits Christian author not a Christian text

27 There are no other indications in the archive that denote Leonides as a Christian Forinstance he does not bear a Christian name nor do the documents preserved in the archive fea-ture nomina sacramdashto mention two common markers of Christian identity For discussion ofthese and other markers see AnneMarie Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord Early Christians and theOxyrhynchus Papyri (HTS 60 Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2008)

28 Theon is mentioned as Leonidesrsquo father in POxy I 1034 XXXI 25855 XLV 3254532563ndash4 32574 32585 32597 32604 and PSI V 4695 In his own letter POxy XLV 3262

582 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

a common feature of such documents just as we cannot ascertain whether Leonideshad a wife and children

One document subtly discloses that Leonides probably came from a some-what well-to-do family because the archive includes a letter penned in his ownhand with his subscription ldquoI the same Leonides have signedrdquo (ὁ αὐτὸς Λεωνί-δης [σε]ση(μείωμαι) POxy 32627) Leonides was thus a literate man who hadenjoyed an education29 This then indicates that his parents had some means sincethey would have paid for their sonrsquos schooling As we will see later it appears thatLeonides himself also valued education for he kept among his papers a writingexercise

In addition to these glimpses of Leonidesrsquo religion family and education thedocuments in the archive provide interesting information about his business activ-ities and social status In the archive we encounter him sometimes in partnershipwith a man called Dioscorus conducting business in two villages in the uppertoparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome (the administrative region of which Oxyrhyn-chus City was the capital)30 Most documents in the archive are applications for thelease of land for the cultivation of flax another records Leonidesrsquo purchase of flax(POxy XLV 3254) Through these business papers Leonides emerges as a mer-chant ldquoengaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre tow and perhapslinseedrdquo and a member of the tow guild31 Leonides even occupied a rotating lead-

Leonides does not give his patronymic but styles himself as meniarch The Theon that appears asone of the four meniarchs in POxy XLV 32613 cannot be securely identified He may have beenLeonidesrsquo father but could also have been an unrelated man

29 On ancient education see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students and eadem Gym-nastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton Princeton Uni-versity Press 2001) On the topic of literacy see William A Johnson and Holt N Parker AncientLiteracies The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford Oxford University Press 2009)Thomas J Kraus ldquo(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt Further Aspectsof the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Timesrdquo Mnemosyne 53 (2000)322ndash42 and William V Harris Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press1989)

30 In the villages of Ision Panga (POxy I 103 XXXI 2585 XLV 3255 3257 and PSI V 469)and Antipera Pela (POxy XLV 3256 3258ndash60) A schematic drawing of the upper toparchy canbe found in Julian Kruumlger Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit Studien zur Topographie und Literatur-rezeption (Europaumlische Hochschulschriften 3 441 Frankfurt am Main Lang 1990) 51 273 Seealso Stefan Timm Das christlich-koptische Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit Eine Sammlung christlicherStaumltten in Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit unter Ausschluss von Alexandria Kairo des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Dēr Abū Mina) der Skētis (Wādīn-Nat irūn) und der Sinai-Region (7 vols Beihefte zumTuumlbinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Geisteswissenschaften 41 Wiesbaden Reichert1984) 31181 (no 149 ldquoIsieion Pangardquo) and Jane Rowlandson Landowners and Tenants in RomanEgypt The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford Classical Mono-graphs Oxford Clarendon OxfordNew York Oxford University Press 1996) 10 18ndash19 map onp xiv

31 Stephens POxy XLV 129

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 583

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ership position in this professional association for he functioned repeatedly as itsmonthly president (μηνιάρχης)32

Guilds or better professional associations formed strong and colorful piecesin the quilt of ancient local society These groups provided business advantages fortheir members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations33 Thatlatter aspect is recorded in one papyrus when Leonides and three fellow meniarchstake on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits34 This samepapyrus also gives an indication of Leonidesrsquo financial situation as Susan Stephensits editor concluded ldquoIf guild officials were selected like other officials at this timeon their ability to assume financial burdens then Leonides may have been a manof some affluencerdquo35 Indeed as a member and monthly president of a professionalorganization Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a ldquomiddlingrdquo groupin society36 Onno van Nijf observed ldquoThe craftsmen and traders who formed thecore of the demos were in an economic sense spread across a broad band of soci-ety Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial eacutelite theywere often in local terms relatively well offrdquo37

32 Leonidesrsquo functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectivelyPOxy XLV 3261 and 3262) The precise reconstruction of POxy XLV 32621 μ[η]νιάρχηςσιππ is not clear but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens POxy XLV 3262143) In one lease Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί) ldquotow-valuersrdquo (POxyI 10328 trans LSJ 1646 with reference to this papyrus) In POxy LIV 3753 dated March 26 319there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild just as in POxy XLV 3261 For Oxyrhynchite guildssee Revel Coles POxy LIV appendix II ldquoThe Guilds of Oxyrhynchusrdquo 230ndash32

33 On ldquothe economic activities of collegia and guildsrdquo see Onno M van Nijf The Civic Worldof Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History andArchaeology 17 Amsterdam Gieben 1997) 12ndash18 On the fiscal obligations of professional asso-ciations see Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLes associations professionnelles agrave lrsquoeacutepoque tardive entre munuset convivialiteacuterdquo in ldquoHumana sapitrdquo Eacutetudes drsquoAntiquiteacute tardive offertes agrave Lellia Cracco Ruggini (edJean-Michel Carrieacute and Rita Lizzi Testa Bibliothegraveque de lrsquoAntiquiteacute tardive 3 Turnhout Brepols2002) 309ndash32

34 POxy XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens POxy XLV 141 On army recruitmentsee Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLe systegraveme de recrutement des armeacutees romaines de Diocleacutetien aux Valen-tiniensrdquo in Lrsquoarmeacutee romaine de Diocleacutetien agrave Valentinien Ier Actes du Congregraves de Lyon (12ndash14 sep-tembre 2002)(ed Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff Collection du Centre drsquoeacutetudes romaines etgallo-romaines 26 Paris Diffusion de Boccard 2004) 371ndash87 esp 373 383 where Carrieacute dis-cusses POxy XLV 3261 and Richard Alston Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt A Social History(London Routledge 1995) ch 3 ldquoRecruitment and Veteran Settlementrdquo 39ndash52

35 Stephens POxy XLV 12936 So van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 243 ldquoin social and economic terms

the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seemsa particularly apt descriptionrdquo

37 Ibid 21 (emphasis in the original) Also ldquoThe members of collegia came from a levelof society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes) they constituted thegroups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi and of which the Romans used the specific termplebs media We should not of course confuse these men with a lsquomiddle classrsquordquo (p 22)

