Despite the work done thus far, there is still considerably more to be done on
the Christian remains from Oxyrhynchus, and one area in particular where
there is room for considerable work is with the extant letters written by
Christians.
46A survey of the papyri from Oxyrhynchus reveals the frequency
44
By Christian veneer I simply mean that such documents come to incorporate distinctly Christian symbols or vocabulary. For example, in documents where an oath or declaration is being made or where standard phraseology once included references to Caesar or some other deity, such references are now replaced with distinctly Christian ones, such as references to Christ, saints, or other ecclesiastical figures. However, this does not radically change the overall purpose of such documents. It would therefore be somewhat inappropriate, and quite misleading, to merely identify such documents as “Christian texts” since their utilitarian purpose remained largely unaffected.
45 Pfeilschifter, “Oxyrhynchos. Seine Kirchen und Klöster”; Hugh MacLennan, Oxyrhyn-
chus: An Economic and Social History, reprint, 1935 (Chicago: Argonaut Inc., Publishers, 1968), 83–90 (Chapter VIII: Christianity at Oxyrhynchus); Modena, “Il cristianesimo ad Ossirinco secondo i papiri”; L.G. Modena, “Il cristianesimo ad Ossirinco: papiri letterari e cultura religiosa,” BSAA 10 (1938–1939): 293–310. Henry G. Meecham, Light from Ancient Letters: Private Correspondence in the Non-Literary Papyri of Oxyrhynchus of the First Four Centuries, and Its Bearing on New Testament Language and Thought (London: George Allen & Unwin LTD., 1923); Stefan Timm, Das christlich-koptische Ägypten in arabischer Zeit: eine Sammlung christlicher Stätten in Ägypten in arabischer Zeit, unter Ausschluss von Alexandria, Kairo, des Apa-Mena-Klosters (Der Abu Mina), der Sketis (Wadi n-Natrun) und der Sinai-Region, Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients. Reihe B, Geisteswissenschaften. Nr. 41 (Wiesbaden: L. Reichert, 1984), 1.283–300; Eldon Epp, “The New Testament Papyri at Oxyrhynchus in Their Social and Intellectual Context,” in Sayings of Jesus: Canonical and Non-Canonical Essays in Honour of Tjitze Baarda, ed. William L. Peterson, Johan S. Vos, and Henk J. de Jonge (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 47–68; Epp, “The Oxyrhynchus New Testament Papyri”; Eldon Epp, “The Jews and the Jewish Community in Oxyrhynchus: Socio-Religious Context for the New Testament Papyri,” in New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their World, ed. Thomas J. Kraus and Nicklas Tobias (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 13–52; Parsons, City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish, 193–210 (Chapter XII: Christians and Christianities); Luijendijk, Greetings in the Lord Luijendijk’s work is the first book-length treatment of the Oxyrhynchus Christian material; however, it is confined only to the documentary material in the period before 324 ce.
46
Roger S. Bagnall, Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History (London and New York: Rout- ledge, 1995), 14, who notes that with respect to papyrus letters as a whole they are, “largely understudied as a source for social history.” Likewise, the last study devoted specifically to
introduction
13
with which letters served as the primary means of communication in antiq-
uity, as some 900 letters dated between the mid third century bce until the
early seventh century ce and provenanced to the city and its environs have
been published.
47Aside from the letters written during the Ptolemaic and
early Roman period, where for obvious historical reasons Christian author-
ship can be safely ruled out, a number of letters from later centuries were
written by Christians. Yet, with the exception of the occasional treatment of
a specific letter or a small collection of letters, they have never been subject
to a wider study and have received much less attention than the Christian
literary remains from the city.
Though studies have appeared on the subject of papyrus letters over the
course of the last century and many of these have focused specifically on
letters written by Christians, in most cases such treatments have merely
been general surveys whose primary task was to identify “Christian letters”
without necessarily broaching larger historical or social issues.
48While the
the letters at Oxyrhynchus is over eighty years old. See Meecham, Light from Ancient Let- ters. While Parsons, City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish, 122–136, treats the letters (Christian and non-Christian) from Oxyrhynchus, his treatment is a rather cursory one primarily intended to introduce the reader to a host of topics related to ancient letters. Similarly, while Lui- jendijk’s study includes a very good analysis of the letters from the third and early fourth century she certainly does not exhaust every possible approach. Furthermore, given her cut- off (ca. 324 ce) there are a number of letters (post 324 ce) that her study does not examine.
