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Grenfell and Hunt on Early Christian Codices
151
their dating of some early Christian papyri, largely because they accepted the
assumption common to palaeographers of the last century that a manuscript
written in a codex could not be earlier than the third century."6
To demonstrate "the operation of this prejudice" in regard to Grenfell
and Hunt's treatment of Christian Greek papyri, Roberts puts forward as an
example POxy. 1.30, a fragment of De bellis Macedonicis, a non-Christian text
in Latin written on parchment.7 It was originally dated by Grenfell and Hunt
to the third century but later reassigned by Jean Mallon to the late first or early
second century.8 It is indeed a case in which Grenfell and Hunt most likely
dated a text too late, but its relevance to Roberts' specific claim about Grenfell
and Hunt's treatment of Christian Greek papyrus codices is not immediately
apparent. Furthermore, Roberts' tone in dealing with Grenfell and Hunt is
highly dismissive and his summary inaccurate. He writes that "they plump
for the late third or fourth century largely because the book was a codex."'9
What Grenfell and Hunt actually say is that the "archaic characteristics in the
handwriting are counterbalanced by the occurrence of the uncial forms of D
and Q, the tendency to roundness in E, as well as by the facts that the fragment is from a book and not a roll, and that the material used is vellum and
not papyrus. These factors combined render it impossible to refer the fragment
to a period earlier than the third century."10 A number of factors were at play
beyond the codex format." And in fact, they date the fragment simply to the
third century (see the table on p. xii of ROxy. 1), not, as Roberts claims, the
"late third or fourth."
Presumably as a counterpoint to this example, Roberts offers Grenfell and
Hunt's treatment of BOxy. 3.405, fragments of a roll that they first thought to
be an unidentified Christian text in Greek. They claimed that the hand was
"not later than the first half of the third century, and might be as old as the
latter part of the second."" They go on to assert that "it is probably the earliest
6 Roberts, "An Early Papyrus" (n. 4) 234.
Roberts' reference to "P.Oxy. I, 35" is a misprint.
8 Jean Mallon, "Quel est le plus ancien exemple connu d'un manuscrit latin en forme
de codex?" Emerita 17 (1949) 1-8. For more recent bibliography on this piece, see
Kouznetsov, "A Rhythmical Arrangement of the Fragmentum De bellis Macedonicis,"
BASP 47 (2010) 117-130.
9 Roberts, "An Early Papyrus;" 235.
1 The quotation is from POxy. 1, p. 59.
" Mallon's piece is primarily critical of Grenfell and Hunt's Latin palaeographical
skills.
12 In the table of papyri on p. viii, they describe these pieces simply as "third century."
These fragments were later identified as part of Irenaeus' Against Heresies. See P Oxy.
4, pp. 264-265.