584 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

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leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Even in those instances of identifiable origin the actual owners of these man-uscripts still elude us26 With the identification of POxy II 209p10 as part of theLeonides archive we now have a NT papyrus with a known owner In fact this isthe first and only instance where we can get to know the ancient owner of a NTpapyrus So let us make our acquaintance with this person and some of the peoplementioned in his papers

IV Leonides Son of TheonMerchant and Member of a Professional Association

The protagonist of the archive is Aurelius Leonides son of Theon resident ofOxyrhynchus City The newly identified addition to the archive the NT papyrusreveals Leonidesrsquo religious affiliation Given that his business papers contained apiece with the opening verses of the apostle Paulrsquos Letter to the Romans it seemsreasonable to conclude that Leonides was a Christian27 Further examination of thedocuments leads to other insights into his background and position in society

Leonidesrsquo appearances in the archive span almost twenty years the earliestone falls in the year 315 the latest in 334 Leonides was therefore probably born inthe last quarter of the third century We behold his family only in the vaguest con-tours The name of his father Theon occurs as a patronymic in most documentsin the archive as is standard in official papers28 His mother remains nameless also

etagrave ellenistica e romana [Missione congiunta delle Universitagrave di Bologna e di Lecce in EgittoMonografia 1 Napoli Generoso Procaccini 1998] ch 10 ldquoKom Medinet Madi [Gia Nar-mouthis]rdquo 223ndash52 here 235) Van Minnen noted ldquoThe village had several early churches sug-gesting that it was an important Christian settlement throughout late antiquity The excavatedchurches eight in number were built not later than the seventh century some already in thefourthrdquo (ldquoBoorish or Bookishrdquo 139)

26 For the contextualization of a fragment of a third-century Christian copy of the book ofPsalms within the archive of Aurelius Isidorus from the Fayum town of Karanis see GreggSchwendner ldquoA Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and Its Contextrdquo in Jewish and Christian Scrip-ture as Artifact and Canon (ed Craig A Evans and H Daniel Zacharias Library of Second Tem-ple Studies 13 London TampT Clark 2009) 117ndash36 In third-century Oxyrhynchus AureliaPtolemaisrsquos family possessed a copy of Julius Africanusrsquos Cestoi as Bagnall has shown (ldquoAn Ownerof Literary Papyrirdquo CP 87 [1992] 137ndash40) The Cestoi however is not a biblical book and despiteits Christian author not a Christian text

27 There are no other indications in the archive that denote Leonides as a Christian Forinstance he does not bear a Christian name nor do the documents preserved in the archive fea-ture nomina sacramdashto mention two common markers of Christian identity For discussion ofthese and other markers see AnneMarie Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord Early Christians and theOxyrhynchus Papyri (HTS 60 Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2008)

28 Theon is mentioned as Leonidesrsquo father in POxy I 1034 XXXI 25855 XLV 3254532563ndash4 32574 32585 32597 32604 and PSI V 4695 In his own letter POxy XLV 3262

582 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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a common feature of such documents just as we cannot ascertain whether Leonideshad a wife and children

One document subtly discloses that Leonides probably came from a some-what well-to-do family because the archive includes a letter penned in his ownhand with his subscription ldquoI the same Leonides have signedrdquo (ὁ αὐτὸς Λεωνί-δης [σε]ση(μείωμαι) POxy 32627) Leonides was thus a literate man who hadenjoyed an education29 This then indicates that his parents had some means sincethey would have paid for their sonrsquos schooling As we will see later it appears thatLeonides himself also valued education for he kept among his papers a writingexercise

In addition to these glimpses of Leonidesrsquo religion family and education thedocuments in the archive provide interesting information about his business activ-ities and social status In the archive we encounter him sometimes in partnershipwith a man called Dioscorus conducting business in two villages in the uppertoparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome (the administrative region of which Oxyrhyn-chus City was the capital)30 Most documents in the archive are applications for thelease of land for the cultivation of flax another records Leonidesrsquo purchase of flax(POxy XLV 3254) Through these business papers Leonides emerges as a mer-chant ldquoengaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre tow and perhapslinseedrdquo and a member of the tow guild31 Leonides even occupied a rotating lead-

Leonides does not give his patronymic but styles himself as meniarch The Theon that appears asone of the four meniarchs in POxy XLV 32613 cannot be securely identified He may have beenLeonidesrsquo father but could also have been an unrelated man

29 On ancient education see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students and eadem Gym-nastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton Princeton Uni-versity Press 2001) On the topic of literacy see William A Johnson and Holt N Parker AncientLiteracies The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford Oxford University Press 2009)Thomas J Kraus ldquo(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt Further Aspectsof the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Timesrdquo Mnemosyne 53 (2000)322ndash42 and William V Harris Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press1989)

30 In the villages of Ision Panga (POxy I 103 XXXI 2585 XLV 3255 3257 and PSI V 469)and Antipera Pela (POxy XLV 3256 3258ndash60) A schematic drawing of the upper toparchy canbe found in Julian Kruumlger Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit Studien zur Topographie und Literatur-rezeption (Europaumlische Hochschulschriften 3 441 Frankfurt am Main Lang 1990) 51 273 Seealso Stefan Timm Das christlich-koptische Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit Eine Sammlung christlicherStaumltten in Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit unter Ausschluss von Alexandria Kairo des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Dēr Abū Mina) der Skētis (Wādīn-Nat irūn) und der Sinai-Region (7 vols Beihefte zumTuumlbinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Geisteswissenschaften 41 Wiesbaden Reichert1984) 31181 (no 149 ldquoIsieion Pangardquo) and Jane Rowlandson Landowners and Tenants in RomanEgypt The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford Classical Mono-graphs Oxford Clarendon OxfordNew York Oxford University Press 1996) 10 18ndash19 map onp xiv

31 Stephens POxy XLV 129

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 583

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

ership position in this professional association for he functioned repeatedly as itsmonthly president (μηνιάρχης)32

Guilds or better professional associations formed strong and colorful piecesin the quilt of ancient local society These groups provided business advantages fortheir members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations33 Thatlatter aspect is recorded in one papyrus when Leonides and three fellow meniarchstake on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits34 This samepapyrus also gives an indication of Leonidesrsquo financial situation as Susan Stephensits editor concluded ldquoIf guild officials were selected like other officials at this timeon their ability to assume financial burdens then Leonides may have been a manof some affluencerdquo35 Indeed as a member and monthly president of a professionalorganization Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a ldquomiddlingrdquo groupin society36 Onno van Nijf observed ldquoThe craftsmen and traders who formed thecore of the demos were in an economic sense spread across a broad band of soci-ety Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial eacutelite theywere often in local terms relatively well offrdquo37

