Idris H Bell - Evidences of Christianity in Egypt During the Roman Period

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H AR VAR D THE OLOGICAL KKVIKWVOLOMB X X X V I I J U L Y , 1944 3

E V I D E N C E S O F C H R I S T I A N I T Y I N E G Y P T I H H U N G

T H E R O M A N P E R I O D 1

H . I . B E L L

BBITIBII MI'SEI'51

THE diffusion of Christianity during the first two centuriesand a half of its existence is a subject as full of interest as it is

beset wi th pr oblems and diffi cul ti es. C ur iousl y enough , thereare few provin ces of the R oma n E mpi r e concer ni ng wh ich ourevidence, in thi s r espect, is mor e un sati sfactory t han E gyp t ,about which we might expect to be particularly well informed.F r om E gyp t we ha ve n ot onl y the usual cr op of in scri ptions(which, being of a public nature, cannot be expected to be veryinformative here) but a vast mass of papyri, more abundant forthe second century than for any other, and cpiite plentiful forth e th i r d. A n d these wou ld seem t o be pr ecisely t he sort ofmater ial wh ich we requi r e. T h ey are selected by no officialprocess of sifting but by the mere accident* of preservationand discovery, they include documents of every kind, and theytouch all classes of soci ety, in tow n and coun tr y. O fficial docu -ments and legal contracts are not, indeed, likely to yield muchevidence; but on the private letters and perhaps the accounts,possibly even the wills, Christianity should, one would think,have left some trace.

I f, therefore, in the papyr i of the second an d the first hal fof the third centuries we find hardly any indication of the newreligion we shall be tempted to conclude that it did not pene-tr ate in to M i ddl e or U pper E gyp t to any seri ous extent mu chbefore the period of Diocletian or, at earliest, the reign of

1 T he greater part of this paper was read to the Oxford Society of H istori cal T heol -ogy on 27 M ay 1043. F or the present purpose 1have added an Appendix dealing withcertain points which considerations of space made it necessary to omit from the paper

as originally written.

Number 3



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D ociu s. T hi s is precisely the conclu sion w hi ch l i a s been drawn;and since it is abundantly clear, from the literary and thepapyru s evidence ali ke, that E gypt was in great measure a

Christian coun tr y by the middl e of the four th cent ur y, a veryrapid spread must be predicated for the Christian faith dur-ing and immediately after the D iocleti ani c per iod. T h e G reatPersecution, say some, during which many Confessors wereexiled to the Oases or elsewhere, scattered the seeds of theFaith far and wide; according to others 2 it was Constantine'sedict of toleration which brought about the change.

Neither of these explanations is wholly satisfactory, and even

the supposed fact which they profess to explain is certainlyun expected. N ow , some recent di scover ies, th ough not n um er-ous enough to justify far-reaching conclusions, are at leastcalculated to raise doubts whether the inference drawn fromthe evidence of papyr us documents was ent ir ely just if i ed. Ihad for some time been thinking that it would be worth whileto re-examine that evidence when I received the invitation toread a paper to this Society; and I decided therefore to offerthe present subject. I must emphasize th at I speak purely asa papyrologist; I know far too little of patristics and not nearlyenough about the general h istory of the R oman E mp i r e to ven-ture far into those fields.

If we ask ourselves through what gateway Christianitywould be li kely, in the main, to reach th ose par ts of E gyp t fr omwhich our papyri come, the answer is undoubtedly, Alexandria.I t was the chief Gr eek cit y of E gypt , the admi ni str ati ve capi tal ,one of the greatest port s in the M editerr anean, an d, wh at ishere most importan t of all, it had a J ewish comm u n i ty wh ichfor size and importan ce had few ri vals in the E mpi r e. T herewere of cour se J ews in M i ddl e and L Tpper E gyp t , and travell ersby land from Pal estine would go first to M emph i s, not di rectto Alexandria; but we may be sure that the great majority ofJ ews wh o jour neyed that way were boun d ul ti mately for thelat ter ci t y; and there was besides mu ch in tercour se by sea. I tis certainly to Alexandria that missionaries anxious to spread

• See, r.| (., G. M éautis, "L 'int r oduction du Christ ianisme en É gypt e," K ev. d*

I I I , . , I r l i l r p l i i l . I I M I , | > | I . 1 0 ! ) I S . - , , 1 7 » .







E V I D E N C E S O F C H R I S T I A N I T Y I N E G Y P T 189

possess, and enjoy in a city not their own an Hhundance of allgood thi ngs; and not to i nt r oduce or invi te J ew» wh o sail downfr om Syri a or E gypt , thus compell i ng me to conceive the

greater suspicion; otherwise I shall by all means take vengeanceon them as fomenting a general plague for the whole world."

This "sudden and unexpected outburst," as I called it whenfirst editing the papyrus, attracted the attention of the lateSalomon Reinach, who saw in this passage the first allusion toChristianity in any historical source.7 H e beli eved that the.Messianic hope of the disciples was already causing wide-spread unrest, that the working of the new religion had given

rise to fears of a social r evolut i on, and th at the E mperor , al r eadyalarmed, saw in the riots at Alexandria another symptom ofthese dangerous tendencies.

