One of the oldest books in existence, which comprises what is maybe the oldest complete versions of Jonah and 1 Peter, goes up for auction in June. The sale of the Crosby-Schøyen Codex has scholars excited to discuss its uniqueness—and nervous about whether it could go into private hands and disappear.
The Crosby-Schøyen Codex is a primary example of the invention of books, which coincided with the spread of Christianity, said Eugenio Donadoni, a specialist in books and manuscripts at Christie’s London, which is auctioning the codex. The growth of Christianity spurred the necessity to “maximize the text you possibly can write down and transmit … across the Mediterranean,” Donadoni said.
Before codices appeared in roughly the third century, scrolls “for several thousand years were the first vehicle for transmitting literature,” said Brent Nongbri, an authority in early Christian manuscripts and a professor on the Norwegian School of Theology.
Codices were a technological advancement that “that wouldn’t be surpassed until the invention of the printing press,” Donadoni added. Donadoni just finished touring the codex for potential buyers in New York and Paris before returning it to London, where it would be auctioned on June 11. About the codex he said, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
A single scribe wrote out the texts of the codex on papyrus leaves in Sahidic Coptic somewhere between A.D. 250 and 350, in accordance with carbon dating of the codex conducted in 2020. That means it’s likely the text was written before the late-fourth-century councils, when the canon of Scripture began to be established.
“This is getting used at a time when Christians are still finding their feet,” said Donadoni.
The codex comprises Jonah, 1 Peter, a passage from 2 Maccabees, a Passover text from second-century church leader Melito of Sardis, and an Easter sermon.
New Testament scholar David Horrell has argued that these different texts within the codex relate to one another in how they discuss suffering and resurrection, and could have been an Easter liturgy. Melito’s text on the Passover talks about Christ because the Passover lamb and uses parallel language to 1 Peter. Jonah, some scholars argue, was a serious figure in early Christianity in Egypt and repeatedly appeared in Christian art there.
Horrell notes Jonah’s “perceived relevance as a variety of the Easter story, an indication of resurrection, notably within the ‘three days and three nights’ Jonah spends contained in the fish.” The Maccabees text, focused on martyrdom, goes together with that liturgical theme of the suffering of each Christ and God’s people.
“We can slip into pondering that there’s just the New Testament—this particular collection of books—and that’s what everybody was reading,” said Nongbri. “But once we get back into this early period, there’s actually different collections circulating. And this one is an interesting group of texts and allows us to assume, What would have this been used for? … What type of liturgical use might this have had?”
The codex comes from the private collection of Norwegian Martin Schøyen, who has considered one of the biggest collections of biblical texts. Some of the opposite largest biblical-text reserves are the Green Collection behind the Museum of the Bible and the British and Foreign Bible Society collection at Cambridge.
Museums and personal collectors have had issues with ancient items’ provenance, like whether or not they were looted. The codex has a documented provenance and was a legal export out of Egypt, although the story of its original discovery is “open for debate,” said Nongbri. Yet Donadoni says there may be “general consensus” that the codex was found near a specific monastic complex in Egypt.
The codex was buried in a jar in sand, in accordance with the collector. An antiquities dealer first placed it available on the market within the Nineteen Fifties, and it will definitely went to the University of Mississippi in 1955, which had a big archaeology department on the time. The university sold it in 1981, after which it passed to personal collectors.
If the codex was from the sooner end of its carbon dating between 250 and 350, that will make it the oldest book, including the oldest copies of 1 Peter and Jonah. William Willis, an early scholar studying the codex, argued that “it could be dated with some confidence to the center of the third century,” or 250.
But if it was produced at a monastery, then it likely got here on the later end of the carbon-dating window, in accordance with Nongbri, because monasteries took off within the fourth century.
Other scholars have argued that it might have been produced earlier and stored on the monastery where it was later discovered. Horrell, for one, argued the codex was produced before the monastery was founded.
Is it the oldest book in existence?
“It might be,” said Nongbri. “But it is not certain.”
In the codex, the 1 Peter text is described as “the letter of Peter” and doesn’t make any reference to 2 Peter. The Schøyen Collection says which means it was copied in A.D. 60–130, making it the “single most vital [manuscript] of 1 Peter.”
Christie’s estimates the codex will sell for $2.5 to $3.75 million. Last yr the Codex Sassoon, considered the oldest near-complete Hebrew Bible, broke records for the sale of a book or historical document when it sold at auction for $38.1 million.
Scholars worry about where the codex will find yourself.
“There’s at all times the fear when something goes up on the market … it could go behind doors that will make it hard for researchers to access it,” said Jordan Jones, an authority in biblical texts and archaeology on the University of Iowa.
Nongbri concurred: “We just worry about it disappearing.”
Nongbri and Donadoni each noted that the Schøyen Collection allowed scholars in to review the codex, with the carbon-dating study as probably the most recent example. The Schøyen Collection had photographed the codex, and Christie’s also photographed and digitized it.
But there may be more research to conduct on it with newer imaging tools. Jones noted how multispectral imaging, for instance, helped researchers see words nobody had seen on the Dead Sea Scrolls. That hasn’t been done on the codex, he said.
“Researchers would have a field day [with the codex] in the event that they got a probability,” Jones said. “These pages are in a greater state of legibility than the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
Multispectral imaging could show any changes made to the text, equivalent to whether there was initially a special word under the visible word, Jones explained. He also said there might be more studies on the way in which the codex was sure.
“There’s definitely more to have a look at from a form of book history standpoint,” said Nongbri. “Certainly multispectral imaging could be great.”
Donadoni from Christie’s London said he’s hoping an establishment steps in to purchase the codex. The auction will include other biblical texts: the Holkham Hebrew Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus, and the Geraardsbergen Bible. In the Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus, the Gospels were written in fifth-century Christian Palestinian Aramaic that was largely erased and written over by a tenth-century Georgian Palestinian monk.
Scholars of those texts might be watching the auction on June 11—and hope that they may know who the customer is afterward. Sometimes buyers usually are not disclosed.
Nongbri said any major university that has a papyrus collection has the right conditions for storing the codex, the personnel to take care of it, and the systems for academics to review it.
“That’s the perfect setting for something like this,” he said.
