BOOKS.

THE EGYPTIAN DISCOVERIES.*

AOAIN we have aliquid novi ex Africa, if, indeed, what is sometimes two thousand years old may be called new. And there is a good promise of more to come. Four-fifths of the Oxyrhynchus finds remain unpacked. What we have in this volume is a selection from about fifteen hundred rolls which have been examined either at Oxford or in the Gizeh Museum. The prospect is distinctly encouraging, and should stimulate the flow of subscriptions to the Egypt Exploration Fund. All that we can pretend to do in this review is to direct the

attention of our readers to some of the interesting documents which Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt have brought

within the reach of ordinary readers. Critics will have a good deal to say about details, but the texts as a whole may be regarded as established. We know what they are, and, approximately, when they were written. The first article gives the " Logia of Jesus" with some additional notes and conjectures. Of Logion iv. two words only have hitherto been supposed to exist. These are [T],:, lrrawicto. The preceding Logion runs thus : "I stood in the midst of the world, and in the flesh was I seen of them, and I found all men drunken, and none found I athirst among them, and my soul grieveth over the sons of men because they are blind in their heart and see not " Here Dr. Taylor would add [CCI.,r (71 Y TCLAKIWCalpilZ10 ?Gal 1]931, 7:744)6EiZii, "And see not their own

misery and poverty," suggesting a reference to Rev. iii. 17

(the message to the Church of Laodicea), oz oroc.; ii T TaTeziwopo; gal 6 iAuyOg zalwrerx.6;, "And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, &c." This is followed by two fragments from the Gospels, St. Matthew i. 1-9, 12, 14-20, and St. Mark x. 50-51 and xi. 11-12.

The St. Matthew fragment is in all probability of the third century, and so older than any New Testament codex in existence. The text is distinctly in agreement with that of Westoott and Hort as against the Textus Receptor, supporting it in ten instances, and differing in one only, while there are six in which it disagrees with both. All these are, it is true, but of little moment; but a really important fact is that the papyrus has the orthodox reading in v. 16, as opposed to that which is found in the Syriac version. The St. Mark fragment is of the fifth or sixth century, and is of no importance. The papyrus numbered V. is curious. It is a fragment of a treatise on prophecy, and recalls a well-known passage in the Didache. "The spirit of prophecy is the essence of the prophetic order, which is the body of the flesh of Jesus Christ, which was mingled with human nature through Mary," an enigmatic sentence which does not say much for the theological knowledge of the writer. The sixth of the theological fragments is a leaf from the Acta Pauli et Theclx, a fifth-century MS., and so five hundred years earlier than any which we possess of this very curious story.

Passing to the "New Classical Fragments," we find what may fairly be called the gem of the collection, an ode of Sappho. It is somewhat fragmentary; the first stanza has disappeared altogether, and every line wants the first foot and a half. Still, what survives admits of a probable restora- tion, which Professor Blass has effected with great ingenuity. The subject is not doubtful. The poetess is addressing her scapegrace brother, Charaxris, whom she had reproached in an earlier period for his infatuation about Rhodopis (as we

learn from Herodotue), and entreats him to "let bygones be bygones." The first stanza runs in the editor's verse transla- tion :— " Sweet Nereids, grant to me

That home unscathed my brother may return, And every end for which his soul may yearn Accomplished see."

The writing is probably of the third century A.D. Four hexameters, possibly by Alcman, an anonymous elegiac poem

• The Oryelsynehus Papyri. Part I. Edited, with Translations and Notes, by Bernard P. Grenfell, M.A., and Arthur 8. Hunt, M.A. Egypt Exploration Pond.

containing one complete couplet, and two fragments of lost comedies make up the strictly literary portion of this division.

Of the remainder the most important is part of a chrono- logical work referring to the years 355-315 B.C. Part III.

gives sixteen fragments of extant classical authors, the most important of which is a portion of Thncydides (IV. 3641).

