Papyrus 45 P⁴⁵ or P. Chester Beatty I) is an early New Testament manuscript that is a part of the Chester Beatty Papyri. It has been paleographically dated to about 175-225 CE.[1] It contains the texts of Matthew 20-21 and 25-26; Mark 4-9 and 11-12; Luke 6-7 and 9-14; John 4-5 and 10-11; and Acts 4-17. The manuscript is currently housed at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ireland, except for one leaf containing Matt. 25:41-26:39 which is at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna (Pap. Vindob. G. 31974)

Date of P45

P45 was dated by Kenyon to the first half of the third century, a date which was confirmed by the papyrologists W. Schubart and H. I. Bell. This continues to be the date assigned to this manuscript in modern handbooks on textual criticism and critical editions of the Greek New Testament.

According to Kenyon, the manuscript displays individual forms that are early, in that they show the simplicity characteristic of the Roman period. The curves of the epsilon and sigma and the lack of exaggeration in the upsilon and phi are also signs of an early date. But the general appearance, especially its sloping appearance and small omicron, places it in the third century. Hunt, Schubart, and Bell also date P45 to the third century. Two noteworthy, comparable manuscripts are P. Egerton 3 and P. Oxy. 1012, both dated to the early third century. All things considered, the manuscript can be dated to the early third century [175-225].[2]

Condition of the Manuscript

The manuscript is heavily damaged and fragmented. The papyrus was bound in a codex, which may have consisted of 220 pages, however, only 30 survive (two of Matthew, six of Mark, seven of Luke, two of John, and 13 of Acts). All of the pages have lacunae, with very few lines complete. The leaves of Matthew and John are the smallest. The original pages were roughly 10 inches by 8 inches. Unlike many of the other surviving manuscripts from the 3rd century which usually contained just the Gospels, or just the Catholic letters, or just the Pauline epistles, this manuscript possibly contained more than one grouping of New Testament texts. This hypothesis is attributed to the use of gatherings of two leaves, a single-quire that most other codices had.[3]

Textual Character

Because of the extent of the damage, determining the text’s type has been difficult for scholars. The manuscript was obtained by Alfred Chester Beatty in the first half of the 20th century and published in The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, Descriptions and Texts of Twelve Manuscripts on Papyrus of the Greek Bible by Frederic G. Kenyon in 1933. In this work, Kenyon identified the text of the Gospel of Mark in P⁴⁵ as Caesarean, following the definition of Burnett Hillman Streeter.[4] Hollis Huston criticized Kenyon’s transcription of various partially surviving words and concluded that chapters 6 and 11 of Mark in P⁴⁵ could not neatly fit into one text-type, especially not Caesarean because the manuscript predates the distinctive texts for each type from the 4th and 5th centuries.[5]

P⁴⁵ has a great number of singular readings.[6] On the origin of these singular readings, E. C. Colwell comments:

As an editor the scribe of P⁴⁵ wielded a sharp axe. The most striking aspect of his style is its conciseness. The dispensable word is dispensed with. He omits adverbs, adjectives, nouns, participles, verbs, personal pronouns—without any compensating habit of addition. He frequently omits phrases and clauses. He prefers the simple to the compound word. In short, he favors brevity. He shortens the text in at least fifty places in singular readings alone. But he does not drop syllables or letters. His shortened text is readable.”[7]

