I have elsewhere discussed the relations of Photius' gospel citations with the Greek manuscript tradition and the evidence of the versions.2 The conclusion of that discussion is that Photius' text of the Fourth Gospel is closely akin to the group of manuscripts headed by Codex Nanianus (U) and the minuscule 213 (von Soden's Io Group) and to the old Georgian version.

As is well known the punctuation of the saying of Jesus contained in these two verses presents some difficulty. The alternatives are as follows:

(1) A full stop is placed after πιντω. This punctuation is adopted by A.V. and R.V. and is presupposed by Origen, Cyril ofJerusalem, Basil, and Athanasius. The recently published Pap. Bodmer II of the early third century, which exhibits a text of the ‘Neutral’ type and which presumably originated in Egypt, also supports this punctuation.

The vigorous discussion to which the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has given rise has usually proceeded on the assumption that documents such as the Manual of Discipline and the War Scroll represent specific nd distinctive teachings of the Qumrân Community. If this is so, we are in possession of an important witness to the life and thought of one relatively small segment of first-century Judaism. But is the horizon of the scrolls necessarily so limited? There are at least two alternatives. (a) Assuming that the Qumrân Community were Essenes, Essenism may still be regarded, even after Qumrân, as a widespread phenomenon with many varied modes of expression, of which the Community at Qumrân was but one. Its library then lets us look at an Essenism which did not come into existence when the buildings at Qumrân were erected, nor perish with their destruction. (b) Even though the documents themselves are sectarian and Essene, many of the ideas contained in them may well have been the objects of common belief outside the sect and outside the wider areas of Essenism. If the type of thought which the Dead Sea Scrolls represent was widely diffused among the general population, we have in these parchments an entry, not into the mind of a small company of recluses alone, but into an important phase of religious thought in the Judaism of the Graeco-Roman period. Should this prove to be true, we shall be able with more confidence to get behind the transforming effect of two unsuccessful revolts against Roman rule, and to see more clearly the true features of popular religion before the wars.