by Lara-Sophie Boleslawsky
The discovery, inquiry, and purchase of P134, more commonly known as the Willoughby papyrus, is a fascinating tale, proving that in rare cases, artifacts from the ancient world might be hidden in our very backyards. To clarify, the small but intriguing Willoughby papyrus was not actually found amongst quadrangles of grass and flowers, but it did lie waiting for many years in an attic, tucked away in a suitcase once belonging to University of Chicago professor of early Christian origins, Harold Willoughby. It seems Willoughby, the namesake of the papyrus P134, was an avid collector of ancient manuscripts throughout his tenure at UChicago in the mid-20th century, as he sought to assemble a collection of manuscripts for the University’s library. Part of this concentrated effort resulted in the purchase of a small papyrus fragment, or what is now P134, the Willoughby papyrus.
The remarkable story of this papyrus’s journey from Willoughby’s hands to the special collections housed in the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin begins on eBay in 2015. The credit-card-sized fragment was listed for sale there, catching the eye of Dr. Geoffrey Smith, a professor of early Christian history and director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins (ISAC), here in the Religious Studies department at UT. Smith was immediately drawn to the fragment, as a close examination of the posting indicated there was more to this fragment than first met the naked eye. After contacting the seller, Smith learned that the papyrus had been found by this seller (who has chosen to remain anonymous) in an old suitcase in their attic. Remarkably, this oblong trunk had been home to the Willoughby papyrus for decades, and it was only by chance that its ancient fibers finally saw the light of day. The excitement for further study of this hitherto unseen manuscript prompted Smith to begin the process of acquiring the papyrus, lest it fall into the hands of a private collector and once again plunge into obscurity. In order to ensure success, Smith decided to partner with the Harry Ransom Center (HRC), pooling its resources alongside ISAC’s own. The collaboration proved rewarding, and as of fall 2022, the papyrus has been housed at the HRC and is available upon request (though at the discretion of the curators at the center).
One should not be fooled by this papyrus’s size; it’s unique textual features are like a puzzle box, constantly reconfiguring our conjectures the more we attempt to solve it. What we can say, or rather, what Dr. Smith has helpfully raised in his article for the Journal of Biblical Literature[1], is that the papyrus preserves a section of the Gospel of John on one side, and an unidentified Christian text on the other. The surviving text of John is 1:49 – 2:1, a conversation between Jesus and his disciple Nathaniel, and it is written alongside the papyrus fibers, a characteristic which leads Smith to observe that this text was probably copied by the scribe first. The unidentified Christian text remains stubbornly enigmatic; it’s fragmented text features “Father”, “God”, “perfection” of the principles of government, and an appeal to “proclaim the gospel”. What these odd fragmentary phrases mean still calls for speculation, though in a field where the evanescence predominates, scholars of early Christian origins have come to accept that speculation might be the firmest ground we stand on at any given time.
For now, Smith has tentatively dated the papyrus to the third or fourth century CE. The range of dates for composition can hopefully be narrowed down through the HRC’s future scientific testing on the papyrus and its ink. The potential third-fourth-century CE composition date becomes important upon closer examination of the orientation of the papyrus’s Greek text. Imagine you are sitting down to read the Willoughby papyrus. In front of you, right-side up, is the text of John 1:49 – 2:1; now, to read the unidentified Christian text on the back, you might think to simply flip the papyrus over, like the leaf of a book, from right to left. Not so on the Willoughby papyrus. Instead, you must flip the papyrus over and then turn it, 180 degrees for the text to be right-side up. This unique orientation indicates to Smith that the Willoughby papyrus was actually once part of a scroll, rather than a part of a codex (an ancient precursor to our modern-day bound books). If the Willoughby papyrus fragments really do come from a scroll, this makes the small card-sized artifact a very rare find indeed, acting as an asterisk to the premise that Christian communities in the third-fourth century CE preferred the codex form for the preservation of New Testament (and other apocryphal) texts. Furthermore, as Smith has pointed out in his article, if the Willoughby papyrus is part of a scroll, its form links its early Christian readers back to a Jewish preference and practice of writing out their Scriptures on scrolls. Too often severed from their Jewish context and background, early Christian communities begin to emerge as more complex and dynamic in their choice of textual forms and contents due to the implications of the unique features of the Willoughby papyrus.
Last March, graduate students in Dr. Smith’s seminar on ancient manuscripts and textual criticism were able to go examine the Willoughby papyrus in further detail. The opportunity to look closely at the papyrus proved a challenging task due to the characteristics of the scribe’s hand, the size of the papyrus, and the lacunae (or gaps) in the text. However, armed with a semester’s worth of textual-critical tools, the students were able to wrestle with the text and observe some interesting features, such as the presence of a faint fold line (for which, according to Dr. Smith, it is impossible to determine its origin in antiquity, or while under the care and purview of Harold Willoughby). Another fascinating and observable feature for the students was the unabbreviated form of “God” (θεου) in line 5 of the Gospel of John text. In early Christian texts, divine names, figures, and even places were typically shortened and marked with a superlinear stroke in order to emphasize their sacrality; these specific abbreviations are called nomina sacra. The Willoughby papyrus is not the only text to eschew a nomen sacrum for the word “God”, but it is unusual in its inconsistency, as other nomina sacra are readily visible in lines 2 and 6 of the Gospel of John text, and in lines 2 and 3 of the unidentified Christian text. Though many ideas were tossed around about the text’s enigmatic features, ultimately, all agreed on one thing: this text is really cool!
Regardless of one’s research interests, the idiosyncrasies of the Willoughby papyrus make it worth checking out, if you can. Perhaps, if we are patient and attentive enough, it will one day reveal more about the ancient context from which it has journeyed, across land and space, suitcase and online auction platform.
For more info on the HRC and its housing of the papyrus, see hrc.utexas.edu
[1] Smith’s illuminating article provides more details on the papyrus’s textual features, as well as more specific information about how and why the Willoughby papyrus complies with the 1970 UNESCO convention on cultural property. Cf. Smith, “The Willoughby Papyrus: A New Fragment of John 1:49-2:1 (P134) and an Unidentified Christian Text.” Journal of Biblical Literature 137, no.4 (2018): 935-58. http://ex.doi.org/10.15699/jobless.1374.2018.156547.
Lara-Sophie Boleslawsky is a third-year doctoral student in the Department of Religious Studies.