Papyrus P35: Matthew 25:12–15 and 20–23

The 4CARE archaeological manuscript database identifies Oxyrhynchus as the findspot and records the present Laurenziana inventory number 13725. The text was published as the first item in Papiri Greci e Latini, hence PSI I 1, and subsequently entered the Gregory-Aland register as P35. Those identifiers document a real chain from excavation-era publication to modern library custody, but the accessible catalogues do not recover the papyrus's ancient owner, room, church, or discarded book deposit. Its modern location in Florence must therefore not be confused with its place of copying. The manuscript can responsibly be described as found at Oxyrhynchus and held by the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; claims about the congregation that used it, the scribe's identity, or a precise route from excavation to accession would exceed the verified record.

The surviving object is a single papyrus codex fragment written in Greek, one column to a page, with eleven extant lines on each face. Broken upper, lower, and side edges remove most of the original leaf, so printed transcriptions necessarily distinguish visible ink from editorial restoration. The two faces preserve noncontinuous parts of one chapter because intervening lines have been physically lost, not because the scribe created a devotional excerpt. Letter forms, spacing, line length, orthography, and any corrections can be compared with other manuscripts even where the words follow the familiar sequence. The fragment's modest size also disciplines interpretation: it reveals a portion of one copying event but cannot establish the original codex's complete contents, number of quires, page dimensions, or whether Matthew circulated alone or with other Gospels.

The date is assigned by comparison of handwriting, not by a colophon, archaeological coin, or radiocarbon test. CSNTM labels the manuscript 'possible fourth century,' while broader current listings and the history of palaeographic reassessment allow a fourth-to-sixth-century range. Orsini and Clarysse specifically excluded P35 from the corpus they considered securely earlier than AD 350, an important caution against presenting an early estimate as settled. The appropriate public label is therefore late antique, with the competing ranges stated. In every proposed date the fragment belongs to a mature period of Christian codex production in Egypt, when Matthew was already widely transmitted. Its Egyptian findspot provides context for reception of the Gospel, but it neither dates the composition of Matthew nor identifies the exemplar used by this copyist.