Saucy to Princes 
Gerald Hammond
- The Book: A History of the Bible by Christopher de Hamel
- The Wycliffe New Testament 1388 edited by W.R. Cooper
Julia Kristeva was in Manchester in March to give a lecture. One of the pleasures of her visit, for me, the day after the lecture and en route to the Manchester United superstore, was to accompany her on a tour of the Deansgate branch of the John Rylands University Library. Mrs Rylands, the extraordinary founder of the collection, was particularly keen on Bibles, and among the many Biblical treasures is a tiny triangular fragment of the text of St John’s Gospel, catalogued as Gr. Pap. 457. A reasonably reliable dating of the fragment is c.125, making it the earliest surviving witness to the New Testament. It was the first time Kristeva had seen the fragment and perhaps the tenth time I had, but I doubt that our sense of wonder was any different. There, in its portable transparent box, was the earliest relic of the Book.
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Gerald Hammond’s books include The Making of the English Bible and Fleeting Things: English Poets and Poems 1616-60. He is John Edward Taylor Professor of English Literature at the University of Manchester.
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