32 Leonidesrsquo functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectivelyPOxy XLV 3261 and 3262) The precise reconstruction of POxy XLV 32621 μ[η]νιάρχηςσιππ is not clear but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens POxy XLV 3262143) In one lease Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί) ldquotow-valuersrdquo (POxyI 10328 trans LSJ 1646 with reference to this papyrus) In POxy LIV 3753 dated March 26 319there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild just as in POxy XLV 3261 For Oxyrhynchite guildssee Revel Coles POxy LIV appendix II ldquoThe Guilds of Oxyrhynchusrdquo 230ndash32

33 On ldquothe economic activities of collegia and guildsrdquo see Onno M van Nijf The Civic Worldof Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History andArchaeology 17 Amsterdam Gieben 1997) 12ndash18 On the fiscal obligations of professional asso-ciations see Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLes associations professionnelles agrave lrsquoeacutepoque tardive entre munuset convivialiteacuterdquo in ldquoHumana sapitrdquo Eacutetudes drsquoAntiquiteacute tardive offertes agrave Lellia Cracco Ruggini (edJean-Michel Carrieacute and Rita Lizzi Testa Bibliothegraveque de lrsquoAntiquiteacute tardive 3 Turnhout Brepols2002) 309ndash32

34 POxy XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens POxy XLV 141 On army recruitmentsee Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLe systegraveme de recrutement des armeacutees romaines de Diocleacutetien aux Valen-tiniensrdquo in Lrsquoarmeacutee romaine de Diocleacutetien agrave Valentinien Ier Actes du Congregraves de Lyon (12ndash14 sep-tembre 2002)(ed Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff Collection du Centre drsquoeacutetudes romaines etgallo-romaines 26 Paris Diffusion de Boccard 2004) 371ndash87 esp 373 383 where Carrieacute dis-cusses POxy XLV 3261 and Richard Alston Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt A Social History(London Routledge 1995) ch 3 ldquoRecruitment and Veteran Settlementrdquo 39ndash52

35 Stephens POxy XLV 12936 So van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 243 ldquoin social and economic terms

the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seemsa particularly apt descriptionrdquo

37 Ibid 21 (emphasis in the original) Also ldquoThe members of collegia came from a levelof society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes) they constituted thegroups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi and of which the Romans used the specific termplebs media We should not of course confuse these men with a lsquomiddle classrsquordquo (p 22)

584 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

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agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

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leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

a common feature of such documents just as we cannot ascertain whether Leonideshad a wife and children

One document subtly discloses that Leonides probably came from a some-what well-to-do family because the archive includes a letter penned in his ownhand with his subscription ldquoI the same Leonides have signedrdquo (ὁ αὐτὸς Λεωνί-δης [σε]ση(μείωμαι) POxy 32627) Leonides was thus a literate man who hadenjoyed an education29 This then indicates that his parents had some means sincethey would have paid for their sonrsquos schooling As we will see later it appears thatLeonides himself also valued education for he kept among his papers a writingexercise

In addition to these glimpses of Leonidesrsquo religion family and education thedocuments in the archive provide interesting information about his business activ-ities and social status In the archive we encounter him sometimes in partnershipwith a man called Dioscorus conducting business in two villages in the uppertoparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome (the administrative region of which Oxyrhyn-chus City was the capital)30 Most documents in the archive are applications for thelease of land for the cultivation of flax another records Leonidesrsquo purchase of flax(POxy XLV 3254) Through these business papers Leonides emerges as a mer-chant ldquoengaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre tow and perhapslinseedrdquo and a member of the tow guild31 Leonides even occupied a rotating lead-

Leonides does not give his patronymic but styles himself as meniarch The Theon that appears asone of the four meniarchs in POxy XLV 32613 cannot be securely identified He may have beenLeonidesrsquo father but could also have been an unrelated man

29 On ancient education see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students and eadem Gym-nastics of the Mind Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton Princeton Uni-versity Press 2001) On the topic of literacy see William A Johnson and Holt N Parker AncientLiteracies The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford Oxford University Press 2009)Thomas J Kraus ldquo(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt Further Aspectsof the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Timesrdquo Mnemosyne 53 (2000)322ndash42 and William V Harris Ancient Literacy (Cambridge MA Harvard University Press1989)

30 In the villages of Ision Panga (POxy I 103 XXXI 2585 XLV 3255 3257 and PSI V 469)and Antipera Pela (POxy XLV 3256 3258ndash60) A schematic drawing of the upper toparchy canbe found in Julian Kruumlger Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit Studien zur Topographie und Literatur-rezeption (Europaumlische Hochschulschriften 3 441 Frankfurt am Main Lang 1990) 51 273 Seealso Stefan Timm Das christlich-koptische Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit Eine Sammlung christlicherStaumltten in Aumlgypten in arabischer Zeit unter Ausschluss von Alexandria Kairo des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Dēr Abū Mina) der Skētis (Wādīn-Nat irūn) und der Sinai-Region (7 vols Beihefte zumTuumlbinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients Reihe B Geisteswissenschaften 41 Wiesbaden Reichert1984) 31181 (no 149 ldquoIsieion Pangardquo) and Jane Rowlandson Landowners and Tenants in RomanEgypt The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford Classical Mono-graphs Oxford Clarendon OxfordNew York Oxford University Press 1996) 10 18ndash19 map onp xiv

31 Stephens POxy XLV 129

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 583

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ership position in this professional association for he functioned repeatedly as itsmonthly president (μηνιάρχης)32

Guilds or better professional associations formed strong and colorful piecesin the quilt of ancient local society These groups provided business advantages fortheir members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations33 Thatlatter aspect is recorded in one papyrus when Leonides and three fellow meniarchstake on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits34 This samepapyrus also gives an indication of Leonidesrsquo financial situation as Susan Stephensits editor concluded ldquoIf guild officials were selected like other officials at this timeon their ability to assume financial burdens then Leonides may have been a manof some affluencerdquo35 Indeed as a member and monthly president of a professionalorganization Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a ldquomiddlingrdquo groupin society36 Onno van Nijf observed ldquoThe craftsmen and traders who formed thecore of the demos were in an economic sense spread across a broad band of soci-ety Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial eacutelite theywere often in local terms relatively well offrdquo37