47
The HGV currently puts the total number of Greek and Latin letters at 908. The BCD adds four Coptic letters. To put this in some perspective, the HGV currently lists 7,522 published letters from Egypt between the Ptolemaic and Byzantine periods. One estimate, which in my opinion is much too low, is that the total number of extant letters from “Greco-Roman antiquity” (including papyri) is about 14,000. For this figure see Randolph E. Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition and Collection (Downers Grove, IL.: Inter Varsity, 2004), 163. One reason I believe this statistic is too low is that Christian letters from patristic authors alone (II–VII) total about 9,000. See Michael Trapp, ed., Greek and Latin Letters: An Anthology, with Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 18; cf. EC I & III. Therefore, between patristic letters and papyrus letters the number is already at about 16,500. When one begins to factor in letters from other prominent letter writers (i.e. Cicero, Seneca, Pliny, etc.) the total number will probably approach, if not exceed, 20,000.
After the middle of the seventh century Greek appears to have rapidly fallen out of use for personal letters and is replaced by either Coptic or Arabic. However, there is an unpublished Greek letter written on paper in the Berlin collection (P. Berlin P. 8964) that apparently dates to the tenth century. It is not until the eleventh or twelfth century that Coptic will be abandoned (even by most Christians) in favour of Arabic. See Tonio Sebastian Richter, “Coptic Letters,” AS/EA 62, no. 3 (2008): 742–743.
48
Giuseppe Ghedini, Lettere cristiane: dai papiri greci del III e IV secolo (Milano, 1923); José O’Callaghan, Cartas Cristianas Griegas del Siglo V. Biblioteca Histórica de la Biblioteca Balmes Serie II Volumen XXV (Barcelona, 1963); Mario Naldini, Il cristianesimo in Egitto:
14
chapter one
present study comes out of this trajectory of scholarship and is in many
respects indebted to it, particularly in the methods it will draw on to identify
certain letters, the scope and purpose of the present analysis is somewhat
different. Whereas previous studies tend to cut off their investigations with
either the close of the third or the close of the fourth century, this investi-
gation will move beyond such temporal bounds and will proceed through
to the early seventh century when the letters dry up. This will be done so
as to avoid imposing artificial boundaries on the evidence, which are con-
venient for the modern historian, but do not accurately reflect changes in
the ancient world that would necessarily justify such periodisation. Like-
wise, given the inherent problems of paleography and the dating of letters,
it is very difficult to make such specific temporal boundaries. Addition-
ally, whereas previous studies have taken little account of the geographical
provenance of letters, this examination will confine itself specifically to let-
ters that can be shown to have some connection to the city of Oxyrhynchus
or its nome. The primary purpose of confining the geographical locus is so
that it might be possible to broach larger historical and social questions.
The subsequent examination will be organised into two sections that rep-
resent the different aims of the study. In the first part the specific focus of
investigation is on identification of the letters written by Christians and in
the second part the focus shifts to examine specific socio-historical ques-
tions concerning the Christians who sent, and in some cases received, these
letters. Chapter Two will attempt to identify every letter provenanced to
Oxyrhynchus in which Christian authorship can be established and will be
based on a detailed survey of the extant letters. Employing the methods laid
out in earlier studies this examination will commence by focusing on those
peculiar aspects of a letter that suggest Christian authorship. This examina-
tion will then proceed to consider other less certain factors that potentially
point toward Christian authorship but that are also shared in letters oth-
erwise identified as “non-Christian.” The outcome of this investigation will
naturally result in a minimal number of letters being identified since it is
certain that not every letter written by a Christian will contain such explicit
markers of religious identity. Nevertheless, to ensure the integrity of this
lettere private nei papiri dei secoli II–IV, reprint, 1968 (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1998); Giuseppe Tibiletti, Le lettere private nei papiri greci del III e IV secolo d.C.: Tra paganesimo e cristianesimo (Milano: Pubblicazioni della Università Cattolica, 1979); Malcolm Choat, Belief and Cult in Fourth-Century Papyri. Studia Antiqua Australiensia I (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2006). More so than the other works Choat does take some account of larger historical and social issues with his use of fourth-century documents.