KEV. GEORGE MILLIGAN, D.D., ON T[TE GREEK PAPYRI. 71 



" Antonis Longus to Nilis his mother, heartiest greeting. Con- 

 tinually I pray that you are in health. Supplication on your behalf 

 I direct each day to the lord Serapis. I wish you to know that I 

 had no hope that you would come up to the metropolis. On this 

 account neither did I enter into the city. But I was ashamed to 

 come to Karanis because I am going about in a disgraceful state 

 (o-aTT/ows). I wrote you that I am naked (yi'/xvos). I beseech you, 

 therefore, mother, be reconciled to me (StaXayr/rt />iot). Furthermore, 



I know what I have brought upon myself. Punished I have been, 

 in any case. I know that I have sinned (ot6a, 6tl rnxapTr^Koc). I 

 heard from Postumus, who met you in the Arsinoite nome, and 

 unreasonably related all to you. Do you not know that I would 

 rather be a cripple than be conscious that I am still owing anyone 

 an obolus . . . come yourself ... I have heard that 

 . . . I beseech you ... I almost ... I beseech you 

 . . . I will . . . not . . . otherwise . . ." 



Or take this letter, in which a woman named Irene seeks to 

 comfort a friend who has lost a son : — 



" Irene to Taonnophris and Philo, good cheer ! I was as much 

 grieved and wept over the blessed one as I wept for Didymas, and 

 everything that was fitting I did and all who were with me . . . 

 But truly there is nothing anyone can do in the face of such things. 

 Do you therefore comfort one another." 



Apparently a bereavement she herself had sustained leads 

 Irene thus to mourn with those who mourn. But how sadly 

 conscious she is of the little she can do ! Nothing of the 

 consolation of I Thessalonians iv, 14-18. Nothing of " the 

 comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God " (see 



II Corinthians i, 4). 



A sidelight of a different character is afforded by a specimen 

 of one of the amulets which, as we have seen, the early 

 Christians were in the habit of wearing. This one was dis- 

 covered by Professor Wilcken, of Leipzig, at Heracleopolis 

 Magna in the year 1899, and is assigned by him to the sixth 

 century after Christ. It was apparently worn round the neck, 

 and may be translated as follows : — 



" O Lord God Almighty, the Father of our Lord and Saviour 

 Jesus Christ, and thou, 0 holy Serenus. I, Silvanus, the son of 

 Sarapion, pray and bow my head before Thee, begging and beseeching 

 that Thou mayst drive from me Thy servant the demon of witch- 

 craft . . . and of enmity. Take away from me all manner of 

 disease and all manner of sickness, that I may be in health . . . 

 to say the prayer of the Gospel (thus") : Our Father, who art in 