Reinach's theory had a mixed reception from scholars.A mon g those inclined to favor it was apparentl y M . C um ont, 8

who pointed out that the reference to the "general plague" re-call s A cts xxiv. 5, wh ere th e ad vocat e of th e H igh P r iest refersto St. Paul as TÓ U ávópa TOVTOV \OLHOV «ai mvo v v r a aricms i r a a i v

T O I S 'I O U S C U 'O I S T O I S KQ.TCL T^V OÍKOVP.TVR¡V.

I t is not qui te clear to me wh eth er I teinach regarded th epassage in Claudius' letter a s an indication that Christianityhad alr eady reached E gyp t . H e may have meant merely th atearlier disturbances elsewhere, due to Christian propaganda,had attr acted the E mper or's att ent ion and that he was ther e-fore alarmed when he heard of the Alexandrian riots and at-tr ibut ed th em to the same cause. E ven so, I find his thesis

quit e un convincin g. C onfl icts betw een J ew and G r eek , w hi chhad given trouble to the Roman authorities in various places,were no new thing and were not' due to Ch r ist ian it y, nor werethe C hr isti ans by any means the onl y J ews who nur sed M es-sianic hopes; there is in deed plenty of evi dence th at th e J ewi sh••onimunities in general were at this period troubled by a strangelll trest. A s for the passage in A cts, no weight can be lai d on th ist'oin cidence, for, as M . Seston has poin ted ou t, 9 words l ike vóvos

' " I j i premiére allusion au chri stianisme dans l'hi stoir e," in Rev. de l'hist. deslit lona, xc (1924), 108-12«.• " L a I rttre de Cl aude aux Al exandr as," op. cit., xci (1925), S- 6.• W , K wU in, "L 'empereur C laude et les chrétiens," in K ev. d'H isl . et de P hil. B el.,



18üH A R V A R D T H E O L O GI C A L R E V I E W

and j pes t i s were commonplaces for civil disturbances, Ñ O IKOVUÍVIJ

was in regular use to denote the R oman E mpi r e, and th e termXoi/xós may well have the quasi-technical sense give,n to it in the

treaty between Si mon M accabaeus and the R oman Senate.Whatever may be thought of this, I can see no justification

whatever for finding in the letter of Claudius any allusion,direct or indirect, to Christianity a t A l e x a n d r i a . Claudiusspeaks of the J ews in tr oducing i nto the cit y their fell ow-count rymen from Syria and E gypt. D espit e R ein ach's denial ,this is a clear allusion to somet hing wh ich had already happened,no doubt as a preliminary to the outbreak at the beginning of

the reign. I t is quite i nconceivable that A lexandri an J ews,looking for assistance in their war with the Greeks, wouldin voke the aid of C hr istians. I t is with J ewish immigrants, notwith Christians, that Claudius is concerned.

It appears, then, that there is no satisfactory evidence in ourdocuments for the existence of a Christian community atAlexandria in the first century of our era; but that does notju sti fy the inference that no such commu n i ty existed. T h e

probabil it ies are all the other way. W hen C hr isti ani ty wasmaking such rapid headway at Rome, at Antioch, in Asia, atCorinth, and elsewhere, can we really suppose that Alexandria,whose international populace and maritime importance madeit a soil so suitable for any "new thing," should have escapedwhat a pagan would doubtless have described as the contagion?A n d in the second cent ur y, though the letter of H adr ian re-corded in the Historia Augusta, in which allusion is made to

Christians there, is certainly of much later date, at least in itspresent form, it is clear that the city had already a large andim por tan t Chr istian Ch ur ch. B u t if there were C hri stians inAlexandria we can hardly suppose that there were none inM i ddl e and U pper E gypt, between whi ch and the capital therewas constant comi ng and goin g. T hough convent i onal l y not apart of E gypt (the R omans called it "A l exan dr ea a d Aegvptum,"and people talked of going from it i n t o E gyp t ), the city was the

N o. fl, M ai-J ui n, 1931. fl can give no page reference to this, as I have only an off-pri nt ,*e| xtriilely paged, and the publi cation itself is not accessible to me in the BritishMuseum.]



E V I D E N C E S OF C H R I S T I A N I T Y I N E G Y P T 191

administrative capital, which inhabitants of the upper countrywere constan t l y visi ti ng on legal or offi cial hiiMineNN. I t w asthe principal link with the outer world, through which the

ma jor i ty of E gypti ans tr avell in g overseas woul d naturall y pass.I t was a great commercial cent r e, wh ere the pr oducts of th ewh ole E mpi r e and im ports fr om the I ndies were more conven -ientl y to be had than elsewhere in E gyp t , and to which tr adersflocked wi th provisi ons and other commodi ti es.10 It was no lewthe literary and educational capital, in whose schools many sonsof the municipal aristocracy of the nome-capitals pursued, orneglected to pursue, their studies; a recent volume of the

Oxyrhynchus Papyri has enriched us with a deliciously char-acteristic letter 11 from a youth who, though he does not namethe city, may certainly be taken as an undergraduate in theun iversit y of A lexandr ia. I t was, above all, the great andsplendid metropolis, the city of sport12 and pleasure and fashi on,to wh ich visitors resor ted fr om far up th e N il e. "I f you w on 'ttake me with you to Alexandria, I won't write you a letter orspeak to you or greet you again," writes the spoilt boy of Oxy-

rhynchus to his father.1

' E ven so might a moder n chi ldthreaten his parents should they propose to leave him at homewhen setti ng off on a visit to L ondon or P ari s. T her e was, too,a regular stream of traffi c th e other way , A lexandri nes tr avell in gup country to transact business, to visit their estates (for manycit i zens owned pr oper ty in th e x<W><0. an d th e l ike. I t is n otcredible th at none of these visi tors from up the N i le took backwith him news of the new faith, that no Alexandrian Christiantr avell ed with the good tidi ngs to U pper E gypt . Y et when weturn to the papyrus documents in search of evidence for theresult s of such missionar y effort we find, in the first tw o centur iesof our era, next to no traces of Christianity.

