Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1 (P. Oxy. 1) is an early manuscript fragment discovered during archaeological excavations at Oxyrhynchus, an ancient city in Egypt. It was published in 1898 as the first entry in the series The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, a collection of thousands of papyrus fragments unearthed by British papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt between 1896 and 1907.
This particular fragment contains a portion of the Gospel of Thomas, a non-canonical sayings gospel attributed to the apostle Thomas. The text is written in Greek and dates to the late 2nd or early 3rd century CE, based on paleographic analysis. It is among the earliest known witnesses to the sayings of Jesus found outside the New Testament.
The fragment consists of a partial manuscript on papyrus, preserving several logia (sayings) attributed to Jesus, including versions similar to those found in the canonical Gospels and others unique to the Gospel of Thomas. Its discovery was significant in the study of early Christian literature and the development of alternative gospel traditions.
P. Oxy. 1 is housed in the library of the University of Oxford, part of the larger Oxyrhynchus Papyri collection. Its publication helped stimulate interest in early Christian apocrypha and the textual diversity of early Christianity.
The site of Oxyrhynchus, located about 160 kilometers south of Cairo, was a major administrative center in Roman Egypt and a rich source of papyrological material due to the dry climate, which preserved organic materials for centuries.