Philip W. Comfort According to a study done by Colwell, the scribe of P45 worked “without any intention of exactly reproducing his source.” He wrote with a great amount of freedom—“harmonizing, smoothing out, substituting almost whimsically.” In short, “the scribe does not actually copy words. He sees through the language to its idea-content, and copies that—often in words of his own choosing, or in words rearranged as to order.” Thus, in the scribe of P45 we see an exegete and a paraphraser. It was apparent to Colwell that the scribe of P45 copied his exemplar phrase by phrase and clause by clause (as opposed to more careful copyists who transcribe the text letter by letter, as in P75). While copying phrases and clauses, he worked at reproducing what he imagined to be the thought of each phrase. Thus, he transposed and omitted many words and deleted several phrases. Colwell said, “The most striking aspect of his style is its conciseness. The dispensable word is dispensed with. He omits adverbs, adjectives, nouns, participles, verbs, personal pronouns—without any compensating habit of addition.” Another study on P45 done by Royse affirms Colwell’s observations about the scribe’s penchant for brevity. Royse comments, “The scribe has a marked tendency to omit portions of text, often (as it seems) accidentally but perhaps also by deliberate pruning.” The result of this pruning is that the scribe produced a very readable text, with very little need of correction. The scribe of P45 has been characterized as producing a “free” text, a text wherein he provided an abbreviated yet readable rendition of his Vorlage (exemplar). Colwell pointed out several striking examples of omissions made by the scribe of P45. Three of Colwell’s examples can be mentioned here. In P45’s rendition of the multiplication of the loaves (Mark 6:40), the scribe of P45 excluded the details about the 5,000 sitting down “by hundreds and by fifties” as well as the details about how many loaves and fishes there were. In John 11:25, he abbreviated Jesus’ statement “I am the resurrection and the life” to simply “I am the resurrection.” And in John 11:49, the expression “being high priest that year” was reduced to “being high priest.” My own study of the manuscript shows that these omissions were not simply the result of scribal excision for the sake of trimming. In Mark 6:40, the scribe of P45 made a deletion to bring Mark’s account into harmony with Matthew’s (see 14:19) or John’s (see 6:10). In John 11:25, the scribe of P45 thought it tautological to add “and the life” to “I am the resurrection,” because the latter is Jesus’ poignant rejoinder to Martha who believed in the final resurrection as being nothing more than a future event. And in John 11:49, the change reveals the scribe’s knowledge of history and his sensitivity to the accurateness of the historicity of the text. In these instances and in many more, the scribe demonstrated that he was a close reader of the text. This shows up in a verse like Luke 11:14, where the textual constructs prompted the scribe to delete ο κωφος because it is illogical to indicate that a mute person can speak. It is also clear that in Luke 11:36 the scribe followed the dictates of the textual constructs, which would cause a reader to think of a body part, not just any part. Hence, he substituted μελος (which is used strictly for body parts) for μερος (which designates more generally portions, parts, regions, shares, or affairs). In John 10:14–15, a change was probably prompted by a perceived discontinuity with the previous text of John. There is nothing in the text of John prior to chapter 10 that prepares the reader for a statement about the intimacy between Jesus and his followers paralleling that of Jesus and his Father. And in John 10:34–36 the scribe deleted phrases about the Scriptures, not for any apparent theological reasons but because they distracted from Jesus’ main proposition: if God calls mortals “gods,” then Jesus can call himself the Son of God because he is heavenly. The character of the text of P45 varies with each book. According to Kenyon, P45 in Mark shows a strong affinity with those manuscripts which are called Caesarean (W, f1, f13, 565, 700—in Mark 5:31–16:8). In Matthew, Luke, and John, P45 stands midway between the Alexandrian manuscripts and so-called Western manuscripts. In Acts, P45 shows the greatest affinity with the Alexandrian uncials (א, A, B, C) as over against the manuscripts with a D-type text.[8]

Text-Type

P⁴⁵ has a relatively close statistical relationship with Codex Washingtonianus in Mark, however, and to a lesser extent Family 13. Citing Larry Hurtado’s study, Text-Critical Methodology, and the Pre-Caesarean Text: Codex W in the Gospel of Mark,[9] Eldon Jay Epp has agreed that there is no connection to a Caesarean or pre-Caesarean text in Mark. There is also not a strong connection to the Neutral text of Codex Vaticanus, the Western text of Codex Bezae, and the Byzantine text of the Textus Receptus.[10] Another hypothesis is that P⁴⁵ comes from the Alexandrian tradition, but has many readings intended to “improve” the text stylistically, and a number of harmonizations. While still difficult to place historically in a category of texts, most scholars today agree that the text is not Caesarean, contrary to Kenyon.

The textual character of the manuscript varies from book to book. In Mark, multivariate analysis of apparatus data from the UBS Greek New Testament (4th ed.)[11] places P⁴⁵ in a group which includes W (for chapters 5-16), Θ, Family 1, 28, 205, 565; the Sinaitic Syriac, Armenian, and Georgian versions; and Origen’s quotations.[12] This group corresponds to what Streeter called an “Eastern type” of the text.[13] In Luke, an eleven-way PAM partition based on Greek manuscript data associated with the INTF’s Parallel Pericopes volume[14] places the manuscript in a group with C (04), L (019), Ξ (040), 33, 892, and 1241.[15] In Acts, it is closest to the Alexandrian text.