As I have said, legal and official documents are not likely to

C f „ e.g., P . Giss. 40, ii, 16-29 = W . Ch r. 22; B .G .U . V I I I , 1730; P . L ond. I I , p.t A t , no. S56.

11 P. Oxy. XV I I I , 2190.11

See, e.g., S .B . I l l , 6222. T he reference in P . Gi ss. 40, ii , 20 f „ to Xapax t l o t t t a lM />au r i a l » iopTa<rl [ncnt ij]p«pais suggests the import ance of the (reli gious) games atAlexandria.

P . <hy. I , 119.



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throw light on this subject, unless it should be in regard to thepersecution of Christianity; but from private letters we mightreasonably expect relevant in format ion. W h t̂ , th en, do we

find when we consul t G hedin i 's L ettere cri stiane dai papir igreci del I I I e I V secolo, publ ish ed in 1923, and the later an daugmented list appended to his article Paganesimo e cristiane-simo, etc., read to the four th I nternati onal C ongress of P apy r ol-ogv at F lorence in 19.H5 and publ ished in its A t t i ? "

Quite riglilly, Ghedini has been liberal of admission to hislist, and we may assume that it contains all letters then pub-lished for whose Christian origin a reasonable case could be

made. 11 must of cour se be remembered th at a letter by a Chr i s-tian does not advertise its character, and we have to rely onindir ect and incidental evidence. T h e cr iter ia are specifi ed atlength by Ghedini . U nfor tu nat ely most of them are by nomeans un ambiguous. Q ui te cer tai n are, of cour se, ment ions ofChrist, specific references to Christian doctrines and usages,quotati ons from the N ew T estament or other C hr istian l itera-ture, and so on; but such indications are practically never

foun d in early letters. E qual ly i ndi sputabl e is_the occurr enceof the so-called n om i n a s a c r a , such as KC 6C, KU 0U¡, for K v p u n

d t ój, Kvplw Otü. T h e other cr iteri a are less clear. T h e use of ó Otos

in the singular is certainly colorless; indeed it was so far com-mon among pagans of the second and third centuries to speakof " G o d " as to pr ompt th e reflection th at monotheism was nolonger the central issue between Christianity and paganism.T o tak e but two instances: in a letter of t he lat e second cent ur y16

we find near the beginning the words 8 t u v 6 Í\ÓVTUV, but a fewlines further on the writer says TOO 0eoD 6¿\OI>TOS. In one of thethird century16 the writer begins with an invocation of Sarapis,but in a postscript he announces his intention of coming fromAlexandria TOV d eov d i \ ov r o s. H ere the pr evious menti on ofSarapis shows what god the writer had in mind, but where wehave no such reference to a particular deity we must not as-sume merely from the use of the singular that the writer was

14 Atti del IV Congresso internazionale di papirologia, 1986, pp. 3SS-350.

8 .B . I I I , 7 i « .1». M ich . I l l , «13.




a Christian.17 The phrase nvpios dtós, especially in the greetingtv K vp íu 6«, speaks more strongly for Christianity, but it isprobably not conclusive, for icvpios could be used of pagan gods,

especially Sarapis, and in one letter, doubtfully assigned tothe third century,18 there is a reference to an oath K a r i TT¡S

Kvpías 8 t a s a ov n a l r f j s aperas; the goddess is not named.Ghedini, with due reserves, suggests19 that though the singu-

lar is not in itself a conclusive criterion the omission of thearticle may be: a pagan would write 6 Otós but only a Christianwould refer to Otos alone. I t is an in teresti ng and perh aps use-ful point, but I do not think that it can be wholly relied on.

Pagans certainly wrote the plural, Otuv O ÍK ÓVTWV , xópu Otols andthe like, without the article, and though a number of Ghedini'sinstances of the omission of the article with the singular arecertainly Christian they are largely of the fourth century,when Christian letters were far more numerous, and they can-not safely be used to establish the rule for the earlier period.M y doubt s are increased by a documen t whi eh G hedi ni , i t istrue, classes as Christian, but which seems to me more likely

to be from a pagan writer.10 This is a most entertaining letterfrom an athlete, named Dius, to his sister (or wife) Sophrone.T h e latt er name may suggest a C hr isti an bu t is far fr om con -clusive: a Sophr one occurs in the P er ik eir omene of M enan der ,for example, another in the E un uchu s of T er ence. A m on gpapyri t he name is foun d in P . O xy. X I V 1678, of th e thi rdcentury, which Ghedini doubtfully includes in his collectionbecause of the words i r a p a tú Kvptúii 0e<3, which occur in the

greeting; but they are written in full, not as compendia, andthere is no other sign of C hr ist ian it y. D ius pr ays for his sister'shealth [rw . 0t<2, he uses later the phrase roO d t o v /xeXXofros[o-úfeu- n i \ , and later still d t o v 6i \ ovro%, without the article; butthe letter itself is certainly not what we should expect from a