32 Leonidesrsquo functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectivelyPOxy XLV 3261 and 3262) The precise reconstruction of POxy XLV 32621 μ[η]νιάρχηςσιππ is not clear but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens POxy XLV 3262143) In one lease Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί) ldquotow-valuersrdquo (POxyI 10328 trans LSJ 1646 with reference to this papyrus) In POxy LIV 3753 dated March 26 319there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild just as in POxy XLV 3261 For Oxyrhynchite guildssee Revel Coles POxy LIV appendix II ldquoThe Guilds of Oxyrhynchusrdquo 230ndash32

33 On ldquothe economic activities of collegia and guildsrdquo see Onno M van Nijf The Civic Worldof Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History andArchaeology 17 Amsterdam Gieben 1997) 12ndash18 On the fiscal obligations of professional asso-ciations see Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLes associations professionnelles agrave lrsquoeacutepoque tardive entre munuset convivialiteacuterdquo in ldquoHumana sapitrdquo Eacutetudes drsquoAntiquiteacute tardive offertes agrave Lellia Cracco Ruggini (edJean-Michel Carrieacute and Rita Lizzi Testa Bibliothegraveque de lrsquoAntiquiteacute tardive 3 Turnhout Brepols2002) 309ndash32

34 POxy XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens POxy XLV 141 On army recruitmentsee Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLe systegraveme de recrutement des armeacutees romaines de Diocleacutetien aux Valen-tiniensrdquo in Lrsquoarmeacutee romaine de Diocleacutetien agrave Valentinien Ier Actes du Congregraves de Lyon (12ndash14 sep-tembre 2002)(ed Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff Collection du Centre drsquoeacutetudes romaines etgallo-romaines 26 Paris Diffusion de Boccard 2004) 371ndash87 esp 373 383 where Carrieacute dis-cusses POxy XLV 3261 and Richard Alston Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt A Social History(London Routledge 1995) ch 3 ldquoRecruitment and Veteran Settlementrdquo 39ndash52

35 Stephens POxy XLV 12936 So van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 243 ldquoin social and economic terms

the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seemsa particularly apt descriptionrdquo

37 Ibid 21 (emphasis in the original) Also ldquoThe members of collegia came from a levelof society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes) they constituted thegroups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi and of which the Romans used the specific termplebs media We should not of course confuse these men with a lsquomiddle classrsquordquo (p 22)

584 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

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leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

ership position in this professional association for he functioned repeatedly as itsmonthly president (μηνιάρχης)32

Guilds or better professional associations formed strong and colorful piecesin the quilt of ancient local society These groups provided business advantages fortheir members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations33 Thatlatter aspect is recorded in one papyrus when Leonides and three fellow meniarchstake on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits34 This samepapyrus also gives an indication of Leonidesrsquo financial situation as Susan Stephensits editor concluded ldquoIf guild officials were selected like other officials at this timeon their ability to assume financial burdens then Leonides may have been a manof some affluencerdquo35 Indeed as a member and monthly president of a professionalorganization Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a ldquomiddlingrdquo groupin society36 Onno van Nijf observed ldquoThe craftsmen and traders who formed thecore of the demos were in an economic sense spread across a broad band of soci-ety Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial eacutelite theywere often in local terms relatively well offrdquo37

32 Leonidesrsquo functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectivelyPOxy XLV 3261 and 3262) The precise reconstruction of POxy XLV 32621 μ[η]νιάρχηςσιππ is not clear but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens POxy XLV 3262143) In one lease Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί) ldquotow-valuersrdquo (POxyI 10328 trans LSJ 1646 with reference to this papyrus) In POxy LIV 3753 dated March 26 319there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild just as in POxy XLV 3261 For Oxyrhynchite guildssee Revel Coles POxy LIV appendix II ldquoThe Guilds of Oxyrhynchusrdquo 230ndash32

33 On ldquothe economic activities of collegia and guildsrdquo see Onno M van Nijf The Civic Worldof Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History andArchaeology 17 Amsterdam Gieben 1997) 12ndash18 On the fiscal obligations of professional asso-ciations see Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLes associations professionnelles agrave lrsquoeacutepoque tardive entre munuset convivialiteacuterdquo in ldquoHumana sapitrdquo Eacutetudes drsquoAntiquiteacute tardive offertes agrave Lellia Cracco Ruggini (edJean-Michel Carrieacute and Rita Lizzi Testa Bibliothegraveque de lrsquoAntiquiteacute tardive 3 Turnhout Brepols2002) 309ndash32

34 POxy XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens POxy XLV 141 On army recruitmentsee Jean-Michel Carrieacute ldquoLe systegraveme de recrutement des armeacutees romaines de Diocleacutetien aux Valen-tiniensrdquo in Lrsquoarmeacutee romaine de Diocleacutetien agrave Valentinien Ier Actes du Congregraves de Lyon (12ndash14 sep-tembre 2002)(ed Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff Collection du Centre drsquoeacutetudes romaines etgallo-romaines 26 Paris Diffusion de Boccard 2004) 371ndash87 esp 373 383 where Carrieacute dis-cusses POxy XLV 3261 and Richard Alston Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt A Social History(London Routledge 1995) ch 3 ldquoRecruitment and Veteran Settlementrdquo 39ndash52

35 Stephens POxy XLV 12936 So van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 243 ldquoin social and economic terms

the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seemsa particularly apt descriptionrdquo

37 Ibid 21 (emphasis in the original) Also ldquoThe members of collegia came from a levelof society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes) they constituted thegroups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi and of which the Romans used the specific termplebs media We should not of course confuse these men with a lsquomiddle classrsquordquo (p 22)

584 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

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leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing businessand paying taxes Rather in Jean-Michel Carrieacutersquos words ldquoplaisir et devoir nrsquoeacutetaientpas neacutecessairement incompatiblesrdquo38 These collegia also offered their members theopportunity to socialize and worship an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summa-rized as ldquohonoring the Gods feasting with friendsrdquo39 Ancient inscriptions evokerich dining and lavish banquets A first-century ce papyrus with the rules for thecollegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains besides spe-cific tax- and trade-related issues the following sternly phrased stipulation that themembers should consume alcoholic beverages together ldquoIt is a condition that theyshall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beerrdquo40

Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioningWhat about Leonides The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild

in the fourth century have not survived but we have ancient parallels in the rulesof other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his profes-sional organization He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases buthe must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and mealsshared with fellow members41 What role worship played in those gatherings andespecially worship of what god remains a fascinating question

Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organizationand function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations onthe one hand and synagogues and churches on the other In his Associations Syn-

