The non-literary papyri, then, reproduce for us the spoken language of the time as distinguished from the artificial language of literature. But that does not exhaust their importance. They afford a knowledge not only of language, but also of life. Through them ordinary people are revealed in the ordinary relations of every day. In them, the ancient world has been made to live again.
A few examples (see the book of Professor Milligan mentioned at the end of the lesson) will serve to indicate the character of the papyrus letters.
The following boy's letter (of the second or the third century after Christ) is written in very bad grammar, but is for that reason all the more lifelike. (The translation is taken from Grenfell and Hunt, "Oxyrhynchus Papyri," Part i., p. 186.)
"Theon to his father Theon, greeting. It was a fine thing of you not to take me with you to the city! If you won't take me with you to Alexandria I won't write you a letter or speak to you or say good-by to you; and if you go to Alexandria I won't take your hand nor ever greet you again. That is what will happen if you won't take me. Mother said to Archalaus, 'It quite upsets him to be left behind (?).' It was good of you to send me presents ... on the 12th, the day you sailed. Send me a lyre, I implore you. If you don't, I won't eat, I won't drink; there now!"
The following invitation to dinner, of the second century after Christ, throws light upon I Corinthians (the translation taken from Professor Milligan):
"Antonius, son of Ptolemæus, invites you to dine with him at the table of the lord Serapis in the house of Claudius Serapion on the 16th at 9 o'clock."
"The lord Serapis" is a god. Even an ordinary dinner party seems thus to be regarded as the table of Serapis. Under such conditions the Christian life must have been hard to lead. No wonder the Corinthian Christians had to ask Paul questions. Even the ordinary affairs of life were intimately connected with a false religion. What should the attitude of the Christians be? Where should they draw the line in associating with their heathen friends?
The people that are introduced to us so intimately in the papyri are probably very fair representatives of the people among whom the gospel was first proclaimed. In that cosmopolitan age the society of Egyptian towns was probably not so very different from that of Corinth. The people of the papyri are not the great men of the time; they are just plain folk. But the early Christians were also usually not of exalted social position, though there were exceptions. "Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble" were called. I Cor. 1:26. Many of the early Christians were slaves, many were humble tradesmen. The same classes appear in the papyri. In the papyri we are introduced into the private lives of the men to whom the gospel was proclaimed. Seeing, but unseen, hidden as by a magic cap, we watch them in their most intimate affairs. And we come away with a new feeling of the reality of early Christian history. These men were not so very different from ourselves. They were real men and women, living in a real world. And they needed a real gospel.