" I t is an interesting question whether the physician wh o wr ote P . F ouad I , 80 was

a pagan or a Chri stian. T hi s is suggested by TOD L \ teio0ai VR¿ TOD BTO0 (I . I I ) and X ¿P "

M tut 0cüi (1- 47), but there is nothing specially Christian in the contents of the letter,

and reference is made (II. 14 f.) to iJ i p i a i r a roD T p u f r l o v . F or rV cf - P - Os lo I I I ,

Iflrt (second cent.), xópu O t o U . T h e date of the letter (fourt h cent ur y) is perhaps an

argument for a Christian origin.

S .B . V , 8006. " A tt i, p. 389 f. S.B . I l l , 6422.



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C hri stian. Di us had arr ived at A lexandri a duri ng a visit b ythe E mperor, pr obably D iocletian, wh o had or der ed an ath leticdispl ay. H e and his five compan ions man aged to obtai n ad -

mission to the ranks of the competitors but found themselvesmatched against pancratiasts, and knowing nothing of thep a n c r a t i um Dius was worsted; but, resolved by hook or bycrook to win a prize, he challenged his companions, who, beingas inexperi enced as he, cou ld put u p no great show. T h e pri zewas a linen tuni c (ir r ixipwi ') and a hu ndred gold pieces. H i sbrain-wave proved effective: he won the money, his companions,no dou bt us a consolat ion pr ize, the tu ni c. T h e detai ls are not

wholly clear, but the affair was obviously "rigged"; and Diusgoes on t o tell his sister that on the 2títh C hoiach {̂er TT¡V i t páv

i v r ¿¡) Aa ya t q , which appears to be a reference to a religious riteand a ceremonial distr ibuti on of pri zes by the E mperor in theL agaion (perhaps a sports ground or someth ing simil ar ,)21 andthat he himself there received a "silver" tunic22 and the money.T h e E mperor, whether D iocleti an or, as the first editor sup-posed, Caracalla, was certainly a pagan, and the games and the

subsequent ceremony would no doubt be accompanied by asacr ifi ce to a pagan dei ty or deit ies. I t is not easy to recognizea Christian in an athlete involved, at this period, in such pro-ceedings, even if we overlook the somewhat dubious methodsby wh ich he secur ed hi s pr ize. A nd at t he end he sends greet-ings to TOVS (piKovvras [T Í \ V t p r \V] y¡/V\ -qv , using the pagan <F>I\ el v , notthe Christian á'yaTrai'.

This word a y a i r a v is another of Ghedini's criteria, and it is

possibly more secure than those just mentioned, though itwould be rash to trust in it absolutely; Ghedini himself pointsout that in one letter of the fourth century the writer invokes"the gods" to protect the health of his sister and IT&I>T]UV {rwi'Ja y a i r ú v r u v ¿M [£]S.23 N ames, too, can not be reli ed on : in oneletter24 a woman named Theophila invokes Aphrodite, and thename Euangelos, which has at first sight a Christian ring, oc-

" C f. A . Calderini, D izionario del nomi geografici e topografici dell' K gitt o gr eco-

romano, I , p. 121 f.n Something in the nature of the Assiout shawls made to-day?- P . land. 15.»• r . H aden I V , 51, early 2nd cent.




curs again and again in contexts none of which suggests aChristian, and in some of which a pagan is to be expected.26

O nly a defin itely J ewi sh nam e can be accepted a i evidence, andthat is ambiguous. F or example, the J ohanna (' I oáM »;) wh owr ites to E pagathu s of I 'tolemai s in th e T hebai d a letter dat edin A.D. 87,26 if (which seems a little doubtful) the name isr ight ly r ead, is pr esum ably either a J ewess or a C hr isti an, bu tthere is nothing in the letter to show which, or indeed to sug-gest either; there are allusions to people with such thoroughlyG r eek or E gyptian n ames as I 'heragathus, A nt hu sa, L ysis,Taésis.

T h e pur pose of thi s too long parenthesis is to emphasi ze th euncertainty which besets the identification of Christian letters.O ne further warn ing must be given. O nl y in a tin y min ori ty ofletters is there a defin i te date. A few mor e can be r ough lydated by the fact that they were written on the back of dateddocuments or that they were subsequently used to receive suchdocuments, but for the vast majority we are dependent whollyon palaeographical arguments or on the formulae used, for

which it is to some extent possible to establish a chronologicaldevelopment . C ur sive hands can be dated with more conf i dencethan those of the literary papyri; but private letters, writtenso often by non-professional hands and sometimes in an inexpertand clumsy script, are not the easiest of documents to date,and any papyrologist who knows his business will, in the ma-jority of cases, allow himself a margin of at least thirty orforty years.