This has been previously published, and it will suffice to say that it does not favour the very extensive reconstruction of the text which has been advocated in some quarters. Passing over a few Latin fragments, we come to the largest and most generally interesting division, "Papyri of the First Four Cen- turies," a miscellaneous collection of documents relating to history, social life, and business matters of all sorts and kinds.

No. 1 is the report of an interview between a certain Appianus, an Alexandrian who had been involved in some treasonable movement and condemned to death, and the Emperor, whom it is not difficult to identify with Marcus Aurelius. The condemned man bears himself with extra- ordinary arrogance, while the Emperor, with a patience equally extraordinary, amply justifies his title of philosopher.

Not many autocrats would have continued to reason with a condemned rebel after being saluted as " arch-pirate " (x>iaTcepxo;). Of the social items, the best is the "Boy's Letter," which is quite worth giving in full :—

" Theon to his father Theon, greeting. It was a fine thing of you not to take me with you to the city ! If you won't take me with you to Alexandria, I won't write you a letter, or speak to you, or say good-bye to you ; and if you go to Alexandria I won't take your hand or ever greet you again. This is what will happen if you won't take me. Mother said to Archelaus, It quite upsets him to be left behind.' It was good of you to send me presents on the 12th day you sailed. Send me a lyre, I implore you. If you don't I won't eat, I won't drink—there now."

This was a very spoilt young gentleman, and it is pretty clear, unless he was fibbing, that his mother had a hand in the spoiling. It would be interesting to think that he was the writer of a schoolboy's exercise about Adrastus and his daughters (cxxiv.), but the dates hardly agree. There are some invitations to dinner, which are curiously like the present form. The fashionable hour, however, was very different. "The ninth hour," a varying time, according to the length of the day, between 2 and 4 p.m. Petosiris asks her friend whether she is coming by boat or by donkey. Ennoea writes to a correspondent asking her to redeem some articles which she had pawned for two mina3 (a). She had paid the interest at the rate of a stater (3s. 6d., if the Attic

coin is meant) per mina. If this was by the year, it was very low, if by the month, very high. (Elsewhere we find about 8 per cent. charged for interest ; a pawn- broker would want more.) The list includes "a white veil with a real purple border," "a tunic with a real Laconian stripe," two armlets and a necklace, and a figure of Aphrodite. If the money was insufficient, two bracelets were to be sold. A cook's account, or butcher's bill, for about six weeks, charges for 24 lb. of meat, eight tongues, and a variety of such odds and ends as kidneys, trotters, &c. Unfortunately, the prices are not given. Next to it is the list of a lady's wardrobe. When the prices are given they are interesting, though sometimes very perplexing. So in lxxxiv. the Guild of Iron and Copper Workers acknowledges the receipt of six talents of silver for a hundred pounds of wrought-iron. It is hardly possible that the Attie talent, or anything like it, can be meant. A nurse is paid 400 drachme for two years' care of an infant. This was cheap enough, working out at about 12s. 6d. per month ; 1,200 drachm m (£45) are paid for a

female slave, who is warranted free from all defects except epilepsy, and what seems to mean "marks of punishment." Another slave is sold for £20, the tax being given at 52 drachma:, not quite £2. The moiety of a house is sold for thirty-two talents of copper (possibly about £500, taking copper at one-fifteenth of the value of silver). The tax on the sale was 10 per cent., — a very heavy impost. Thirty-eight arourae of land (about twenty-four acres) are let for twenty-five quarters of wheat and 9s. in money. Taxes were to be paid by the tenant, but deducted from the rent. This is reasonable enough, but what is to be said about cii., when land for the cultivation of flax is let at more than a talent and a half of silver for less than an acre? A new street is made for about £1,100, an economic operation which we would commend to the notice of the London County Council. In xxxvii. a lawsuit is reported turning on an incident which has furnished plots for many novels. A child is put out to

nurse,—it was a foundling, and so had the status of a slave. The nurse avers that it had died; the owner claims a child which the nurse avers to be her son. The child is adjudged to be the nurse's, but she is ordered to repay what she had received for her services.

Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt deserve the warmest thanks for the skill and industry with which they have carried their difficult task to completion.