It is calculated that the codex omitted the Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53-8:11). It should be noted the P45 is not mentioned as either for or against John 7:53-8:11 in either Metzger’s A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament or Comfort’s New Testament Text and Translation Commentary.[16]

Notable Readings

Mark 6:40

κατὰ ἑκατὸν καὶ κατὰ πεντήκοντα: a hundred and a fifty
Omit.: P⁴⁵
Incl.: All other witnesses

Mark 6:44

τοὺς ἄρτους: the loaves
Omit.: P⁴⁵ א D W Θ f1 f13 28 565 700 2542 lat copsa
Incl.: A B L 33. 2427 M (c) f sy^p.h bo

Mark 6:45

εἰς τὸ πέραν: into the other side
Omit.: P⁴⁵ W f1 118 itq syrs
Incl.: All other witnesses

Mark 8:12

λέγω ὑμῖν: I am saying to you
Omit.: P⁴⁵ W
Incl. (without ὑμῖν): B L 892 pc
Incl. (full): All other witnesses

Mark 8:15

των Ηρωδιανων: P⁴⁵ W Θ f1,13 28 565 1365 2542 iti.k copsamss arm geo
Ἡρῴδου: All other witnesses

Mark 8:35

ἐμοῦ καὶ: of me and
Omit.: P⁴⁵ D 28 700 it^{a.b.d.i.k.n.r1} sy^rs arm Origen
Incl.: All other witnesses

Mark 9:27

καὶ ἀνέστη: and he stood up
Omit.: P^45(vid) W it^k.l sy^s.p
Incl.: All other witnesses

Luke 6:48

διὰ τὸ καλῶς οἰκοδομῆσθαι αὐτήν: P⁷⁵vid א B L W Ξ 33 157 579 892 1241 1342 2542 sy^hmg sa bo^pt
τεθεμελίωτο γὰρ ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν: A C D Θ Ψ f1,13 700c Byz latt syr^p.h cop bo^pt arm, geo, goth
Omit.: P^45(vid) 700* syr^s

Luke 11:33

οὐδὲ ὑπὸ τὸν μόδιον: nor under the measuring basket
Omit. : P⁴⁵ P⁷⁵ L Γ Ξ 070 f1 22 69 700* 788 1241 2542 syr^s cop^sa arm, geo
Incl. : א A B C D W Θ Ψ f 13 M latt sy^(c.p).h; (Cl)

Luke 11:44

γραμματεις και Φαρισαιοι υποκριται: scribes and Pharisees hypocrites
Omit. : P⁴⁵ P⁷⁵ א B C L f1 33 1241 2542 ita.aur.c.e.ff2.l vg syr^s,c sa cop bo^pt arm geo
Incl. : A (D) W Θ Ψ f 13 M it sy^p.h bo^pt

Luke 11:54

ινα κατηγορησωσιν αυτου: that they might accuse him
Omit.: P⁴⁵ P⁷⁵ א B L 579 892* 1241 2542 syr^s,c co
Incl.: A C (D) W Θ Ψ f 1.13 33 M lat vg sy^(p).h

Luke 12:9

Omit. verse: P⁴⁵ it e syr^s bo^ms
Incl. verse: All other witnesses
but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God

Luke 12:47

μὴ ἑτοιμάσας ἢ: not having prepared or
Omit.: P⁴⁵
Incl.: All other witnesses

John 11:7

τοῖς μαθηταῖς: to the disciples
Omit.: P⁴⁵ P66^* it e l
Incl. : P^{6(vid).66c.75} א A B D K Γ Δ L W Θ Ψ 0250 f¹³ l 844 al lat sy co f¹ 33 m

John 11:25

καὶ ἡ ζωή: and the life
Omit.: P⁴⁵ it 1 syr^s Diatessaronsyr Cyprian
Incl.: All other witnesses

John 11:51

τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκείνου: of the year that
Omit.: P⁴⁵ it e l syr^s
Incl.: All other witnesses

Acts 5:37

πάντες: all
Omit.: P⁴⁵ D it
Incl.: All other witnesses

Acts 8:18

το αγιον: the Holy
Omit. : א A^c B sa mae
Incl. : P⁴⁵ P⁷⁴ A* C D E Ψ 33 1739 Byz latt syr copbo

Acts 9:17

Ἰησοῦς: Jesus
Omit.: Byz m
Incl. : P⁴⁵ P⁷⁴ א A B C E Ψ 33 81 323 614 945 1175 1739

Acts 9:21

οἱ ἀκούοντες: who heard
Omit. : P⁴⁵ P⁷⁴ Ψ* pc
Incl.: All other witnesses

Acts 9:38

δύο ἄνδρας: two men (male persons)
Omit.: Byz m
Incl.: P⁴⁵ P⁷⁴ א A B C E Ψ 36 81 323 614 945 1175 1739 latt syr co

Acts 10:10

ἐγένετο: P⁷⁴vid א A B C 36 81 323 453 945 1175 1739 Origen
επεπεσεν: E Ψ 33 Byz latt syr
ηλθεν: P⁴⁵