With this preface let us turn to Ghedini's statistics in theA tt i . H is list there shows no C hr isti an l etters of th e firstcent ur y (I may here recall th e very doubt fu l case of J ohan na's •letter, just mentioned), only two of the second, only threedated second-th ir d cent ur y, only nine of the thi rd. T h ose datedthird-fourth century, numbering sixteen in all, are not relevant

* P .S.I. VI I I , 907 (l st /2nd cent.); B .G.U . I I , 583,1 (before A .D . 70; a royal scri be);B .G .U . I I , 493, iii, 15; 490, 12; I I I , 816; 908; C .P .R . 63; P . A mh. I I , 76, 8; P. Oxy . V I ,

089; P . L ond. I I , p. 50,1. 106; I I I , p. 186, 1. 170; P . L und I I , 3.* P . Baden I I , 35 = Ol sson, Papyrusbr iefe aus der frii hesten R omerzeit, no. 51.

For 'loavrjj see Wilcken, Archiv f. Pap. vii, p. 304, who is prepared to accept the read-ing.




to my present purpose. T hus, till nearl y the end of the thir dcentury, we get a total of only fourteen letters accepted byG hedini as of Chr istian ori gin. T h i s total mu st be increased by

one if P . Bas. 16, a cer tai nl y C hr ist ian letter of the th ir d cen-tur y included by G hedini in his L ettere cr isti ane, is reallyomitted from his list in the Atti, where, perhaps by a misprint,P . B as. 18 is entered but not 16; bu t sin ce P . B as. 18 conta insthe phrase iáv ó diót he may take th is letter al so as C hr is-tian, though there is no other support for the supposition.

Fifteen letters is in any case a small enough total for a periodof over tw o centu ri es, but even it is cer tai nl y too lar ge. N either

of the two second-century letters has any claim to be considereddefini tely Chri stian. O ne of them is P . Bas. 18, to wh ich I havealready referred; the only evidence for the Christianity of theother" is the phrase ai / v Q t u , which as I have shown is quite in-sufficient. Of the thr ee dated second- th i r d cent ur y one28 is aninteresting letter from Rome, the writer of which, Irenaeus,who had gone to Italy with a cargo of wheat, says, "I came upto R om e on the 25th of the same mon th [E peiph] and the pl ace

received us as G od w i l l ed" (xape5<| aro 17/xas Ó TÓTTOS d>s ó O t óyf l d t \ ( t > ). As 1 have said, ó dés is no clear indication of Chris-tianity, though p e r h a p s the phrase cos ó 8eós r¡d t \ t i > may, asG hedini holds, give th e hypothesis some suppor t. T h e wordsó rÓ7ros have been supposed to indicate a Christian religiouscommunity, but Wilcken, with more probabil ity, takes it asthe col l eg i um n a v i cu l a r i or u m . T h e word is far too color less toafford much of a clue. I t cer tai nl y refers in one C hr isti an letterto a religious community,2 ' but the undergraduate whose veryamusing letter appeared in the last volume of the OxyrhynchusPapyri applies it to his lodgings,30 and in a letter of the reign ofClaudius it is used of a colonnade (£wrrós) connected with adining-hall, which is to be decorated with wall paintings, per-haps representing scenes from the Iliad.31 Of Ghedini's other

" P . R yl . I I , 243.

«» B .G .U . I , 27 = G hedini, L ett. cr. 1, W . Ch r. 445, H un t-E dgar, Select P apyri, I ,

119.

" P . O xy. X I I , 1492 = Gh edini , L ett. cr. 12.•• P . Oxy. X V I I I , 2190, 56, 58." H . I I . I l l , 682.8: TTFTL S i r o í (IHTTOV, [J T I AO]I t p a l r t r a i , Yp i ^ o v n o t , t x i KTVLAI a b r i r , r (

IMI MNtf y v k oB a i f j 'IXiaxd f j S & ¡> 4XXo 9 i \ j ¡f i [T]4P r i r o i ¿irairt .








cent ur y letters, wr itten at a ti me when E gypt was practi callya Christian country and the use of religious phrases had becomefash ionable. E ven then, side by side wi th greeti ngs h Kvp lq 6«,

we find at least as often, in definitely Christian letter», the oldneutral formulae x a i p t i v or n \ t l f f r a x a ' p « a n d i p p üoOa l a t

tvxofiai iroXXow xp^fois',*4 and in such cases, if we had no otherindications, we should never identify the letters as Christian.T h e average early C hr isti an letter-wr iter w ould be a simpl e manof little education writing on some practical matter of businessor personal relations, and he would use the stereotyped formulaeof the period, as would, we may be sure, a professional letter-

writer if, as often happened, the correspondent had recourse toone. A letter ment ioni ng the gods or some named god is ofcourse pagan, one marked by the unambiguous criteria whichI have mentioned is Christian, but the majority have no suchin dications. I n G hedini 's statistics quoted just now, for boththe second and the third centuries, the letters with any religiousphrases at all number only about a quarter of the total.

Whatever the actual position may have been, then, it seems

that little reliance can be placed on statistics derived frompapyrus letters; and though the great preponderance of defi-nitely pagan over even probably Christian examples in thosewh ich cont ain any reli gious element poin ts to the fact (wh ichwe should in any case expect) that Christians were in a smallminority, we are not justified, on the evidence, in concludingthat Christianity was a quite negligible factor in second andthir d cent ur y E gypt . W e must turn to oth er sour ces of i nf orm a-

tion; and within the last dozen years evidence of some valuehas come to li ght. I refer to th e finds of B ibl ical or C hr isti antexts on papyrus.

