Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1 (P. Oxy. 1) is a papyrus fragment of the logia of Jesus written in Greek (Logia Iesou). It was among the first of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri discovered by Grenfell and Hunt. It was discovered on the second day of excavation, 12 January 1897, in the garbage mounds in the Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus. The fragment is dated to the early half of the 3rd century. Grenfell and Hunt originally dated the fragment between 150-300, but "probably not written much later than the year 200." It was later discovered to be the oldest manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas.

The manuscript was written on papyrus in codex form. The measurements of the original leaf were 140–148 by 90–95 millimetres (5.5–5.8 by 3.5–3.7 in). The text is written in uncial letters, with one column per page and 21 lines per page, in a reformed documentary hand. The last line is fragmented. There is a pagination at the upper right corner (number ΙΑ = 11 on the verso). The nomina sacra are written in an abbreviated way (ΙΣ, ΘΥ, ΠΡΑ, ΑΝΩΝ).

According to Grenfell and Hunt, who identified this fragment only as Logia Iesu ("Sayings of Jesus"), the original manuscript contained a collection of Jesus's sayings, which were independent of the four Gospels in their present form. They classified it as non-heretical and placed the origin of its sayings as earlier than 140 A.D. They observed some parallels with the works of Clement of Alexandria.

Grenfell and Hunt did not realize they had discovered part of the Gospel of Thomas, as at the time there was no reference text. The only complete copy of the Gospel of Thomas was found in 1945 when a Coptic version was discovered at Nag Hammadi with a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts, and it was only after that discovery that the text of Oxyrhynchus Papyri I was able to be attributed.

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