GREEK PAPYRI—METZGER 
critic of the New Testament is em- 
barrassed by the wealth of his material. 
Furthermore, the work of many a 
pagan author has been preserved only 
in manuscripts which date from the 
Middle Ages (sometimes the late 
Middle Ages), far removed from the 
time at which he lived and wrote. 
On the contrary, the gap between the 
composition of the books of the New 
Testament and the earliest extant 
copies is relatively quite short. In- 
stead of the lapse of a millennium or 
more, as in the case of not a few classi- 
cal authors, we shall see below that 
only a century and a half separates the 
Apostle Paul’s writing from the earliest 
copy of his letters extant today. 
The Chester Beatty Papyri of the New 
Testament 
Undoubtedly the most momentous 
news of the discovery of any New 
Testament manuscript, since Tischen- 
dorf in the middle of the last century 
came upon part of codex Sinaiticus 
in a wastebasket in the monastery of 
St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, was 
the preliminary announcement in 
The (London) Times, Nov. 19, 1931, 
pp: 13-14; that three of the oldest 
codices of the New Testament had 
been acquired by A. Chester Beatty 
from a dealer in Egypt. Each of the 
three documents has suffered from 
the ravages of time, but New Testa- 
ment scholars are exceedingly thankful 
for the portions which remain.” 
The first, to which von Dobschiitz 
assigned the number P*, comprises 
portions of 30 leaves of a papyrus 
book, which originally contained all 
four Gospels and Acts, measuring 
about 10 by 8 inches. Matthew and 
John are the least well preserved, 
each being represented by only two 
fragmentary leaves. Six leaves of 
Mark, seven of Luke, and 13 of Acts 
remain of these books. A part of this 
codex (fragments of the second leaf of 
17 These were edited by Sir Frederic G. 
Kenyon, The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, 
Descriptions and Texts (London, 1933-1937). 
445 
Matthew) was discovered in a col- 
lection of papyri at Vienna." 
The second, designated P**, com- 
prises 86 leaves (all slightly mutilated) 
of a single quire papyrus codex which 
originally contained on 104 leaves 10 
Epistles of Paul in the following order: 
Romans, Hebrews, I and II Corin- 
inthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philip- 
pians, Colossians, I and II Thes- 
salonians.!® ‘Today portions of 
Romans and I Thessalonians, and I1 
Thessalonians in its entirety, are miss- 
ing. The Pastoral Epistles were ap- 
parently never included in the codex, 
for there is not room for them on the 
leaves missing at the end. (Since it 
is a single quire codex, the number of 
leaves lacking at the end can, of 
course, be computed with precision). 
It will be observed that, in addition 
to the reversal of the present order of 
Galatians and Ephesians, the Epistle 
to the Hebrews is among the genuine 
Pauline Epistles,” which are arranged 
in a general order of their decreasing 
lengths. P** is noteworthy, likewise, 
in that the doxology to Romans 
(16:25-27), which in the earlier 
manuscripts stands at the end of 
chapter 16, and in the great mass of 
the later manuscripts at the end of 
chapter 14, is here placed at the end 
of chapter 15 (see pl. 6). 
An instance of a variant reading in 
this third-century codex which has 
modified critical opinion as to what 
18 Edited by Hans Gerstinger, “Ein Frag- 
ment des Chester Beatty-Evangelienkodex 
in der Papyrussammlung der National- 
bibliothek in Wien,’ Aegyptus, Rivista 
Italiana di Egittologia e di Papirologia, vol. 
135pp- 67-72, 1933: 
19 Thirty of the 86 leaves of this codex are 
at the University of Michigan and were 
edited by Henry A. Sanders, A Third- 
Century Papyrus Codex of the Epistles of 
Paul (Ann Arbor, 1935). 
20'This papyrus, however, contrary to 
common opinion, is not alone in placing 
Hebrews immediately following Romans; 
in six minuscule manuscripts and in a 
Syrian canon composed about A. D. 400 
it occupies this position (see W. H. P. 
Hatch, ‘The position of Hebrews in the 
Canon of the New Testament,” Harvard 
Theol. Rev., vol. 29, pp. 133-151, [1936]). 