T h e earli est of these is the li ttl e fr agment of St . J ohn 's G os-pel, publ ished by M r . C . H . R ober ts, fr om the J ohn R yl an dsL ibrary .45 N obody who has seen thi s is pr epar ed to pl ace itlater than the middle of the second century; Deissmann as-M igned it t o the reign of H adr i an , wh il e W i l cken would be r eady

to accept, on palaeographical grounds, the period of theM Sec, e.g., P .S.I . V I I I , 972 (4th cent.?).•• N ow I '. R yl. I l l , 457.




A polloni us papers, about A .D . 117-120. I f th e G ospel waswr it ten after A .D . 100 there is really no str ong argument , sofar as script is concerned, against the hypothesis that thisscrap may take us back within twenty years of the originalcomposition.

N ext come the fr agments of an un known G ospel publi shedby M r . Skeat and myself.48 This papyrus almost certainly fallswithin the per iod A .D . 120-170, and it is on the whole lik ely todate from the first rather than the second half of that period.

T h e C hester B eatty papyrus contai ni ng N um ber s and D eu-teronomy47 is by general consent assigned to about the middleof the second centu r y. I t has been asked on what grounds thisand similar manuscripts are regarded as of Christian ratherthan of J ewish origin. T h e answer, in thi s case, can be posi ti ve:not onl y was it foun d with manuscr ipt s of the N ew T estament ,not onl y is it a codex, not a roll, such as a J ewi sh text woul dprobably be, but it contains many of the Christian contractions,the n om i n a s a c r a , among them ic and similar compendia forthe name 'IJ /COOS (J oshua). I t is unthi nkable that a J ewishscr ibe woul d use for the name of a J ewi sh hero a form int r o-duced by Chri stians for that of J esus Ch r ist.

A Christian origin is also probable for two fragments of apapyrus containing Exodus and Deuteronomy at Heidelberg.48

This is a codex, and it has the compendia KC, KV, etc., for nvpios

and its parts; 49 no other words are preserved in which weshould expect cont r acti ons of this k i nd . T h e edit or assigns thepapyrus to the second century, and from a photograph which I

have seen I have no hesitation in accepting this date.Furthermore, I must here mention, for its Christian connec-

tions, the curious composition contained in the second centuryP . F ay. 2 and subsequently i denti fied wi th mu ch li keli hood asa G nosti c P salm on Ch ri st's H ar r owi ng of H ell .

There are in addition several papyri which have been datedabout the end of the second century and which may fall on

" H . I . Bell and T . C . Sk eat, F ragments of an U nk nown G ospel, 1935.» P . B eatty 6." P . B aden I V , 56.

•• I t must be remarked that «c, «* mi ght well be used by a J ew.




eit her side of A .D . 200. O ne of them is a fr agment of a P salter atFlorence50 written on the verso of a roll containing legal doc-uments dated in the year A .D . 143-144. I t is mo»t unusual in a

roll used again in thi s way to fin d a longer i nterval betw een r ectoan d verso than about fifty years. T h e or iginal edi tor s datedth e P salter rather before than aft er A .D . 200, the edit ors of theN ew P alaeographical S oci ety ," which reproduced the text,rather after than before, but it cannot be far from that date.I t is cert ainl y C hr istian, for it contain s n om i n a s a c r a , amongthem the compendium for rvevna.

T h e C hester B eatty codex of the P auli ne E pistles52 is another

earl y C hri stian papyru s. K enyon says of this: "I t seems cer -tain that the papyrus is not later than the first half of the thirdcent ur y; and P r ofessor U lr ich W il cken . . . woul d date it'roun d about A .D . 200.' " I see no reason for br in ging it dow nfar into the third century, and Wileken's authority is high.

E ven m ore positi ve claim s may be mad e for the fr agment ofGenesis publi shed as P . O xy . I V , 65(5, a papyr us codex. G r enfelland H u nt , whi le remar k in g th at the hand has "in some respects

more affi ni ty with t ypes of the second cent ur y t han of the third,"event ua l l y placed it in th e first half of th e la tter . 1 can not helpfeeling that in dating this and some other Biblical papyri theywere not uninfluenced by the conviction, natural enough at thatti me, that Chr istiani ty had har dly penetrated M i ddl e andU pper E gypt before the thir d cent ur y. I should myself pl acethis papyrus quite decidedly in the second century, and thisis, I k now , the view of others also, in clu din g Sir F r eder ic K en -

yon . I must add, however , th at the papyr us does not cont ai nany of the n om i n a sa cr a and tends to omit the word Kvpios whenappli ed to the D eit y. T hu s the onl y reasons (fair ly str ongones) for assigning to it a C hr isti an r ather than a J ewi sh ori ginare the codex form and general probability.

A definitely Christian papyrus, containing part of the Epistleto Titus,63 is in a hand not dissimi lar to th at ju st ment i oned andnliould in my opinion, like it, be assigned definitely to the sec-

ond cent ur y, not, with H u n t, to the thir d.•• P.8.1. VII I , Oi l .

