What do the early papyri add to our understanding of the textual heritage of the Catholic Epistles other than their early dates? I submit that the answer is ‘But little’, and even to emphasize their early dates is deceptive . . . In conclusion, we need to ask why it is that the papyri are privileged by most textual critics and editors of an apparatus criticus. Who first promoted their supremely great authority? . . . Some papyri have obviously achieved their greatness just because of their age, and thereby allowing an insight into a tantalizing period in the life the text preceding the time of the great uncials and often problematizing the nature of their text. They are like elder statesmen basking in their own longevity, revered as custodians of an otherwise lost link to the distant past. But most papyri have had their greatness thrust upon them, whatever the dates allocated to them by palaeographers (and a significant number of papyri are indeed later than the fifth century), partly because they are all of recent discovery, thus making their arrival on a scholar’s radar relatively newsworthy, partly because most are published soon after they are unearthed so gaining for themselves a popularity due to their being quickly in the public domain, and partly because the gullible believe that there is an unwarranted magic associated with their having been written on papyrus.

The Early Text of the Catholic Epistles by J. K. Elliott in The Early Text of the New Testament, eds. Charles E. Hill & Michael J. Kruger, 223-224.