The Apocryphal New Testament (1924)/Fragments of Gospels/Fragment of another Gospel
FRAGMENT OF ANOTHER GOSPEL
Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part V, 1908.
A leaf of a parchment book of the third century, almost complete.
first, before he doeth wrong he excuseth himself (or falleth into error). But take ye heed lest haply ye also suffer like things with them. For not only among the living do evildoers among men receive (retribution),- but they endure also a punishment and great torment.[1]
And he took them with him and led them to the cleansing-place itself (or holy place) and walked in the Temple. And there came near a Pharisee, an high priest, Levi (?) by name, and met them and said unto the Saviour: Who hath given thee leave to tread this holy place and to look upon these holy vessels, without thy first bathing thyself, and without thy disciples having washed their feet, but unclean as thou art hast thou walked in this Temple, which is a clean place, wherein no man walketh but one that hath bathed himself and changed his clothes, nor presumeth to look upon these holy vessels?
And straightway (the Saviour) stood with his disciples and answered him: Art thou then clean, that art here in the Temple? He said unto him: I am clean, for I have bathed myself in the pool of David, and when I had gone down into it by the one ladder (stair), I came up by the other: and I have put on white and clean raiment, and then did I come, and have looked upon these holy vessels. The Saviour answered him and said: Woe unto you, ye blind, that see not! Thou hast bathed thyself in these waters that are poured forth, into which, night and day, dogs and swine are cast: and after thou hadst washed thyself didst scour thine outer skin, which the harlots also and flute-girls anoint and bathe and scour and beautify to (arouse) desire in men,[2] but within it is (or they are) filled with scorpions and all evil. But I and my disciples, of whom thou sayest, that we are not washed, have been washed in living waters which came down from (God out of heaven). But woe unto them that (wash the outside, but within are unclean, is Dr. Swete’s suggested supplement).
The writer seems to show gross ignorance of Jewish matters in assuming that swine could be suffered in the neighbourhood of the Temple, and in other ways. Yet some have defended him on this score.
We have no clue to the identity of the book from which the fragment comes. If it were not that Jesus is here spoken of as ‘the Saviour’, not ‘the Lord’, I should suggest the Gospel of Peter. ‘Saviour’ is the common word in the Gnostic literature. The Gospel of the Egyptians is an obvious possibility: but all is uncertain. At least, the leaf is not from the Gospel according to the Hebrews: and it approaches the style of the Synoptists more nearly than do the next fragments.
- ↑ The above is mainly Zahn’s rendering. Swete’s is: ‘beforehand he useth every device to injure first (unlike the righteous, who—see Wisdom xviii. 2—do not retaliate when they are injured first).... For evildoers do not receive retribution among animals only (animals that do harm are punished here and now) but hereafter also undergo torment,’ &c.
- ↑ I am reminded of an addition in the Septuagint to the text of 1 Kings xxii. 38: They washed (Ahab’s) chariot at the fountain of Samaria: and the swine and the dogs licked up the blood, and the harlots washed themselves in the blood, according to the word of the Lord which he spake.