appearance in the Liber Pontificalis is the result of a scribal error, based on a theory proposed by German scholar Adolf von Harnack. Von Harnack argued that King Lucius was actually King Abgar VIII of Edessa and the mix up was due to a scribal error. Von Harnack then suggested that a scribe had used Agbar's middle name of Lucius, and had mistakenly described him as King of ‘Britanio' (e.g. Britain) instead of 'Britio', a citadel of Edessa, present day Şanlıurfa in Turkey. Harnack's proposal has been more recently challenged by British archaeologist David J. Knight. In his book 'King Lucius of Britain', Knight argues that Abgar of Edessa was never called Lucius of Britio/Birtha in contemporary sources, and that to call Lucius King of a 'Citadel' (eg Britio) is non-sensical. Furthermore, Agbar was only granted additional his Latin names; Lucius Aelius Septeimus, sometimes after 193 AD, several years after Lucius' conversion. Knight therefore argues for accepting the traditional identification of Lucius as a British ruler. British Sources For centuries the story of this "first Christian king" was widely believed, especially in Britain, where it was considered an accurate account of Christianity among the early Britons. During the English Reformation, the Lucius story was used in polemics by both Catholics and Protestants; Catholics considered it evidence of papal supremacy from a very early date, while Protestants used it to bolster claims of the primacy of a British national church founded by the crown. The English monk Bede included the Lucius story in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, completed in 731. He may have heard it from a contemporary who had been to Rome, such as Nothhelm. Bede adds the detail that Lucius' new faith was thereafter adopted by his people, who maintained it until the Diocletianic Persecution. Following Bede, versions of the Lucius story appeared in Nennius's 9th-century Historia Brittonum, and in 12th-century works such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, and the Book of Llandaff. The most influential of these accounts was Geoffrey's, which emphasizes Lucius' virtues and gives a detailed, if fanciful, account of the spread of Christianity during his reign. In his version, Lucius is the son of the benevolent King Coilus and rules in the manner of his father. Hearing of the miracles and good works performed by Christian disciples, he writes to Pope Eleutherius asking for