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The missing page had been a fascinating mystery for scholars and historians.

(Oxford, U.K.)—In 410 AD a scribe in Edessa (modern day Turkey) penned a list of martyrs who had perished in Persia. Somehow, over time, that particular page became detached from a book on martyrs which, since 1840, has been stored at the British Library.

Reporter Andrew Johnson says that the missing page has always been a fascinating mystery for scholars and historians and now, after an extraordinary piece of detective work, that page has been rediscovered among ancient fragments in the Deir al-Surian monastery in Egypt.

It is, according to Oxford University's Dr Sebastian Brock, the oldest dated Christian text in existence.

"It is a list of martyrs and it must have been added to the main book at the last minute," he said. "There were three fragments from the last page. It was a distinctive handwriting, and it was very exciting to identify it. It is very important to complete the book. Many of the names on this list we have not come across before. So it gives us a lot of clues about that half of that century. Rome at the time was officially Christian, so the rival Persians would have persecuted Christians."

Used by Permission of Breaking Christian News www.breakingchristiannews.com / Source: Andrew Johnson - AINA/Independent

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