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>> (choir singing) >> "the angel gabriel was sent from god to a city of galilee named..." >> narrator: every sunday, in every corner of the world... >> "...the virgin, betrothed to a man whose name..." >> narrator: ...people gather to hear a story. >> "...and the virgin's name was mary." >> narrator: for more than 2,000 years, that story has been told and retold. >> "...and to bear a son." >> narrator: along the way, each generation has found in its telling its own meaning and interpretation. >> "'...you shall call his name jesus...'"

>> narrator: that story, of a man called jesus of nazareth, a man who became jesus christ, was orinally told by his fir llowers... >> "'...and be called the son of the most high.'" >> narrator: ...and then retold in accounts by later believers in the gospels. >> "the gospel according to st. luke." >> narrator: so began the building of a religion. now it is our turn, with the help of scholars and historians, theologians and archaeologists, to return to that time and use our best efforts to undetand that story... of a man born in obscurity in whose name a faith was made.

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jo ann hagler. additional funding for this program was provided by the arthur vining davis foundations. (crowdhanting and cheering in background) >> narrator: in the roman coliseum, death became mass entertainment. amphitheaters demonstrated the power of the emperor. convicted criminals were sent here to be devoured by wild beasts. in time, those "criminals" would include christians.

ever since the time of caesar augustus, all religions were tolerated by rome, provided that their worshippers performed their civic duty and sacrificed to the cult of the emperor. it was this that eventually brought christians into conflict with roman authority. but at the end of the first century, christianitwas still the religion of a few. the roman empire was overwhelmingly pagan, and it seemed impossible to imagine that the teachings of obscure ct could challenge its influence. >> religion in the ancient world is very much a part of public life. they had no idea of a separation of religion and state. >> paganism is the rich, native,

religious stew of traditional society in the mediterranean. it's a spiritual universe that's thickly populated with gods and spirits. when you look up into the stars at night, you see the souls of heroes. >> narrator: paganism was very tolerant of other religions. the olympian gods were revered, but this did not prevent their devotees worshipping other gods. >> you have low-tech religions like magic. people routinely go to magicians. if you have a sinus infection, if you need somebody to fall in love with you, if you are betting on a horse and you've lost the past three races, you go to a professional. >> narrator: at the same time, more and more people were eking solace in more spiritual and personal forms of religion. a fresco in pompeii shows

worshippers celebrating the solemn rites of the ancient dionysian mystery cult. and newer cults, often from foreign parts, were taking hold around the empire. >> (dramatiz): greatest of the gods, first of names, thou rulest over the mid-air and the immeasurable space. thou art the lady of light and flame. >> one would have found, in the major cities of the mediterranean basin, a cult of the egyptian gods. yptian cults would have included, probably, isis as the ascendant deity. isis was perceived by her devotees as being remarkably attentive. isis would respond to you when yowere in trouble. she would answer your prayers. she had that reputation.

one of the most important representations of isis is what we call the "isis laans"; that's isis suckling her offspring at her breast. this is a kind of iconography that appears to have been terribly determinative in the early iconography of mary and jesus. >> narrator: worshippers of the age-old persian god mithras gathered in secret chapels throughout the empire. they would eat sacred meals together and celebrate their god's birthday on december 25. >> the egyptian cult and mithraism were two of the great religious movements of the time and certainly would have posed some of the most difficult competition for christianity. >> most people who study the origins of christianity are curious about how this unlikely movement would have succeeded in such a powerful and dramatic way. and it's not an easy question to

answer, why this movement succeeded when others did t. if you think about the gods of the ancient world and you think about what they looked like, they looked like the emperor and his court. but this religion is saying that every person-- man, woman, child, slave, barbarian, no matter who-- is made in the image of god, and is therefore of enormous value in the eyes of god. now, in a society that's three- quarters slave, that's an extraordinary message. >> narrator: but the message of christianity was by no means uniform. in egypt, an astonishing discovery made in 1945 shed light on the enormous diversity of early christian thought. >> other than the discovery of the dead sea scrolls, the most

