The Church Fathers · c. 150–200; survives in one leaf
The Oxyrhynchus Gospel Fragment
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840
Anonymous
What it is
A miniature parchment leaf, small enough to be worn as an amulet. A chief priest challenges Jesus for entering the temple court unwashed, and Jesus answers that the priest has bathed in water dogs and pigs lie in, while he and his disciples have been washed in living water from heaven.
Why it lasted
The sharpest surviving non-canonical exchange on purity, and evidence that Christians carried gospel texts on their bodies as protective objects by the third century.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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