A letter believed to date back to around 230 A.D. is bringing greater understanding to the lives of Christians at that time.

Researchers who have studied the letter say it is at least 40 to 50 years older than any other known Christian letter that has been documented outside of the Bible. At 1,700-years-old, the papyrus letter is considered a rare find.

The document, known as P.Bas 2.43, is thought to have originated in central Egypt, in the village of Theadelphia, reports Joy! News.

In it, readers are given a glimpse into the Roman Empire through the eyes of a man named Arrianus. He is writing to his brother, Paulus, and faith, politics, and food are discussed throughout.

Researchers think that his brother may have been named after the Apostle Paul, a revealing fact because it shows that the parents of Paulus and Arrianus were Christians who could have named their son as early as 200 AD.

The brothers were educated and believed to be well-known for being sons of local elites, landowners, and public officials.

Sabine Huebner is a professor of ancient history in Switzerland at the University of Basel, the location where the document is kept. She says Christians were often viewed and displayed as eccentric individuals "who withdrew from the world and were threatened by persecution.

“The letter contains indications that in the early third century, Christians were living outside the cities in the Egyptian hinterland," she says, "where they held political leadership positions and did not differ from their pagan environment in their everyday lives.”

Huebner, who will publish a monograph containing a copy of the letter, says that this letter is special when compared to others from time because of an abbreviation used by the author in the letter's final phrase.

“I pray that you fare well ‘in the Lord'" contains a nomen sacrum, a type of abbreviation. Huebner says it "leaves no doubt about the Christian beliefs of the letter writer.

“It is an exclusively Christian formula that we are familiar with from New Testament manuscripts.” 

The full text of the letter reads:

“Greetings, my lord, my incomparable brother Paulus. I, Arrianus, salute you, praying that all is as well as possible in your life.

“[Since] Menibios was going to you, I thought it necessary to salute you as well as our Lord Father. Now, I remind you about the gymnasiarchy, so that we are not troubled here. For Heracleides would be unable to take care of it: he has been named to the city council. Find thus an opportunity that you buy the two [–] arouras.

“But send me the fish liver sauce too, whichever you think is good. Our lady mother is well and salutes you as well as your wives and sweetest children and our brothers and all our people. Salute our brothers [-]genes and Xydes. All our people salute you.

“I pray that you fare well in the Lord.”