Acts 10:13

Πέτρε: Peter
Omit.: P⁴⁵ gig Clement Ambrose
Incl. : All other witnesses

Acts 10:16

εὐθὺς: immediately, at once
Omit.: P⁴⁵ 36 453 1175 it d syr^p sa^mss bo^ms
Incl. : P74 א A B C E 81 pc vg sy^hmg bo
παλιν : (❦ D) Ψ 33^vid. 1739 M p sy^h sa^mss mae

Acts 10:33

κυρίου: (Lord) P^45vid א A B C E Ψ 81* 323 614 945 1175 1739 lat syr^h bo
θεου: (God) P⁷⁴ D Byz syr^p sa mae bo^ms

Acts 11:12

μηδὲν διακρίναντα: nothing having doubting (i.e., having doubted nothing)
Omit.: P⁴⁵ D itl.p* syr^h
Incl.: א(*) A B (E Ψ) 33. 81. 945. (1175). 1739 al

Acts 13:48

κυρίου: (Lord) P⁴⁵ P⁷⁴ א A C Ψ 33 1739 Byz gig vg sa^mss mae
θεου: (of God) B D E 049 323 453 sa^ms bo
θεον: (God) 614 syr pc

Acts 13:49

τοῦ κυρίου: of the Lord
Omit.: P⁴⁵ pc
Incl.: All other witnesses

Acts 15:20

τῆς πορνείας: of the fornication
Omit.: P⁴⁵
Incl.: All other witnesses

Acts 15:40

κυρίου: (of Lord) P⁷⁴ א A B D 33 81 itd vg^st sa
θεου: (Of God) P⁴⁵ C E Ψ 1739 Byz gig itw vg^cl syr bo

Acts 16:32

κυρίου: (of Lord) P⁴⁵ P⁷⁴ א² A C (D) E Ψ 33 1739 Byz lat syr cop
θεου: (of God) א* B pc

Acts 17:13

καὶ ταράσσοντες: and agitating (stirring up)
Omit.: P⁴⁵ E Byz
Incl. : P⁷⁴ א A B D(*) (❦ Ψ) 33. 36. 81. 323. 614. 945. 1175. 1505. 1739 al lat sy sa (bo)

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[1] F. G. Kenyon, The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, Descriptions and Texts of Twelve Manuscripts on Papyrus of the Greek Bible, Fasciculus I, General Introduction (Emery Walker Ltd., 1933), p. x.

^[2] Philip Wesley Comfort and David P. Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2001), 155–157.

[3] Bruce M. Metzger, Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, Oxford University Press (New York – Oxford, 2005), p. 54.

[4] Huston, Hollis W. “Mark 6 and 11 in P45 and in the Caesarean Text.” Journal of Biblical Literature. vol. 64, No. 4 (Dec. 1955) pp. 262

[5] Huston, Hollis W. “Mark 6 and 11 in P45 and in the Caesarean Text.” Journal of Biblical Literature. vol. 64, No. 4 (Dec. 1955) pp. 265, 268, 270-271.

[6] Barbara Aland, The Significance of the Chester Beatty in Early Church History, in: The Earliest Gospels ed. Charles Horton, London 2004, p. 110.

[7] Ernest Cadman Colwell, “Scribal Habits in the Early Papyri: A Study in the Corruption of the Text,” in: “The Bible in Modern Scholarship” ed. J. P. Hyatt, New York: Abingdon Press 1965, p.383.

^[8] Philip Wesley Comfort and David P. Barrett, The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2001), 160–162.

[9] Hurtado, Larry W. Text-Critical Methodology and the Pre-Caesarean Text: Codex W in the Gospel of Mark. Studies and Documents 43. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981.

[10] Epp, Eldon Jay. “The Twentieth Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism”. Journal of Biblical Literature. vol. 93, No. 3 (Sep. 1974), pp. 386–414

[11] Aland et al. (eds), Greek New Testament, 4th rev. ed., Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 1998

[12] Timothy J. Finney. “How to Discover Textual Groups”. Retrieved 2020-01-04.

[13] Streeter, B. H. (1924). The Four Gospels. London: Macmillan. pp. 27, 108.

[14] Holger Strutwolf and Klaus Wachtel (eds), Novum Testamentum Graecum: Editio Critica Maior: Parallel Pericopes: Special Volume Regarding the Synoptic Gospels (Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 2011)

[15] PAM (partitioning around medoids) is a multivariate analysis technique. For a description, see Timothy J. Finney. “Views of New Testament Textual Space”. Retrieved 2013-03-16.

[16] T. C. Skeat, A Codicological Analysis of the Chester Beatty Papyrus Codex of Gospels and Acts (P 45), in: T. C. Skeat and J. K. Elliott, The collected biblical writings of T. C. Skeat, Brill 2004, p. 147.