38 Carrieacute ldquoAssociations professionnellesrdquo 330 These professional associations involved notonly fiscal obligations (ldquomunus fiscalrdquo) but also ldquosociabiliteacute convivialiteacute pratique culturellerdquo (ibid311) According to Carrieacute these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period(ibid 312ndash13 315 and further) Many associations also had a funerary component as they tookcare of a proper funeral for a deceased member see eg van Nijf Civic World of ProfessionalAssociations 31ndash69 (ldquo1 Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman Eastrdquo) andJohn S Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thiasoi Issues in Function Taxonomy and Membershiprdquo inVoluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed John S Kloppenborg and Stephen G Wilson London Routledge 1996) 16ndash30 esp 20ndash23 and 24 ldquoprofessional associations oftensaw to the burial of their membersrdquo This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-centuryecclesiastic writer Commodian who warned ldquoWhat advantage has a deceased from a funeraryprocession You will be called to account [sc by God] if you seek membership of a collegium forthis reasonrdquo (Instructions 2338 trans van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 31 n 1)

39 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in AncientMediterranean Society (Minneapolis Fortress 2003) 55 Harland provides a wonderful epigraphicexample that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discus-sion of a stele from Panormos (p 57 with image on p 56) On banquets and drinking see alsovan Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations respectively 109ndash10 and 13ndash14

40 PMich V 24534ndash35 ldquoOrdinance of the Salt Merchantsrdquo (= SB V 8030) See also van NijfCivic World of Professional Associations 13ndash14

41 See van Nijf Civic World of Professional Associations 131ndash46 (ldquo3 Reading Ancient Fes-tivalsrdquo) and other chapters Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from AsiaMinor

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 585

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agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

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leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

agogues and Congregations Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean SocietyHarland explores the analogies between these groups while John S Kloppenborgthinks it possible that ldquosome of Paulrsquos churches began as domestic collegiardquo42 ThePauline congregations are of course chronologically and geographically farremoved from Leonidesrsquo fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild Oxyrhynchus atthis time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop43 Per-haps half of the Egyptian population was Christian44 I do not know how zealousa Christian Leonides was but in these early years of the fourth century a profes-sional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through net-working the importance of which L Michael White has demonstrated45 Thereforeit is interesting to see a Christian among the membership And as it happens atleast some other members of Leonidesrsquo social circle also appear to have been Chris-tians

V Leonides and His Network

Besides Leonides the archive features several other people Most intriguinglythe NT papyrus itself contains a personal name scribbled underneath the Paulinesection Aurelius Paulus Unfortunately a person named Paul does not occuramong the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documentsMoreover the name Paul occurs commonly in this period Without patronymics orother identifiers such as profession it is not possible to spot this Paul in otherpapyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him46 Nor is itclear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page Was itpenned in relation to the apostle Paulrsquos letter quoted above Was a fourth-centuryPaul himself the writer of the scribbles or was he the subject of a document that thescribe was about to compose47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not matchwith any person known other people in Leonidesrsquo circle have more to say for them-selves

42 Harland Associations Synagogues and Congregations Kloppenborg ldquoCollegia and Thi-asoirdquo 23

43 POxy I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year295 see Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 19ndash20 On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric see ibid 95ndash102(ldquoHabemus papamrdquo)

44 See Roger S Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early ByzantineEgyptrdquo BASP 19 (1982) 105ndash24 esp 120 123

45 White ed Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment Issues and Methods forSocial History (Semeia 56 Atlanta Scholars Press 1992)

46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys as Dionysius bishop of Alexandria alreadyremarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius Hist eccl 72514)

47 In school exercises pupils often penned their name (Cribiore Writing Teachers and Stu-dents 45) Petaus village scribe of Ptolemaiumls Hormu practiced writing his own name (PPetaus 121)

586 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

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leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

Dioscorus son of Ammonius features in three of the archiversquos documentsOnce he leases land by himself (POxy XLV 3255) and twice he partners withLeonides (POxy I 103 and XLV 3256)48 I mention him here because he may be theson of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevantfor the contextualization of our NT papyrus his father Ammonius

This Ammonius son of Copres was another of Leonidesrsquo business partnersand presumably Dioscorusrsquos father Together with our protagonist he leased fivearouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nomein the year 318 (POxy XLV 3257)49 Interestingly this same Ammonius appears inanother document which pertains to the confiscation of church property duringthe so-called Great Persecution (POxy XXXIII 2673 304 ce)50 In that documenthe is identified as ldquoAmmonius son of Copres lector of the former church of the vil-lage of Chysisrdquo51 So besides Leonides at least one other person in this archive wasa Christian52 even a Christian lector whose task it was to recite biblical passagesduring worship Thus through his business relationship with a church reader53 wedetect another albeit more indirect connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315ndash317 in later documents he is absentfor reasons unknown

49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer fieldor ca 2750 square meters see P W Pestman The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed rev LeidenBrill 1994) 49

50 For an analysis of that text see Luijendijk ldquoPapyri from the Great Persecution Roman andChristian Perspectivesrdquo JECS 16 (2008) 344ndash57 eadem Greetings in the Lord 191ndash210 and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge ldquoA Church with No Books and a Reader WhoCannot Write The Strange Case of POxy 332673rdquo BASP 46 (2009) 109ndash38

51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (POxy XXXIII 26738ndash9) SarahPomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (ldquoCopronyms and theExposure of Infants in Egyptrdquo in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A Arthur Schiller (edRoger S Bagnall and William V Harris Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13 LeidenBrill 1986) 147ndash62 here 154 (no 184) Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy that is in thesame general area where Leonides conducted his business see above and n 30

52 His son Dioscorus was probably a Christian as well as children tend to take the religionof their parents see Bagnall ldquoReligious Conversion and Onomastic Changerdquo 109 Taking a cluefrom his name the person called Evangelus in POxy XLV 3254 may also be a Christian On Chris-tian names see ibid 105ndash24 and Luijendijk Greetings in the Lord 40ndash55

53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business which theyneeded to do to supplement their church income as Georg Schmelz noted ldquoDie meisten PriesterDiakone und niederen Amtstraumlger in der Chora Aumlgyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwen-dungen ihrer Kirche und weil diese haumlufig nicht ausreichten aus verschiedenen weltlichenArbeitenrdquo (Kirchliche Amtstraumlger im spaumltantiken Aumlgypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen undkoptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13 Munich K G Saur 2002] 203ndash54 here 203)See also Ewa Wipszycka Les ressources et les activiteacutes eacuteconomiques des eacuteglises en Eacutegypte du IVe auVIIIe siegravecle (Brussels Fondation eacutegyptologique Reine Eacutelisabeth 1972) 154ndash73