important archaeological find for much of the early christian period is the manuscript discovery at nag hammadi on the nile river in egypt. there, in 1945, was discovered a cache of manuscripts in clay jars buried in the hillside beside the river. >> the discovery at nag hammadi began with an arab villager, whose name was mohammed ali, going with his brothers on an ordinary errand. they took their camels and rode up to a cliff which is honeycombed with thousands of caves. they were digging under the cliffs for fertilizer, that is for bird droppings, which fertilized the crops. and mohammed ali said his... he struck something when he was digging underground. and curious, he kept digging, and he was startled to find a

six-foot jar, sealed, and next to it was buried a corpse. mohammed ali said he hesitated to break the jar because he thought there might be a jinn in it. but hope overcame fear. he said he picked up his mattock and smashed the jar and saw paicles of gold fly out of it, much to his delight. but a moment later, he realized it was only pieces of... fragments of papyrus. inside the jar were 13 volumes bound in tooled gazelle leather. >> narrator: what mohammed ali had discovered were books written in the ancnt egyptn language known as coptic. unable to read them, ali took them home. >> later, his mother said that she took some of them and threw them into the fire for kindling when she was baking bread. what he didn't know until... what we didn't know until much later is that these contained some of the most precis texts of the 20th century, that they

have uncovered for us a whole new way of seeing the early christian world. >> narrato what the books showed was that early christianity was even more diverse than scholars had suspected, with many different ways of inrpreting jesus. >> there were 52 texts altogether, apparently; unless some of them were burned that we don't know about. and they contain secret gospels such as the gospel of thomas, the gospel of philip. they also contain conversations between jesus and his disciples that claim to go back to jesus and his disciples-- all kinds of literature from the early christian era, a whole discovery of text rather like the new testament, but also very different. >> christianity, or one would rather say christianities, of the second and third centuries were, again, a highly variegated phenomenon.

we really can't imagine christianity as a unified, coherent religious movement. >> we probably ought to think of it as a kind of regional diversity. that is, the christianity of rome was different than christianity in north africa in certain ways, and that was different from what we find in egypt, and that different from what we find in syria or back in palestine. >> narrator: some of the oldest christian communities were in western turkey, where paul and his followers had established many of the earliest congregations. at the end of the first century, christians here found themselves in a confrontation with roman power and authority. >> about the year 112, an important event takes place that brings us on the stage in a new way in the history of earliest christiaty. the scene is in the roman

province of bithynia, in modern- day turkey. at that time, there is a relatively new governor sent to take over. his name is pliny the younger. >> pliny was a friend of the emperor trajan, and was an extremely spected roman official. >> narrator: one of pliny's duties was to maintain order. in this capacity, he was presentewith a legal and ethical problem which he descrid in a letter to the emperor trajan. >> (dramatized): having never been present at any trials of the christians, i am unacquainted with the methods or limits to be observed either in examining or punishing tm. >> so we have to imagine pliny seated in the form of a roman administrator, a roman magistrate, all decked out in

his finery, enthroned in the tribunal with his guards and his bailiffs and his courtiers around him. and before him stand these christians, and pliny n't figure out who they are or why they're there. apparently, they've done something that get their neighbors mad at them. the neighbors have complained that the temples are empty, and no one is buying certain things for the gods, and they're christians. and so, somehow or another, pliny is forced to deal with is as a criminal matter. >> pliny gennely was perplexed because he sees what appear to be good, law-abiding citizens being hauled up on trumped-up charges of being a christian, and simply on that basis, by convention, being subject to capital punishment. so i think pliny allows us a rare glimpse into the moral and

legal conundrum that christianity posed for scrupulous, morally scrupulous roman officials. >> (dramatized): t method i have observed is this: i interrogated whether they were christians. if they confessed it, i repeated the question twice again, adding the threat of capital punishment. if they still persevered, i ordered them to be executed. >> pliny allows, in his correspondence, how this really is onef the most stubborn groups of people he's ever encountered. and th in itself seems to warrant a rather... a rather strident attack on the christians. >> (dramatiz): i judged it so much the more necessa to extract the real truth, with the assistance of torture, from two female slaves who were styled deaconesses. but i could discover nothing more than depraved and excessive supetition.