N .P Ü . Serie» 11, pi. 182." P . B eatty 2." P . R yl. I , 5.






ori gin, whether ort hodox or heretical. N ow , of cour se, it isperfectly conceivable that a papyrus found in a particular

locality may have been written in some far distant place andtaken to the site years later; but with every new discovery thisexplanation becomes less plausible as a means of discountingthe evidence, and we now have a sufficient number of earlyChristian texts to be sure that there were Christian readers inM i ddl e E gypt (from whi ch most, if not all, of these papyr icome) dur in g the second and thi rd centur ies. F or ever y papyr usunearthed we must surely postulate scores which have utterlyperished, and for every Christian who read them for himselfthere were doubtless many who could not or did not read at all.T w o at least of the B ibl ical papyr i f oun d are hi ghly signi ficant.The Chester Beatty Isaiah,58 which is probably of the first halfof the third century, has in the margin cursive glosses in Copticof an early type, not using the five supplementary letters bor-rowed fr om demotic. F ur th ermor e, on the verso of a lan dregister, of the late second or early third century, was written aGreek-Coptic glossary to Ilosea and Amos.59 I have not reck-

oned thi s in the stati stics ju st given because H unt dat ed it"late third, if not fourth," but repeated examinations have notconvinced me that I was wrong in assigning it definitely to thethird.

These two papyri are important because they reveal thepresence of Christians whose native tongue was Coptic and whofoun d G r eek only imper fectl y in tell igible. I t will be r emem-bered th at St. Athanasius, in his L if e of S t. A n th ony, remark s

that the E gypti ans were given to keeping in their houses themummies of their dead, especially in cases of martyrdom, andthat Anthony condemned the practice.60 This may have beennubsequent to the Great Persecution, but it does rather suggestll i at C hr istian commu ni ti es of E gyptian race and antecedent smay have existed well before that time and maintained a prac-I ice goin g back t o far earl ier pagan days. I ma y recall , t oo, th e

•• I'. Beatty 7." I I . I. Bell and H . T hompson, A G reek-C optic Gl ossary to H osea and A mos,

K g. A rch. X I (1925), «41-246.

•• At I i., V ita A nt., DO, M igne, I '.G. xxvi. 968-969.




letter of Dionysius quoted by E u sebiu s," in whi ch, writi ng inthe time of Gallienus, he speaks of visiting row i r p t a P v r i p o v s n a l

5i5a<RK¿L\ ovS r w v v rair KW/XCUS abth fy& v in the F ayy ú m, where, hesays, the doctr in e of N epos i r p ó TOW OV . . . t T r twó\ a^ t .

T h e conclu sion, then, to whi ch I come after these cir cui tousand, I fear, tedious wanderi ngs is bri efly thi s: — I t is hazar dousto rely so much as some have done on the negative evidence ofdocumentary papyri, which are not of such a character as toyield very satisfactory in format ion on the spread of C hr isti ani tyin E gypt . B etter evidence is pr ovided by the B ibl ical and

theological papyri, and this evidence seems to justify the infer-ence that even in the second century the number of Christiansin M iddl e E gypt was by n o means negli gible and by th e mi ddleof th e thi rd was consi derable. T h i s papy r us evidence combi neswith a - p r i o r i probability and the literary sources to make itlikely that, although in the second century Christians formedonly a small minority of the population and even till late inthe third century were probably not a large one, yet the transi-

tion from an overwhelmingly pagan country to the predomi-nantly Christian one which we find in the fourth was by nomeans as sudden and cataclysmic as some writers have toohastil y assumed. T hi s conclu sion is not , perhaps, very i m-portant, and is put forward with all reserve, but it did at leastseem worth recording in a field of research so inadequatelydocumented and so obscure as that which has to do with thespread of Christianity in the provincial areas of the Roman

Empi re .« E us., H .E . vii. 24 (M igne, P .G . xx, 696 A ).



A P P E N D I X

I t may h ave been noti ced that in deali ng with the pu pyr o-logical evi dence for the spread of Ch r isti ani ty in E gyp t dur in gthe third century I have ignored one series of documenta whichhas often been addu ced in thi s con necti on. I mean th e l i b e l l i . * *

T h e omission is deli berat e. T hese document s wou l d h avesignificance for the subject under discussion if l i b e l l i were de-manded exclusively from persons at least suspected of Chris-ti ani ty. T hi s view was at one ti me wi dely held, bu t it seemsnow to be generally abandoned, and there is really no case forit in view of the papyr us evi dence. N omenclat ur e cann ot, itis true, be pressed, either against or (in most cases) for theChristianity of the signatories of these declarations, and themere assertion that a particular person has "always sacrificedto the gods" is not necessarily to be taken as true, but no. 3in K n i pfi ng's list (= W . C hr . 125), th e declar ati on of a w oma n

descr ibing herself as i «peías I I r t o o i i x o v O t o0 t x t y & \ ov n t yáXov

áíijwov «al TO)V i [ v M ]oi7p« Otwv is surely concl usi ve. I t seems in -conceivable that a practising priestess of the crocodile god canhave been under any suspicion of Christianity; and if she pre-sented a l i b e l l u s we can only conclude that such documentswere required from all, a conclusion reinforced by the largenumber of thirty-four l i b e l l i from Theadelphia, where thereis no reason to suppose that Christians were unusually numer-

ous. T h e great pr epond eran ce of examples fr om thi s pl ace ma ybe explained by the hypothesis that a discovery of papyri onI hat site included part of the archive of the commissioners formieri fices. T h at th e pr esentat i on of l i b e l l i was not confined tothe Arsinoite nome (as one where Christianity was speciallyprevalent?) is disproved by the discovery of two at Oxy-rbynchus."

