P.BODMER XLII: 2 CORINTHIANS 10:15‑11:12 IN SAHIDIC BY DANIEL B. SHARP P. Bodmer XLII (SMR-sa 473),1 currently owned by the Martin Bod‑ mer Foundation in Cologny, Switzerland, consists of five parchment frag‑ ments from 2 Corinthians. Rodolphe Kasser was originally tasked with publishing an edition of PB XLII, but his demanding schedule did not allow him to complete the assignment before his unfortunate passing. This article, dedicated to fulfilling Professor Kasser’s assignment, is the editio princeps of PB XLII. Acquisition According to Kasser, P. Bodmer XLII was not part of the larger Bodmer find but was acquired later and was “… clearly distinct in origin from the Bodmer papyri proper.”2 James Robinson may have had this state‑ ment of Kasser in mind when he wrote, “There may be some unstated reason to assume [PB XLII] is not part of the Dishna discovery.”3 My own search through all the available records of the Martin Bodmer Founda‑ tion revealed no direct information about the acquisition of the manuscript, and no one currently associated with the Foundation has any knowledge of when it was acquired.4 A laser-printed document offered the intriguing heading, “BASE pour liste plus détaillée du 11.10.1971.” 1 SMR = S(chmitz)-M(ink)-R(ichter) database of the Coptic New Testament manu‑ scripts (http://intf.uni-muenster.de/smr/). 2 Kasser, “Introduction” note 5 p. XXIV, note 3 p. LIII; “Bodmer Papyri” 48b. 3 Robinson, The Story of the Bodmer Papyri 183. On page 15, however, Robinson wrote: “The presumably minor residue of still further materials at the Bibliothèque Bodmer from the same discovery … [emphasis added]” and then goes on to include PB XLII in a list of unpublished papyri. It is possible to interpret this statement as an endorsement of PB XLII as part of the same discovery of the rest of the Papyri. Probably, however, Robin‑ son is simply listing known Bodmer Papyri that had not yet been published. The reason for this belief, is that Robinson also included PB XLIV on this list which he could not possibly have thought of as from the same find as the other papyri. On page 183, Robinson dates PB XLIV to the tenth to twelfth century. It seems to me, that to include PB XLIV with the other papyri undermines the claim that they all come from a Pachomian monastery (for example see page 157 where he says the latest material that could be included in this library is from the seventh century). 4 E-mail correspondence between myself and Stasa Bibic September 11, 2016. Journal of Coptic Studies 20 (2018) 177–188 doi: 10.2143/JCS.20.0.3284659 © 2018 by Peeters. All rights reserved. 178 DANIEL B. SHARP This document is divided into two parts: (1) “Papyrus grecs –10.5.1957” and (2) “Papyrus et parchemins coptes 28.3.1957.” I questioned the Director, Vice-Director, Conservator, Research Collaborator, and many others at the Martin Bodmer Foundation, and no one had any knowledge of the origin or author of this list, nor of the 1971 list it references.5 Because the 1957 catalog survives only hypothetically through this laser- printed version from the last decades of the twentieth century, any recon‑ struction of the earliest papyrological holdings remains uncertain. In any case, nothing on this list of Coptic manuscripts of 19576 — or in Walter Till’s description of the Coptic contents of the Bodmer collection in 19597 — matches the description of PB XLII. Thus, although the timing of its exact acquisition cannot be confirmed at this time, Kasser’s claim that XLII was acquired at a different time than the rest of the Bodmer papyri appears reasonable. The Manuscript I have reconstructed the five surviving fragments of PB XLII into a single folio measuring 16 cm in height by 14.3 cm in width. The text is written in two columns, with a space of approximately 1.2 cm between the columns. The left margin is 1.4 cm. The right margin is too fragmentary to reconstruct with confidence but appears to be at least 1.4 cm as well. The dimensions of PB XLII would give the codex a somewhat “square” appearance, similar to the dimensions of parchment codices dating from the 2nd to the 8th centuries that Eric Turner assigns to group X.8 The manuscript is too fragmentary to make any meaningful comments about the original construction of the codex. Each column contains 24 lines of text. The text covers 2 Corinthi‑ ans 10:15 – 11:4 on the recto, and 2 Corinthians 11:4 – 11:12 on the verso. The verso is much paler, which indicates it is the flesh side of the parchment. 