>> he says, "they don't really do all that much. they meet before daybreak. th sing hymns antiphonally. and they worship christ as if he were a god." and then he says, "they take an oath, but not an oath to do anything bad, rather an oath only to be good-- not to defraud people, not to do anything evil," and so on. >> (dramatized): those who denied they were or had ever been christians,ho repeated after me an invocation to the gods and offered adoration to your image, these i thought it proper to discharge. >> and he says to the emperor, "do you think i handled it correctly?" the emperor then writes back and says, "sounds okay to me. but don't go out looking for

these christians. and if you get some anonymous charges against people, don't take that too seriously. we don't want to set any bad precedents here." >> narrator: befpliny, legal precedent still held that christians were a sect of judaism. >> because it was considered a part of judaism, christianity was considered to be protected by the legal status of jewish tradition within the roman empire. so, whene see pliny taking note of christians as a separate group, it really marks a departure, a change in the status of christianity, both in its relationship to judaism and in its relationship to the roman empire. >> (dramatiz): christians are warred upon by the jews and are persecuted by the greeks, and those that hate them cannot

state the cause of their enmity. >> pliny's program evolved into a very explicit policy of execution that probably was the model throughout a good deal of asia minor-- what's now modern turkey. and that policy was to ask the question; if the answer is no, "fine, go sacrifice." if they couldn't sacrifice, then that was proof that they were christian and they could be executed. so pliny thought, ulmately, that once the matter was settled, that he was doing the right thing, that he was saving e empire from the spread of a dangerous and seditious movement. >> narrator: it was precisely their unwillingness to make public sacrifice to the emperor and the gods that made christians seem antisocial and seditious. >> religion was one of the most important features of the maintenance of the state. one offered sacrifices on certain days as a part of the

celebration of the founding of the state. one offered sacrifices on the birthday of the emperor. cities very often mounted these enormous celebrations to celebrate the emperors, and l the populace would have been expected to come and join in. >> narrator: at these great public ceremonials, christians were becoming all too often conspicuous by their absence. >> when the christians really do become much more prominent in the social arena of grk and roman cities, the pagans start to take note of their absence from important festival days and their unwillingness to participate in certain aspects of social life. >> judaism had long ago come to a legal agreement with the

emperor that they would... jews would not be forced to participate in pagan rituals. and pagan rituals are part of the normal fabric of life in a roman city. jews were exempted from this because romans knew the jews were odd about this kind of thing. >> now, along come this new group, the christians, and they're behaving the same way, but they obviously aren't ancient. they started under pontius pilate; they say so themselves. so it's novel. but if it's novel, from the roman point of view, it cannot be a religion. religion is, by definition, ancient, from roman perspective. so, if it's new and novel, it's a superstitn, it's not a religion; and superstition is, by definition, not a good thing. >> we have a good example of the pagan perspective on christians from a little graffiti found in rome from the palatine hill.

an icription scratched very crudely into the wall says, "alexamenos worships his god." in the picture, we see alexamenos bowing down before the man on the cross, but the man on the cross has the head of a donkey. >> christians have made themselves outlanders in their own town. and, therefore, they are used as an explanatory device whenever there are the usual natural insults of human existence-- plague, earthquake, flood. it's because christians, as gentes who are not doing their duty to heaven, are... why should the gods do anything for the city then? >> narrator: though persecution was still mainly local and sporadic, it was becoming a crime to be a christian. christians whoere charged

facea terrible choice: to recant and make a sacrifice to the emperor, or sacrifice their own lives for the faith. (crowd cheering in background) >> "in the blood of the martyrs lie the seeds of the church." >> one of the most amazing documes historians of early christianity are privileged to have is the prison diary of a young woman who was martyred, i think in the year 202 or 203, in carthage, as part of a civic celebration. her name is perpetua, and she insisted on being killed. >> (dramatized): we were lodged in the prison and i was terrified, as i had never been in such a dark hole.