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 587

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manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

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are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

manuscripts54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions Did Leonidesput his literacy to use in a local church for instance as lector just like his businesspartner Ammonius And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage forcopying the passage Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans andperhaps other Pauline epistles In his Early Christian Books in Egypt Bagnall notesthat ldquowe have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at anyearly date and even later ownership of Christian books by individuals may nothave been extensiverdquo Among individuals Bagnall continues members of the clergyldquowere both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the indi-viduals most likely to need biblical texts for their own userdquo55 That puts the focus onAmmonius the church reader In view of the high costs of books however Bagnallconsiders it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books56

He concludes ldquoMany customers for Christian books were churches and monas-teriesrdquo57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius allowing him themeans to buy a manuscript we should locate this Vorlage in a church library andimagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar Yet although ourRomans passage may have been copied from such a codex as we shall see thepapyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading inchurch

VI Amulet Pious Penmanship or School Exercise

Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus II 209p10 isnot the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact

54 Stephens the editor of the archive noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occurboth in the archive of Leonides and in POxy XXXIII 2673 (POxy XLV 3261 note to line 3) AMatrinus features in POxy XLV 32573 18 and perhaps in 32613 and a Sarmates in 32614Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from theGreat Persecution If that were the case the two officials responsible for dismantling the churchof Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrusand business partner of the churchrsquos reader This link however cannot be securely established forthese names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap In POxy XXXIII26735 the two men occur as ldquoSarmates and Matrinusrdquo with their civic titles but no furthergenealogical information such as patronymics andor nomina gentilia POxy XLV 3261 ranksthem as meniarchs (also the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful) POxy XLV325718 indicates a Valerius Matrinus

55 Bagnall Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton Princeton University Press 2009) 2156 Ibid 62 ldquolet us imagine a reader (anagnocircstecircs) who received 10 solidi per year A com-

plete Bible would cost him half a yearrsquos income Such a purchase would be entirely out of reachEven an unbound book a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus would amount to one-thirtieth of a yearrsquos incomemdashin proportionate terms the equivalent of$1000 today let us say for someone earning $35000rdquo On the high cost of books see ibid 64

57 Ibid 60

588 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage58 Examining the contents of thearchive one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doingamong Leonidesrsquo business papers The style of handwriting pagination and formatprovide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise Grenfell and Huntdescribed the script as ldquoa large rude uncialrdquo hand59 Adolf Deissmann typified it asfarmerrsquos handwriting (Bauernschrift)mdashin my opinion more an indication of anunfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penman-ship60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises Raffaella Cribioredescribed this as an ldquoevolvingrdquo hand with problems in aligning61 The newly avail-able digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from inti-mately close-by the smudged letters and the writerrsquos general difficulty in formingthe letters This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copyingprompted most scholarsmdashand I join themmdashto characterize the text as a schoolexercise62

Deissmann however proposed that POxy II 209p10 had functioned as anamulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Paulinequotation especially in view of the folds in the papyrus63 Deissmann has a pointas our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding and amuletswere typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body Moreovera host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record anindication of a common practice64 Nevertheless this piece was not an amulet How

58 See also Junack ldquosicher gehoumlrte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschriftrdquo (Das NeueTestament auf Papyrus 21XXI) Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romansit is a page from a papyrus codex POxy XI 1354p26 ca 600 Rom 11ndash9 (r) and 110-16 (v)

59 Grenfell and Hunt POxy II 209 860 Deissmann Licht vom Osten Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der

hellenistisch-roumlmischen Welt (4th edTuumlbingen Mohr 1923) 20461 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 247 (no 302)62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was ldquono doubt a schoolboyrsquos exerciserdquo (POxy II 209

8) So also Aland ldquoes handelt sich bei diesem fol mit groumlszligter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eineSchreibuumlbungrdquo (Repertorium 1357) Cavallo and Maehler Greek Bookhands 8 (no 1a) Junack DasNeue Testament auf Papyrus 21XXI Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 246ndash47 (no 302)

63 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 203 n 4 and plate on 204 ldquoIch gebe jetzt nach laumlngererBeschaumlftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten der Deutung den Vorzug daszlig das Blatt dem unterdem Roumlmertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafuumlrrdquo

64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them see Theodore de Bruyn ldquoPapyriParchments Ostraca and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets APreliminary Listrdquo in Early Christian Manuscripts Examples of Applied Method and Approach (edThomas J Kraus and Tobias Nicklas Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5 Leiden Brill2010) I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication An earlier study isE A Judge ldquoThe Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyrirdquo in Perspectives on Language and TextEssays and Poems in Honor of Francis I Andersenrsquos Sixtieth Birthday July 28 1985 (ed Edgar WConrad and Edward G Newing Winona Lake IN Eisenbrauns 1987) 339ndash49

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 589

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

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An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examina-tion of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions Deissmannused the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition andreproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten65 The real papyrus however dif-fers significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph His image wascropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus The full piece (some25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size as the preferred formatfor amulets was long and narrow66 The sheet was indeed folded but folding is notlimited exclusively to amulets papyrus letters and other documents in antiquitywere also folded Amulets were often rolled up creating wear lines that vary in sizefrom small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end Moreoveramulets do not have page numbers on top as this piece has67 In a Christian amuletone would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram68

I interpret the style of handwriting pagination and format as clues that thispapyrus served as a writing exercise But before I turn to the specifics I shouldaddress an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by CorneliaRoumlmer In her article ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung FlindersPetrierdquo Roumlmer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperiencedhands as school exercises She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages aspious practice and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises69 In a foot-

65 Deissmann Licht vom Osten 204 plate66 Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested These large-format

amulets however are all rectangular For instance POxy VIII 1151 measures 44 x 234 cm PGMP 15a is 4ndash5 x 24 cm PSI VI 719 is 25 x 55 cm PCairo Cat 10696 descr (= PGM P 5c) measures64 x 264 cm PTurner 49 (SupplMag 31) is 40 x 3 cm PIand I 6 measures 30 x 144 cm ldquoEgypt-ian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerousrdquo (Robert W Daniel andFranco Maltomini eds Supplementum magicum [2 vols Papyrologica Coloniensia 16 OpladenWestdeutscher Verlag 1990 1992] 186ndash87) See also de Bruyn ldquoPapyri Parchmentsrdquo on for-mat Junack mentions that for an amulet the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testa-ment auf Papyrus 21XXI)

