Papyrus P125: 1 Peter 1:23–2:5 and 2:7–12 in a Greek Witness

The leaf was excavated at Oxyrhynchus in the Grenfell and Hunt campaigns of 1896–1907 and retained within the Egypt Exploration Society collection. Juan Chapa published it in 2009 in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri volume LXXIII, pages 17–22, after which it entered the Gregory-Aland register as P125. Current catalogues associate it with Oxford’s Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library or Ashmolean custody under P.Oxy. 4934. The excavation origin is secure at city level, but the accessible documentation does not connect this leaf to a specific household, church, rubbish stratum, named reader, or dated documentary archive.

One fragmentary papyrus codex leaf survives, presently about 15 by 9.5 centimeters, from an estimated original page near 22 by 13.5 centimeters. It is written in a single column, with roughly twenty-two visible lines and about thirty reconstructed lines per page, normally nineteen to twenty-four characters per line. The reformed documentary or severe-style hand uses common sacred-name abbreviations but little or no punctuation. Broken outer edges remove text, including 1 Peter 2:6 between the surviving sides. The relatively substantial leaf allows study of spelling, abbreviation, layout, and repeated scribal practice beyond a handful of isolated letters.

Chapa and the principal registries date P125 to the late third or early fourth century through palaeography. No colophon supplies a year. It is roughly contemporary with P72, the other early papyrus that supports the Christ reading at 1 Peter 2:3, although independent dates and distinct provenance histories prevent treating them as a single copying event. The leaf belongs to early Christian codex culture at Oxyrhynchus and shows 1 Peter in circulation there. It does not reveal whether its lost volume contained 1 Peter alone, the Catholic Epistles, or a broader apostolic collection, nor whether its exemplar originated locally.