.
The letter stands out from the mass of private letters from the Roman period by virtue of its closing greeting. The standard “I pray for your health,” which is a final greeting that occurs most frequently in private letters, is expanded here with a Christian technical phrase. Arrianus wishes his brother well-being “in the Lord.”11 Both the closing greeting and the distinctive Christian form of abbreviation en kyriō (ἐν κυρίῳ) to en kō (ἐν κϖ) with a horizontal stroke over it, demonstrate that the author of the letter is unquestionably Christian. This abbreviated form is what modern scholars call a nomen sacrum.12 Recent scholarship has argued that a nomen sacrum should be taken as an explicit sign of Christianity.13
Early Christians deliberately used written abbreviations with horizontal stroke indicators for commonly written holy names. The nomen sacrum in P.Bas. 2.43 refers to the Lord, which is one of the earliest and most commonly attested nomina sacra in Christian literary texts.14 In documentary papyri such as private letters, nomina sacra only appear for the first time in the third quarter of the third century.15 Thus, the Basel letter is not only the earliest known Christian private letter, but also the earliest known evidence for a nomen sacrum in Egyptian documentary source material.
Arrianus’ knowledge of the nomen sacrum notation can only be attributed to an independent reading of the Holy Scriptures. The earliest examples with nomina sacra contractions are found in Christian literary papyri such as copies of the Gospel of John, which are dated tentatively to the late second century.16 Our author must therefore have had these Gospels to hand and read them, as just having heard them would not have imparted knowledge of the abbreviations.17
Huebner, Sabine R. Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament (pp. 21-22). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
11. P.Bas. II.43: l.19–21: ἐρρῶσθαί σε εὔχομαι ὁλοκληρ[οῦν]τ̣α ἐν κ(υρί)ῳ)
12. cf. Hurtado 1998. Choat (2006, 43–125) also studies genuine Christian markers in documentary papyri. See also Bagnall 2009, 24.
13. Choat 2006, 119–125; Bagnall 2009, 24. Also see Choat and Nobbs 2001–2005, 39.
14. Cf. Nevius 2001, 1046. Nomina sacra for Iesous, pater, and huios were added to the canon only later.
15. P.Alex. 29 from 350 to 375 ce; PSI 3.208 from 250 to 325 ce; PSI 9.1041 from 250 to 325 ce; P.Oxy. 36.2785 from 250 to 330 ce; PSI 15.1560 from 250 to 399 ce; SB 16.12304 from 275 to 325 ce; P.Oxy. 8.1162 from 300 to 399 ce; P.Oxy. 56.3857 from 300 to 399 ce. See Luijendijk 2008, 81–151; Blumell 2012, 50 n. 112.
16. P.Oxy. 50.3523 (John 18:36–19:7); P.Ryl. 3.457 (John 18:31–33; 37–38). The latter was bought on the antiquities market, so its provenance from Oxyrhynchus is not secure.
17. According to the Gospel of John, this uncommon expression refers to Jesus himself (John 6:55–56). Here Jesus says: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
.
eta:
Bagnall, R. S. 2009,
Early Christian Books in Egypt. Princeton, NJ, and Oxford.
Blumell, L. H. 2012,
Lettered Christians: Christians, Letters, and Late Antique Oxyrhynchus. Leiden and Boston, Mass.
Choat, M. 2006,
Belief and Cult in Fourth Century Papyri. Turnhout, Belgium.
Choat, M. and A. Nobbs 2001–2005, “Monotheistic formulae of belief in Greek letters on papyrus from the second to the fourth century,”
Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 2: 36–51.
Hurtado, L. W. 1998, “The origin of the Nomina Sacra: a proposal,”
Journal of Biblical Literature 117: 655–673.
Luijendijk, A. 2017, “On and beyond duty: Christian clergy at Oxyrhynchus (c. 250–400),” in J. Rüpke, R. Gordon, and G. Petridou, eds.,
Beyond Priesthood. Religious Entrepreneurs and Innovators in the Roman Empire. Berlin: 103–128.
Nevius, R. C. 2001, “On using the nomina sacra as a criteria for dating early Christian papyri,”
XXII congresso internazionale di papirologia, vol. ii. Florence: 1045–1050.