67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a ldquocodexbeginning with Romans given the page number but which was then discarded and reusedrdquo as anamulet (ldquoReconstructing a Biblical Codexrdquo 481) Horsley lists POxy II 209p10 among ldquoitems[that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amuletsrdquo (p 480) Thisinterpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting although one could argue that thatwas the reason why the piece was discarded

68 Eg PAmst 26 previously published by P J Sijpesteijn ldquoEin christliches Amulett aus derAmsterdamer Papyrussammlungrdquo ZPE 5 (1970) 57ndash59 Sijpesteijn remarked ldquoVor und hinterder ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten uumlbliches Kreuzmonogrammrdquo (PAmst 26 53 note to line 1)

69 Roumlmer ldquoOstraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrierdquo ZPE 145(2003) 183ndash201 here 188 ldquoAuch wenn das Verhaumlltnis zum Schreiben in der fruumlhen Kirche nichtso extrem war wie bei den Manichaumlern wuumlrde ich eher vorsichtig sein einen Bibeltext der von

590 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

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title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

note she classified our papyrus as a ldquowitness of humble penmanship not of a stu-dent who is learning how to writerdquo70 Roumlmer makes a valid point yet it seems to methat the one position does not necessarily exclude the other that in a Christian edu-cational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise mayhave been fluid Nevertheless as I will show next this papyrus has certain featuresthat emphasize its educational setting

The papyrus has two items the section from Romans to which someoneadded the documentary scribbles71 Although we do not have other texts written byLeonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus the exercise may havebeen Leonidesrsquo own school text or alternatively someone else in the household mayhave penned it Other writing exercises also have been found in private archivesapparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers just as we todaykeep our notebooks or our childrenrsquos school papers but eventually discard proba-bly most of them Inspired by Cribiorersquos approach of paying attention to papyro-logical and paleographical details in school exercises I will show that this papyrusteaches us a lesson in Christian education72

Examining the manuscript from the top down I must first address an omis-sion in other manuscripts the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the des-ignation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ etc) but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeuumlbten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde als das Werk eines Studenten anzuse-hen der Schreiben lernt Diejenigen die sich daran machten einen biblischen Text abzuschreibenwaren vielleicht nicht gut dafuumlr ausgebildet aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen dasGefuumlhl etwas zu tun was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche ein Aktder Demut vor Gott In diesem Sinne wuumlrde ich die wenigen von ungeuumlbter Hand geschriebenenPassagen des Neuen Testaments sehen welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste auffuumlhrt Allein die Psalmenwurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebrauchtrdquo

70 Ibid 188 n 22 ldquoPOxy II 209 und PBerol 3805 moumlchte ich als Zeugnisse devoterSchreiberkunst sehen nicht aber eines Studenten der Schreiben lerntrdquo

71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus asanother school exercise He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand καὶ τοῦἐπιλοί(που) λογείας adding ldquocependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour reacutesultat de donner desphrases entiegraveres les mots ainsi reacutetablis preacutesentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiantrdquo (Les plusanciens monuments du christianisme eacutecrits sur papyrus Textes grecs eacutediteacutes traduits et annoteacutes [PO183 Paris Firmin-Didot 1924] 150 no 11) Another combination of biblical and documentarytext is eg PRylands Coptic no 223b with Ps 503ndash5 and the beginning of a letter See Scott Buck-ing ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egypt A Preliminary Inventoryrdquo in Kramer et al Aktendes 21 Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses 132ndash38 here 133

72 For the method see Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students I briefly discussed nominasacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66ndash69 with this papyrus mentioned on p69) and treat it here in more detail Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Chris-tian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (ldquoChristian Educational Texts from Egyptrdquo)He does not mention POxy II 209 but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 591

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

title73 This absence of a title can have several explanations The Vorlage may nothave contained the title or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the workas is the case in other manuscripts74 Alternatively our student-copyist may haveomitted it when copying from the exemplar accidentally or purposefully

While the Pauline passage bears no title an alpha present in the top line of thesheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece The letter indicatesa page number alpha page 175 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence thatthe student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination76 If so then this studentworked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans and possibly con-tained more Pauline epistles77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in mostchurch libraries among others for reading during worship As discussed aboveBagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had thefinancial means to purchase these expensive books Yet in light of the fact thatLeonides the owner of the papyrus was literate it remains also possible that hehimself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece

The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans the first sevenverses of the letter which form a clearly delineated textual unit Why did the stu-dent copy this section For one it marks the beginning of Paulrsquos most important andmost famous letter which could be found at the beginning of a codex Several otherwriting exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the openingsections of works for instance the Psalms and the book of Job There is also a writ-ing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic78

73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1 POxy XI1354p26 Also found at Oxyrhynchus this page from a codex dates to around the year 600 muchlater than our papyrus That manuscripts lists the title [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ] The beginningof Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46 a Pauline codex from ca 200 but theother letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title wasoriginally written above the Letter to the Romans also

74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and end-titles see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier ldquoTitres et sous-titres incipit et desinitdans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlinrdquo in Titres et articulations du texte dans lesœuvres antiques actes du colloque international de Chantilly 13ndash15 deacutecembre 1994 (ed Jean-ClaudeFredouille Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazeacute Philippe Hoffmann Pierre Petitmengin Collection deseacutetudes augustiniennes Seacuterie Antiquiteacute 152 Turnhout Brepols 1997) 339ndash83

75 Eric G Turner observed ldquoThe favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the centerof the upper marginrdquo (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18 PhiladelphiaUniversity of Pennsylvania Press 1977] 76)

76 Alternatively the number 1 may signal the first exercise77 As is well known the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts for a

good overview of the evidence see Parker Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts 249ndash56 The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles the famous p46 from around the year200 also started with Romans

78 For instance Ps 11ndash2 ed Rosario Pintaudi ldquoFrammento di manuale scolastico (LXX Ps

592 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this pas-sage I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writ-ing nomina sacra that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words79

The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabetsyllabus or names Yet so far no school exercises exist that exclusively train thestudent in writing nomina sacra In this short passage from Romans of only sevenverses as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra80

An important benefit of copying this section therefore was to gain experience inrecognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom81 Thus inLeonidesrsquo household writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land

1 1-2)rdquo ZPE 38 (1980) 259ndash60 (= PLaur IV 140 Cribiore Writing Teachers and Students 244no 295) Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 11ndash7 7ndash8 13ndash15)Underneath that passage the student has penned the opening of the book of Job seePRainerUnterrichtKopt ed Monika Hasitzka MPER XVIII (1990) no 207 (= PMich inv 926 edElinor Mullett Husselman ldquoA Bohairic School Text on Papyrusrdquo JNES 6 [1947] 129ndash51)

