I
Egypt, in our days, ceasing to be any more the land of bondage, has, in
more senses than one, become a veritable Land of Promise. It is a rich
mine of historical and literary wealth, alas! most inadequately worked,
and in that fine climate, with its clear dry air, the footprints of Time,
leaving scarcely a trace, the treasures of an ancient civilisation, even
of the most delicate texture, have been preserved to us with wonderful
perfection. The habits of the peoples that have occupied the land have
happily combined with the natural advantages of the climate, in
transmitting to the modern world an inheritance of which we are now
beginning to take possession. The dead have long been giving up their
secrets, but it is only in recent times that we have been able to realise
the fact that the tombs of Egypt may contain many a precious work, now
known to us but in name, and many a writing which may change the current
of controversy, and strangely modify many a cherished opinion. Without
referring here to earlier discoveries in support of these remarks, we may
at once pass to the more recent, with which we have particularly to do.
In the course of explorations carried on during the winter of 1886-87 by
the order of M. Grébaut, then Director of the Museums of Egypt, two Greek
manuscripts were discovered in the necropolis of Akhmîm, the ancient
Panopolis, in Upper Egypt. The first of these was a papyrus, which was
really found by some Fellahs who quarrelled regarding the partition of
their precious booty and thus allowed the secret to leak out. It came to
the knowledge of the Moudir, or Governor of the Province, who promptly
settled the dispute by confiscating the papyrus, which he forwarded to the
Museum of Gizeh at Boulaq. This MS. is a collection of problems in
arithmetic and geometry, carefully written out, probably by a student, and
buried with him as his highest and most valued achievement.
The second manuscript was of much higher interest. It was discovered in
the tomb of a “monk.” It consists of thirty-three pages in parchment,
measuring 6 inches in height by 4-½ inches in breadth, without numbering,
bound together in pasteboard covered with leather, which has become black
with time. There is no date, nor any other indication of the approximate
age of the MS. than that which is furnished by the characteristics of the
writing and the part of the cemetery in which it was discovered. These
lead to the almost certain conclusion, according to M. Bouriant, who first
transcribed the text, that the MS. cannot be anterior to the eighth
century or posterior to the twelfth. The ancient cemetery of Akhmîm
stretches along to the north and west of the hill on which have been
discovered tombs of the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasties, and it has
served as a burial-place for the Christian inhabitants of the
neighbourhood from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries, the more ancient
part lying at the foot of the hill and extending gradually upward for
about 700 metres. The tomb in which the MS. was found is in a position
which approximately tallies, as regards age, with the date indicated by
the MS. itself.(1) Of course, these indications refer solely to the date
of the MS. itself, and not to the age of the actual works transcribed in
its pages.
The thirty-three sheets of parchment, forming sixty-six pages, commence
with an otherwise blank page, bearing a rough drawing of a Coptic cross,
upon the arms of which rise smaller crosses of the same description, and
the letters [symbol] and [symbol] stand the one on the left, the other on
the right of the lower stem of the large cross. Over the page commences a
fragment of the “Gospel of Peter,” which continues to the end of page 10,
where it abruptly terminates in the middle of a sentence. Pages 11 and 12
have been left blank. Pages 13 to 19 contain a fragment of the “Apocalypse
of Peter,” beginning and ending abruptly, and these have, either by
accident or design, been bound in the volume upside down and in reverse
order, so that, as they actually stand, the text commences at page 19 and
ends at page 13. Page 20 is again blank, and the rest of the volume is
made up of two fragments of the ’Book of Enoch,’ the first extending from
the 21st to the 50th page, and the second, written by a different hand,
from the 51st to the 66th page. Finally, on the inside of the binding, and
attached to it, is a sheet of parchment on which is written in uncials a
fragment of the Greek “Acts of St. Julian,” though which St. Julian
amongst those in the Calendar does not appear.
The French Archeological Mission published in 1892(2) the mathematical
papyrus, edited by M. Baillet, but the much more interesting and important
volume of fragments did not appear until 1893,(3) when they were edited by
M. Bouriant. These precious works remained, therefore, practically hidden
from the world for five or six years after their discovery, in consequence
of what is vaguely, but truly, described as “vexatious delays,” whilst the
comparatively uninteresting arithmetical work preceded them by more than a
year. The fragments of the “Gospel” and “Apocalypse” of Peter, long known
by references or quotations by the Fathers, make us acquainted, for the
first time, with the writings themselves, and the fragments of the “Book
of Enoch” give us the Greek text of part of an early work quoted by the
writer of the Epistle of Jude, hitherto only extant in an Ethiopian
version.
Of almost greater interest than the actual discovery of these and other
precious MSS. from time to time, in a similar way, is the possibility and
probability opened out to us that we may yet recover from the dead still
more precious works than these. The cemetery of Akhmîm stands near the
ancient and very important city of Panopolis, and from a very early period
it was the centre of a considerable Christian population. The custom of
burying with the dead books which were a valued possession during life was
probably a survival of the same primitive custom in accordance with which
also a warrior’s horse and dog and his weapons were interred with him to
serve him again in the world of spirits. That books, at a time when their
multiplication was so slow, should have been interred with their dead
possessor is not only curious but very fortunate for us, and we may yet
thank the cemetery of Akhmîm for preserving safely for us manuscripts
which in no other way could have escaped the effects of time and the
ravages of barbarism.
The fragments with which we are dealing present some peculiarities which
deserve a moment’s notice. The Gospel according to Peter commences in the
middle of a sentence, but being at the top of a page it is probably only
part of a manuscript of which the earlier portion was either lost or
belonged to some one else. The fragment, however, ends abruptly in the
middle of a phrase and, being followed by blank pages, the reasonable
presumption is that the scribe intended to complete the transcription, but
for some reason did not do so. It is curious that in a similar way the
“Apocalypse of Peter” is only a fragment, beginning and ending abruptly,
with a page left blank for continuation. Did the scribe hastily copy stray
leaves of each work, which had fortuitously come in his way, leaving room
for more should he be able to secure the rest? or did he break off his
copy of the one to take up the other, and with equal restlessness leave it
also unfinished? We shall never know exactly, but considering the value of
books at that epoch, the probability seems to be that he hastily copied
such portions of writings as had come into his possession, time or
accident preventing the completion of his task.
The fragment of the “Gospel” of course does not bear any name or
superscription—nor, indeed, does the “Apocalypse”—but the title is clearly
deduced from the work itself, the writer saying directly “but I, Simon
Peter,” and thus proving that the narrative takes the form of a
composition by that Apostle. It may be remarked, merely in passing, that
it is a curious—if not in any way a significant—fact that the two
Christian fragments in this little volume should both profess to have been
written by the Apostle Peter. Are the peculiarities of the fragments which
we have described due to the passage of some one having in his possession
two works selected as being believed to emanate from the chief of the
Apostles, from which there was only time to make these extracts? There is
some reason for thinking that the parchment may have previously been used
for some other writing, obliterated to make way for these fragments. The
little volume has not altogether escaped injury in its long rest by the
side of the dead, and parts of the text have had to be supplied by
conjecture; but, on the whole, the writing is fairly legible and, by the
invaluable aid of photography, it has been copied and published with
complete fidelity. Before this was done, that the first transcription by
M. Bouriant should have contained errors and omissions which led scholars
into mistaken conclusions is very intelligible, but the text may now be
considered fairly settled, and the following is a rather close and
unpolished translation of the “Gospel according to Peter.”