Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyFor all of Christianity’s influence today, the archeological evidence for the first two centuries of the religion’s existence is notoriously thin. This is why the publication of a previously unknown second-century fragment of early Christian writing this week is so significant. Written before the formation of a New Testament or even the widespread recognition of a collection of Christian sacred scripture, this fragmentary page from a
Papyrologists date the fragment to the second century CE, making it one of the earliest examples of Christian writing, even before the formation of the New Testament.