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It's a letter that a man sent to his brother. The document is considered to be older than any previously known Christian documentary evidence from Roman Egypt
Scientists from the University of Basel, Switzerland, have identified the oldest Christian private letter and call it "P.Bas 2.43", according to a statement released today by the institution .
The letter, dated 230 AD, provides information on the early Christian world of the Roman Empire and is older than any Christian documentary evidence on Roman Egypt.
The content of papyrus indicates that Christians were already at the beginning of the third century far from the cities of the Egyptian interior, where they badumed functions of political leadership and in their daily lives were not distinguishable from their pagan environment.
Thus, according to the EFE agency, the information challenges the idea that the early Christians of the Roman Empire would be portrayed as eccentric and persecuted peoples.
The papyrus, which belongs to the University of Basel for over 100 years, includes a letter sent by Arrianus to his brother Paulus and "underlines," according to the statement, the other letters received from Greco-Roman Egypt for its formula Final Greeting: "I pray that you are well, in the" Lord ", using an abbreviated spelling at the end.
"Using this abbreviation, we are talking about a nomen sacrum, leaves no doubt about the Christian's sense of authorship," says Sabine Huebner, a professor of ancient history at the University of Toronto. 39, University of Basel.
"Pablo is a very strange name at this time, and it can be deduced that the parents mentioned in the letter were already Christians and that they had given their son the name of the Apostle 200 after Christ," explains Huebner.
In addition, the letter provides details of the social origins of this early Christian family: the two brothers were educated young sons of the local elite, landlords and officials.
The papyrus comes from the city of Theadelphia (Egypt) and belongs to Heroninos, the largest papyrus archive of Roman times, the statement concluded.
The University of Basel is one of the first German universities and the first in German-speaking Switzerland to create a collection of papyrus in the early twentieth century.
At that time, the study of the papyrus was a flourishing discipline and it was hoped to draw some information on the evolution of early Christianity.
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