" T he most complete and convenient collection of these is still that of J . R . K n ip-n»«, " T i n l.ibelli of the Decian P ersecuti on," H arv. T heol. R ev. xvi (1923), pp . 34 5-JMMI, where the problems conn ected with them are discussed at length .

I' O i y. I V , f lflS; X I I , 1404.





E V I D E N C E S O F C H R I S T I A N I T Y I N E G Y P T 207

E g y p t .65 I t seems to me, as it has seemed to others,66 h i g h l y

probable that in this letter we have a reference to certa in

Christ ian women, arrested and taken for tr ia l before the prefect(or , less l i k ely, one of t he I mper i al p r o c u r a t o r r #), on whose

behalf the writer is appealing to the áya i r q of his friend.

L ast l y I come to the P ani scus letters, alr eady referred to

(above, p. 197).67 T h e C hr ist ian char acter of al l but one of

these rests on constructive, not unambiguous, evidence, but the

case for it is fair ly strong. I n 216 P ani scus pr ays for the health

o f h i s w i fe and daughte r i r a p a r c¡> K vp íu O tq. I n 218 h e writes

r¡avó

8 t ós O t \ i .In 219 we have again the invocation

i r a pár<¡)

K v p l u ) lew and the phrase d t o v (no art ic le) O ÍK OVTOS. In 221 occurs

the invocation i r a p a tc > K v p i q 0e<3. I n 217 an d 220 ther e is n o

religious element; 215 is a mere scrap.

N ot on e of these phr ases is pr oof posi t i ve of a C hr i sti an

or igi n, as I h ave sh own ab ove. P an i scus does n ot use th e com -

pendium for KvpL), and he writes r o v s <t>ikovvras r i p . as . n ot a y a i r u v -

Ta s. N or is there an yth i ng special ly C hr ist i an in th e con ten t of

these letters. Y et th e consi stency wi th wh i ch, wh en a r el igi ous

formula is used at all, it is in the singular is certainly note-

worthy, and one might with fair conf idence conclude that

Paniscus was a Christian were it not for the f irst letter, no. 214.

Here Paniscus invokes r ol s O t o l s i r a c i , and he states that his

wife's sister r o l s O t o l s t ü xf r t n a O ' r ) p .i p a v . About the pagan

char acter of thi s letter th ere can be n o dou bt . W h en th e col l ec-

t ion passed through my hands on its way to Ann Arbor I con-

jectured, in view of the date indicated by the hands, that we

might have in it an instance of relapse from Christ ianity to

pagani sm dur in g the G r eat P er secut i on. T hi s conj ectu r e was

rided out by Wilcken's observat ion that the t i ravopOÚTi jv 'AxiXX¿a

of 220, 23-24 was the Achil leus known during the usurpation of

L ucius D omit i us D omit i anu s. W i l cken bel i eved hi m to be th e

unurper hi mself ; W i nt er in P . M i ch. I l l shows that the tw o are

lo be dist inguished, Achil leus being apparently a c ivi l cor rec to r

under Domi t i us Domi t i an us. B u t at al l events the ment i on

•• S i * , e.g., A. Stein, A rchi v f. P ap. I V , p. 151 and references there." K .g. Schubart, Gnomon VI , p. 611.

P . M ich. I l l <14-221.




of h im dates the series about A .D . 296, well befor e th e P ersecu-ti on. W e may perhaps see in it rather a case of conversion fr ompaganism to Christianity; or on the other hand rw Kvpíu deumay be some god (Sarapis?) to whose worship Paniscus wasspecia ll y devoted. T h e question must be left open ; but cer-tainly, if these letters are pagan, the use of phrases like TQ

Kvplu 6 tQ an d dtod Oi Xovr ot as evidences of Christianity becomeseven more precarious than I have shown it to be.

A ddendu m. P rofessor N ock has asked whether it woul d beworth whil e to compar e the nu mber of H omer i c papyr i of th e

period considered above with the number of Biblical papyri.T he compari son is of cour se enormously t o th e advant age ofH omer , who was not onl y the supr eme li terary classic and insome sort the Bible of the Greeks but also the established text-book for schools; bu t it is cer tai nl y of some in terest. H ere, then,are th e figures for copies of the I li ad given by P . C oll ar t in hisLes Papyrus de l'll iade (Revue de Philologie, 3rd series, vi,315-349, vii, 33-61). T hey may be taken as fair ly comp lete up

to 1932:—1st cent., 19; lst/2nd cent., 19; 2nd cent., 52; 2nd/3rd cent ., 35; 3rd cent., 62; 3r d/4th cent ., 14. A supp lementat the end (vii, 61) adds the following additional papyri: —1st cent., 3; lst/2nd cent., 4; 2nd cent., 5; 2nd/3rd cent., 5;3rd cent., 7.

Documents

Idris H Bell - Evidences of Christianity in Egypt During the Roman Period