"To your protection we flee, holy Mother of God: | do not despise our prayers in [our] needs, | but deliver us from all dangers, | glorious and blessed Virgin."

ὑ]πὸ [τὴν σὴν εὐσπλαγχνίαν

      καταφε[ύγομεν θεοτόκε:

τὰ[ς ἡμῶν ἱκεσίας:

μὴ παρεἰδης ἐμ πειστάσει:

ἀλλ' ἐκ κινδύνου ῥῦσαι ἡμας / /

μόνη ἁ[γνὴ μόνη εὐλογ[ημένη.

     A papyrus (John Rylands Papyrus 470) dated by some to the early fourth but "often" to the "third century or even earlier", according to Maxwell E. Johnson, "Sub tuum praesidium:  the Theotokos in Christian life and worship before Ephesus," Pro ecclesia 17, no. 1 (Winter 2008):  62 ff. (52-74), citing, among other works of scholarship, C.H. Roberts, Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Rylands Library Manchester, Volume III, Theological and Literary Texts (Nos. 457-551) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1938).  Johnson's article is notable on other grounds as well, for example for placing "the origins of th[e earliest Marian] feast within the earliest days of Christianity itself" (74, 70 ff.).