Current Edition: DCLP 62077 (P.Oxy. 11 1384); TM 62077

Introduction

Medical recipes with theological extracts (P.Oxy. XI 1384). The text is written per fibras on the recto of a papyrus sheet (15.4 x 30.2 cm). The lower part of the fragment is practically complete, but in the upper part nearly all the right-hand half is missing. A vertical kollesis is visible in the middle of the sheet. Four different textual sections are separated by paragraphoi and introduced by staurograms; a coronis occurs at l. 22. The beginning and the end of the text consist of medical recipes: the first for a purge (ll. 1-14), the other for curing strangury and wounds (ll. 30-6). The middle portion is taken up with two theological extracts, apparently derived from an uncanonical gospel or a fictitious tale (ll. 15-22) and from a (Jewish?) apocalyptic work (ll. 23-9). They have evidently been inserted on account of their medical interest; the link connecting these healing legends ( historiolae ) with the medical prescriptions is probably not so much the mention of the olive-oil and myrrh as relieving sickness, and the sponge as relieving the eyes, but in the implied virtue of an appeal by name to the Trinity and to Jehovah Sabaoth. The handwriting is a rather large, irregular semiuncial, showing numerous mistakes of spelling. It is datable to the 5th or 6th cent. AD.

(This papyrus has been digitally edited by Luca Iori as part of the Project "DIGMEDTEXT - Online Humanities Scholarship: A Digital Medical Library based on Ancient Texts" (ERC-AdG-2013, Grant Agreement no. 339828) funded by the European Research Council at the University of Parma (Principal Investigator: Prof. Isabella Andorlini). The digital edition is mostly based on the previous editions (ed.pr. = B.P. Grenfell - A.S. Hunt, P.Oxy. XI 1384; ed.alt. = K. Preisendanz, PGM II Christliches 7; ed.ter. = R: Mazza, "Annali di Storia dell'Esegesi" 24, 2007, 437-62). Revised by Nicola Reggiani in the framework of the PRIN 2017 Project "Greek and Latin Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman and Late Antique Fayum (4th BC – 7th AD): Texts, Contexts, Readers" funded by the Italian Ministry of Research (P.I. Prof. Lucio Del Corso, University of Cassino; Local Research Unit at the University of Parma, coordinator: Prof. Nicola Reggiani).)