>> perpetua has brought herself to the aention of the governor, and she is really insisting on being put into the arena. there's an incredibly powerful trial scene where perpetua's father is pleading with her and finally, actually, trying to beat her. and the governor has him subdued by his soldiers. and the governor says, "please won't you cooperate?" and perpetua says, "no, i'm a christian." now, there's no dragnet out for christians. perpetua is visited by other christians in prison. if the governor were trying to get all the christians in carthage, he just could have arrested whoever is going to visit perpetua, but he doesn't. >> she's pregnant during part of this story and only gives birth just before she herself goes to her death.

she has to give her own child away at the moment that she is about to give her lifeway. >> (dramatized in my dream, i saw a ladder of tremendous height, made of bronze, reaching all the way to the heavens. at the foot of the ladder lay a dragon of enormous size, and it would attack those who would try to climb up. "he will not harm me," i sai "in the name of jesus christ." >> the authentic diary ends before perpetua is led into the arena. what we have concluding the diary is a description done by somebody who is presenting a hero tale. >> (dramatized): the day of their victory dawned, and they marched from the prison to the amphitheater joyfully, as if they were going to heaven. >> she's led out into the

amphitheater before the crow and about to be set upon by beasts. she really goes with a great deal of... of authority, and stature, and serenity. (crowd cheering in background) (lions growling in background) >> she faces down the animals. and finally, after being tormented by several animals, a young gladiator is sent into the arena to dispatch her. and his... it's just an incredibly moving scene. his hand is trembling so much he can't cut her, and she grabs his hand and guides his sword to her own throat. (crowd cheering in background) >> the stories of the martyrs

that have come down to us are all hero stories, and they're all intended, obviously, as ways of strengthening the faith of those who remain. if we read only those martyr sties, we would suppose that all christians were heroes, and that the church flourishes because of that roism. obviously, this is an idealization. if we actually tote up the number of martyrs that we can identify, it's a really quite small number over the three centuries during which christianity was in the position of being the outsiders. >> we don't have tens of thousands of people being martyred. what we do have is tens of thousands of people admiring the few who are martyred. (crowd cheering in background) >> the story of the martyrdom of perpetua is a very important milestone in the development of early christianity because of what the story tells us about

the perception of christians at that time. we can see the contrast rather sharply. at the time of pli, at the beginning of the second century, christians are an unknown commodity. and so even when he executes them, he really doesn't know quite what to make of them. within 100 years, by the year 203, when perpetua meets her death as a martyr, christianity has become a recognizable commodity. (crowd cheering in background) the death of perpetua is a story of a very significant change in the status of christianity. it had begun to be a part of the roman world.

>> now that christianity has emerged as a group, as a church, as something not judaism, the question that christians now confronted is, "what is christianity?" the second century is an age of christian self-definition in which the christiachurch itself was trying to figure out exactly what is the new message. what exactly is the new church? >> certainly, there were some religious organizations, such as the ecclesiae, the church, the leadership, the bishop, the deacons, the presbyters. there were institutions developing in some christian churches, but only in some, and this was not universal, by any mes. >> we have, in effect, different brands of christianity living, often, side by side, even in the same city. at one point, in rome, justin martyr has his christian school in one part of the city, and the gnostic teacher valentinus in

another school in rome, and another so-called heretic by the name of marcion is also in rome just down the street somewhere-- all of these alongside of the official papal tradition that developed as part of st. peter's official papal tradition that developed as part of st. peter's see in rome. alice: this is an incredible lesson in the history of christianity, and it's one only pbs could bring to you. in that last segment, we started with gods, cults and religion, and we just ended learning about the story of perpetua. bill: and we learned what role pliny the younger played, when faced with discipling the christians, and why it presented such a conundrum for the romans. hi, i'm bill young, here with alice ferris and we hope you can show your appreciation for these stellar productions with a pledge of support for this station, right now. alice: now if you missed any part of the program, or you're thinking you'd like to review the entire story again, and i can't imagine that you wouldn't want to, or perhaps you would like to send this film to a friend

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are just suggested giving levels, whatever you can give, both large and small, is welcomed and appreciated. alice: the important thing is that you get involved and do your part to make more great programming possible. thank you. ♪ >> narrator: there were still debates about how christians should relate to judaism. one group following the jewish calendar felt that easter should fall on the same day as passover. others thought they should follow the roman calendar and celebrate during the sol festival of the spring equinox, on a sunday. and marcion wanted to strip away everything that smacked of jewish traditions.