5 This list was stapled to a statement about the Bodmer Papyri by Odile Bongard, Martin Bodmer’s personal secretary — the same statement published by Charles Méla in his book Legends of the Centuries. Possibly, one of these two people is the source of this list of papyri. 6 The list contains descriptions of PB XVI, XVIII, VI, XL, XXIII, XXII, XIX, III and XLI (in that order). 7 Till, “Coptic Biblical Texts” 240. 8 Turner, Typology 28–29. P.BODMER XLII: 2 CORINTHIANS 10:15‑11:12 IN SAHIDIC 179 Dialect The text is written in Sahidic, and shares a number of features with PB XIX. Discussing PB XIX, Kasser states that it contains, “… a certain number of anomalies which are, perhaps, archaisms, or, again, the result of dialectal influences.”9 These anomalies include the tendency (although not the rule) to write ⲓ as ⲉⲓ when following a vowel.10 Thus the Coptic verb ⲁⲓⲁⲓ appears in PB XLII on the recto column 1 line 5 as ⲁⲉⲓⲁⲓ. This is also true in cases involving forms of the Coptic perfect verbal prefix, normally written ⲁⲓ. Thus, on the verso column 1 lines 20–21 PB XLII has ⲁⲉⲓⲉⲩⲁ[ⲅⲅⲉⲗⲓⲍ]ⲉ for the regular Sahidic reading of ⲁⲓⲉⲩⲁⲅⲅⲉⲗⲓⲍⲉ. Also, verso column 2 line 11 offers ⲁⲉⲓϩⲁⲣⲉϩ for ⲁⲓϩⲁⲣⲉϩ. This ten‑ dency continues with the circumstantial of the 1st perfect (on the verso column 1 lines 17–18 it reads ⲉⲁⲉⲓⲑⲂⲃⲓⲟⲉⲓ for ⲉⲁⲓⲑ⳰Ⲃⲃⲓⲟⲉⲓ), and the 2nd perfect (on the verso column 1 line 17 it reads PB XLII ⲡⲉⲛⲧⲁⲉⲓⲁⲁϥ instead of ⲡⲉⲛⲧⲁⲓⲁⲁϥ). As in PB XIX and other Sahidic texts, ⲉⲓ is sometimes written as ⲓ, thus ⲡϫⲟⲓⲥ for ⲡϫⲟⲉⲓⲥ11 and also ⲟⲩⲟⲓϣ for ⲟⲩⲟⲉⲓϣ.12 Another parallel between the features of PB XIX and PB XLII is that neither uses the regular Sahidic contraction of ⲑ for ⲧϩ. Thus, the normal Sahidic spelling Ⲙⲙ⳰Ⲛ⳰ⲧⲁⲑⲏⲧ is [ⲙⲙⲛ]ⲧⲁⲧϩⲏⲧ in this manuscript.13 Paleography The small portion of PB XLII that survives today is the work of a sin‑ gle scribe who writes in a biblical majuscule hand, although the variation in the thickness of strokes is less pronounced than in other examples of the biblical majuscule. For example, all strokes of the ⲙ and ⲛ are of roughly equal thickness, in contrast to the extremely thin diagonal strokes of these letters found in, for example, PB XIX. The horizontal bar of the ⲉ tends to be high, and a small ornamental mark appears at the end of thin lines, especially on the left end of the horizontal bar of the ⲧ. ⲣ, ⲩ and ϥ all descend below the baseline. Many of these traits are character‑ istic of writing samples that Pasquale Orsini places in his “second phase” 9 “… un certain nombre d’anomalies, qui sont, peut-être, des archaïsmes, ou, encore, le résultat d’influences dialectales” (Kasser, Papyrus Bodmer XIX 26). 10 Ibid. 11 Recto column 1 line 21, but also ⲡϫⲟⲉⲓⲥ on Recto column 1 line 16–17. 12 Verso column 1 line 14. This example also happens in P. Bodmer XIX, see Kasser, P. Bodmer XIX 28. 13 Recto column 2 line 2. 180 DANIEL B. SHARP of the Coptic biblical majuscule, dating between the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the sixth.14 There are seven examples of punctuation used to indicate transitions in this text: three examples of a high-dot, and four of a mid-dot. The first high-dot appears on the recto column 1 line 23, and indicates the large division between chapters 10 and 11. The second high-dot, which appears on the verso column 1 line 16, marks the end of verse 6 and the start of verse 7. The final example, on the verso column 2 line 20, marks the transition between verses 11 and 12. The first example of a mid-dot appears on the recto column 1 line 20, indicating a minor break in verse 18. The second is on the recto column 2 line 16, corresponding to a minor break in 2 Corinthians 11:3. The third, on the verso column 2 line 3, marks the transition from verse 8 to verse 9. The final mark, on the verso column 2 line 10, corresponds to a minor break in 2 Corinthians 11:10.15 In addition, the scribe sometimes uses spacing to indicate transitions: On the recto column 1 line 17, the significant space after ϫⲟⲉⲓⲥ corre‑ sponds to the end of verse 17. There is also a space (along with the high- dot noted above) at the transition between chapters on the recto column 1 line 23. Overall, the breaks in this text correspond to fifteen modern verse breaks. Of the extant six verses that do not begin in a lacuna or as the first word of a line, five have either some punctuation mark, a larger than nor‑ mal space, or both.