79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts thescribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms but copied them from the exem-plar

80 With so many contractions in this piece one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomensacrum was missed that for David in line 5 (Rom 1 3) even though according to Anton H R EPaap contractions of David are ldquoa rarity for only 9 out of the 40 sources know itrdquo (Nomina sacrain the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries AD The Sources and Some Deductions [PapyrologicaLugduno Batava 8 Leiden Brill 1959] 106) Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke thestudent wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe as if hesitating between the practice of writingan apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum Some Christian scribes wroteapostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G Turner Greek Manuscripts of theAncient World [Princeton Princeton University Press 1971] 13) eg PYale I 1 (Genesis secondor third century) and PBodmer IIp66 (Gospel of John third century) The Vorlage of our papyrusmay have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum the scribe of a fourth () century man-uscript of the Psalms (PLitLondon 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum SeeAland Repertorium 1115ndash16 (AT 50) = PLitLondon 205 The only other NT papyrus with thispassage POxy XI 1354p26 significantly later than our piece (ca 600) has the nomen sacrum forDavid δαδ

81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra forldquoJesusrdquo and ldquoChristrdquo with the three letter forms instead of the more common two letter formswith first and last letter In 1959 Paap concluded for these longer forms ldquoιης is attested throughthe period we deal with [the first five centuries] but the number of sources decreases as the cen-turies proceedrdquo (Nomina sacra 109 overview of forms on 108 for Χριστός 109ndash11) Accordingto Roberts ldquothe form ιης may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ιςrdquo (ManuscriptSociety and Belief 36ndash37) Larry W Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a ldquoconflationrdquobetween the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts Manuscriptsand Christian Origins [Grand Rapids Eerdmans 2006] 113) See also Scott Charlesworth ldquoCon-sensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and Third- Century Gospel Manuscriptsrdquo Aeg 86 (2006) 37ndash68 here 38

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 593

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

leases and memos someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christiansymbols

VII Conclusion

An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classifica-tion according to genre With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneathabout accounts and produce POxy II 209p10 contains both literary and docu-mentary elements Moreover its literary component the biblical quotation is nota traditional literary text but a writing exercise

The main importance of the piece however is that it gives an intriguingglimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus A private copy of a Christian textit was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started withPaulrsquos Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacraIt was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers fromLeonides the son of Theon Leonides the only known ancient owner of a NTpapyrus was a literate Christian from the city A flax merchant and member andmonthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild he belonged to a ldquomiddlingrdquogroup in society and was probably moderately well-off He conducted business inthe Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century Sometimes hepartnered with Ammonius son of Copres who was a reader in a church duringthe Great Persecution

While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the endof their useful lives preserved and buried others were thrown away like a groceryreceipt82 The archival context of POxy II 209p10 thus allows us to see one side ofhow sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society

Appendix The Archive of Aurelius Leonides Son of Theon83

POxy XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312ndash315) From Aurelius Evangelus to AureliusLeonides son of Theon

POxy XXXI 2585 Lease of 2frac12 arouras near Ision Panga (315) To AureliusDioscorides alias Julianus from Aurelius Leonides84 son of Theon

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian lit-erary papyri For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage see LuijendijkldquoSacred Scriptures as Trash Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchusrdquo VC 64 (2010) 217ndash54

83 Adapted from Stephens POxy XLV 12984 In the edition translated as Leonidas

594 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

POxy XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315) To Aurelia Eutro-pion daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon from Aurelius Dioscorus sonof Ammonius

POxy I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316) To Aurelius Themistoclesalias Dioscurides from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon and AureliusDioscorus son of Ammonius

POxy XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317) To Aurelius Heronalso called Sarapion from Aurelius Dioscorus son of Ammonius and Aure-lius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318) To the heirs of sonof Valerius through Maximus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon andAurelius Ammonius son of Copres

POxy XLV 3258 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) To Aurelius Dius sonof Zoilus from Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3259 Lease of arouras near Antipera Pela (319) From Aurelius Apol-lonius alias Serenus son of Apollonius to Aurelius Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323) Gaianus son ofAmmonius to Leonides son of Theon

POxy XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324) Leonides Theon Matrinus ()and Sarmates

POxy XLV 3262 Receipt () written by Leonides (328) To Comon son of Tho-nius from Leonides meniarch of the tow guild

PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334) To the heirs of Ammonianusfrom Aurelius Leonides son of Theon86

POxy II 209 School exercise of Rom 11-7

Overlap POxy XLV 3257 (318) Leonides and Ammonius son of Copres lease 5 arouras of

land near Ision PangaPOxy XXXIII 2673 (304) Declaration of church property by Ammonius son of

Copres lector of the former church of Chysis

A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank ofDocumentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results Most of the men that share their namewith our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text Three papyri

85 Previously published by S A Stephens ldquoLease of land IIrdquo in Collectanea PapyrologicaTexts Published in Honour of H C Youtie (ed Ann E Hanson 2 vols Papyrologische Texte undAbhandlungen 19ndash20 Bonn Habelt 1976) 535ndash40 (= PCollYoutie II 80)

86 For the reading ldquoheirs of Ammonianusrdquo see POxy LIV Appendix I 224 with referenceto K A Worp ldquoTwo Papyri from the Vienna Collectionrdquo BASP 13 (1976) 31ndash40 here 39

Luijendijk A New Testament Papyrus 595

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg

are however roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus sothat an identification is possible I mention them here for the sake of completenessbut have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonidesand I remain very doubtful as to the identification

POxy XIV 1771 a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century fea-tures a Theon and Leonides Could this be Leonides and his father Theon

POxy XXXVI 2796 ldquoaccounts of expenditure on heating possibly for the publicbathsrdquo dated to the late third or early fourth century among the men listed isldquoLeonides ex-gymnasiarchrdquo While other men listed in the papyrus have apatronymic Leonides unfortunately has not It remains to be seen whether aformer gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild

PSI VII 808 ldquocontirdquo that is accounts from the third () century A Theon and aLeonides are listed but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός) andthe date may be too early

596 Journal of Biblical Literature 129 no 3 (2010)

This article was published in JBL 1293 (2010) 575ndash96 copyright copy 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature To purchasecopies of this issue or to subscribe to JBL please contact SBL Customer Service by phone at 866-727-9955 [toll-free inNorth America] or 404-727-9498 by fax at 404-727-2419 or visit the online SBL Store at wwwsbl-siteorg