Rylands Library Papyrus P52

Papyrus ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁵²

New Testament manuscript papyri uncials minuscules lectionaries
The Rylands Papyrus 52 at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England
Text	John 18:31–33, 18:37–38
Date	125–175 (Recent research points to a date nearer to 200 AD))
Script	Greek
Found	Egypt
Now at	John Rylands University Library
Cite	C. H. Roberts, "An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John Rylands Library" (Manchester University Press, 1935)
Size	8.9 cm x 6 cm
Type	not ascertainable
Category	I

The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St. John's fragment and with an accession reference of Papyrus Rylands Greek 457, is a fragment from a papyrus codex, measuring only 3.5 by 2.5 inches (8.9 by 6 cm) at its widest; and conserved with the Rylands Papyri at the John Rylands University Library Manchester, UK. The front (recto) contains parts of seven lines from the Gospel of John 18:31–33, in Greek, and the back (verso) contains parts of seven lines from verses 37–38. Since 2007, the papyrus has been on permanent display in the library's Deansgate building.

Although Rylands ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁵² is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament text, the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among scholars. The original editor proposed a date range of 90-150 CE; while a recent exercise by Pasquale Orsini and Willy Clarysse, aiming to generate consistent revised date estimates for all New Testament papyri written before the mid-fourth century, has proposed a date for ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {P}}}$⁵² of 125-175 CE. But a few scholars say that considering the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic evidence allows the possibility of dates outside these range estimates, such that "any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries."