Editing Rylands Library Papyrus P52 (section)

=== Colin Roberts ===

𝔓{{sup|52}} is a literary text and, in common with almost all such papyri, has no explicit indicator of date. Proposing a date for it ultimately required comparison with dated texts, which tend to be in documentary hands (contracts, petitions, letters). Nevertheless, Roberts suggested two undated literary papyri as the closest comparators to 𝔓{{sup|52}}: P. Berol. 6845<ref name="Nongbri, p. 33">Nongbri, p. 33.</ref> (a fragment of an [[Iliad]] scroll conserved in Berlin and dated paleographically to around the end of the first century) which he suggested (other than in the form of the letter alpha) is "the closest parallel to our text that I have been able to find, a view that I was glad to find shared by so great an authority as Sir [[Frederic G. Kenyon|Frederic Kenyon]]"; and P.Egerton 2 itself,<ref name="Nongbri, p. 34">Nongbri, p. 34.</ref> which was then estimated to date around 150 CE. Roberts stated that in the Egerton Gospel, "most of the characteristics of our hand are to be found, though in a less accentuated form"; and he particularly noted similar forms of upsilon, mu and delta.<ref name="Roberts(1935), p. 14">Roberts(1935), p. 14.</ref>

Establishing the Berlin Iliad P. Berol 6845 as a comparator was key to Roberts proposing an early 2nd century date as plausible for 𝔓{{sup|52}}; as the Berlin papyrus had been dated to the end of the first century by [[Wilhelm Schubart]], in a landmark papyrological study which demonstrated the close similarity of its hand to that of P. Fayum 110,<ref name="Nongbri, p. 35">Nongbri, p. 35.</ref> a personal letter, but written by a professional scribe in a "literary type" hand<ref>Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, ''Fayum Towns and their Papyri'', London, Egypt Exploration Fund, 1900, p 263, "written.. by a scribe in a well-formed uncial hand of a literary type, which being dated is important palaeographically"</ref> and with an explicit date of 94 CE.<ref>Wilhelm Schubart ''Papyri Graecae Berolinenses XVII'', Bonn; Marcus and Weber, 1911</ref>  In proposing a date of around the middle of the second century for P. Egerton 2, Skeat and Bell had also relied on comparison with P.Fayum 110;<ref name="Nongbri, p. 34">Nongbri, p. 34.</ref> together with Abb 34 (now known as B.G.U. 1.22 and dated ca. 110–117 CE),<ref name="Nongbri, p. 39">Nongbri, p. 39.</ref> a letter in a documentary hand of the time of Trajan; and P.Lond. 1.130,<ref name="Nongbri, p. 48">Nongbri, p. 48.</ref> a horoscope of late first or early second century date. The Berlin Iliad has since been re-edited in the light of more recent discoveries, but confirming Schubart's conclusions as to its dating around 100 CE, and its close relationship to the dated literary type hand of P.Fayum 110;<ref>William Lameere ''Apercus de palaeographie homerique a propos des papyrus de l'Illiade et de l'Odyssee des collections de Gand, de Bruxelles a de Louvain'', Paris; Editions Erasme, 1960, pp 81–83</ref> and it remains a primary exemplar of a particularly distinctive form of first/early second century CE calligraphic book hand.<ref>Guglielmo Cavallo ''Greek and Latin writing in the Papyi'' in "The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology" Roger S Bagnall ex., Oxford; OUP, 2009, p 114</ref>  Roberts in turn was also to advance P. Fayum 110 and Abb 34 (though not P.Lond. 1.130) as dated comparators to 𝔓{{sup|52}}, identifying P. Fayum 110 as the "most important parallel"  he could find among dated documents, and noting in particular that both of these showed the same two forms of alpha in simultaneous use.<ref name="Roberts(1935), p. 15">Roberts(1935), p. 15.</ref>  Nongbri  notes other instances where the letter forms in P. Fayum 110 are a closer match to those in 𝔓{{sup|52}} than are the counterpart forms in P. Berol 6845; specifically delta,<ref name="Nongbri, p. 36">Nongbri, p. 36.</ref> pi, rho and epsilon. In his later career, Roberts reasserted the close resemblance of P. Fayum 110 to both 𝔓{{sup|52}} and P. Egerton 2.<ref>Roberts C.H.''Greek Literary Hands 350BC – AD 400'', Oxford; Clarendon Press, 1955, p. 11</ref>

Roberts also proposed two further dated papyri in documentary hands as comparators for 𝔓{{sup|52}}:  P. London 2078, a private letter written in the reign of Domitian (81–96 CE),<ref name="Nongbri, p. 37">Nongbri, p. 37.</ref> and P. Oslo 22, a petition dated 127 CE;<ref name="Nongbri, p. 38">Nongbri, p. 38.</ref> noting that P. Oslo 22 was most similar in some of the more distinctive letter forms, e.g. eta, mu and iota. Roberts circulated his assessment to [[Frederic G. Kenyon]], [[Wilhelm Schubart]] and [[Idris Bell|H. I. Bell]]; all concurred with his dating of 𝔓{{sup|52}} in the first half of the 2nd century.<ref name="Roberts(1935), p. 15">Roberts(1935), p. 15.</ref> Kenyon suggested another comparator in P. Flor 1. 1, a loan contract dated 153 CE;<ref name="Nongbri, p. 40">Nongbri, p. 40.</ref> but Roberts did not consider the similarity to be very close, other than for particular letters, as the overall style of that hand was [[cursive]].<ref name="Roberts(1935), p. 16">Roberts(1935), p. 16.</ref> In the same year 1935, Roberts's assessment of date was supported by the independent studies of [[Gustav Adolf Deissmann|A. Deissmann]], who, while producing no actual evidence, suggested a date in the reigns of Hadrian (117–138) or even Trajan (98–117).<ref name="Deissmann, Adolf 1935">Deissmann, Adolf. "Ein Evangelienblatt aus den Tagen Hadrians." ''[[Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung]]''; 564, 3 Dezemb. 1935 [English trans. in British Weekly December 12, 1935.]</ref> In 1936 the dating was supported by [[Ulrich Wilcken]] on the basis of a comparison between the hand of 𝔓{{sup|52}} and those of papyri in the extensive Apollonius archive which are dated 113–120.<ref>Wilcken Ulrich, ''Die Bremer Papyrus-Sammlung'', FF 12, 1936, p. 90</ref>