>> marcion was a wealthy ship owner. he came to rome, and he gave the roman church aot of money, and they welcomed him with open arms. but he felt that the original christian gospel was no longer preserved, and he thought that only the apostle paul had the true gospel. and he set out to find this true gospel, and he took the gospel of luke and purified it from whatever he thought was jewish and said, "this should be the scripture for the church, and this should be the only scripture for the church." and the roman church became very suspicious of his manipulations with the gospel of luke. it ireported that they gave the money back to him and said, "thank you very much, but we don't want you and your gospel." >> this is where we start to see a kind of proliferation of gospels tradition all over the empire. and by the third and early fourth century, there are more gospels than you can actually count, and certainly more than you can easily read within a bible.

>> the gospel of mary magdalene, for example, shows us a christian community in which mary magdalene is regarded as a disciple, as a leader, as one of the major teachers in the group, and one who claims that women should be able to teach. >> another text called the "gospel of truth" is not a narrative of the death and resurrection of jesus at all. it's a symbolic reflection on certain themes that come from scripture or are associated with the life and teachings of jesus. >> we also hear of other kinds of gospels that develop, stories of the birth that tell you the... in lurid detail, really, how true it really was or how marvelous and miraculous it was; stories of traveling apostles to all kinds of strange lands-- thomas, who goes to india, andrew, who goes out to some strange world, and so on. these kis of stories proliferate through the second and third century.

>> narrator: one of the important discoveries at nag hammadi was a complete copy of the gospel of thomas. written in syria in the second century, this collection of sayings proved very influential... and startling. >> the gospel of thomas is nothing t sayings of jesus. it simply goes along and says, jesus said this, jesus said that. well, some of these things that jesus said, according to the gospel of thomas, are quite familiar. they're very similar to things in the canonical gospels, but not identical. >> "give to caesar what belongs to caesar; give to god what belongs to god; and give to me what is mine." >> narrator: these sayings of jesus are filled with familiar, rustic images, like the parable of the mustard seed. but others are strange and unsettling.

>> "look to the living one as long as you live, for you might die. and then try to see the living one and you will be unable to see." >> my favorite of these is saying number 70, which says, "if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." >> now, what is typical about these sayings is that, in each instance, these sayings want to say that, if you want to understand what jesus said, you have to recognize yourself, you have to know yourself. >> narrator: with its emphasis on self-knowledge and jes as the revealer of secret wisdom, some scholars think that the gospel of thomas became a source for a competing stream of christian tradition known as gnosticism. >> paul and paulian christianity

would have placed all of the emphasis on jesus' death and resurrection and the saving power of that death and resurrection. gnostic christianity, on the other hand, would have placed its principal emphasis, in fact, its prime emphasis, on the message, theisdom, the knowledge that jesus transmits. >> narrator: most gnostics believed that jesus was so divine that he had never entered into human form and so could not have been crucified. this brought gnostics into conflict with other christians. >> it was very important to insist on jesus as really suffering and dying on the cross, because christians were being called upon at that time to suffer and die as witnesses, as martyrs to their faith. and if, with some gnostics, you could denigrate the physical suffering of jesus, you might call into question that obligation to stand and to bear witness for the faith.

>> bishop irenaeus, who wrote in the second century in what is now france, was about 18 to 20 years old when his little community was absolutely decimated by a devastating persecution. they say that 50 to 70 people in two small towns were tortured and executed. 50 to 70 people executed in public is a devastating destruction of that beleaguered community. and irenaeus was trying to unify those who were left. what frustrated him is that they didn't all believe the same thing. they didn't all gather under one kind of leadership. and he, like others, was deeply aware of the dangers of fragmentation. >> narrator: irenaeus thundered against those he saw as heretics, including the so- called gnostics. >> (dratized): let those persons who blaspheme the creator, as do all the falsely

so-called gnostics, be recognized as agents of satan by all who worship god. >> bishop irenaeus coined the term we call "orthodox." now, literally in greek, "orthodox" means "straight thinking." it's like "orthodontia" means "straight teeth." i mean, "orthodox" means "straight ideas." and those who didn't agree with his ideas, he called "heterodox"-that means simply thinking otherwise-- or "heretics," which means people who make choices about what to think. irenaeus didn't want people making choices, he wanted them thinking what the bishop told them to think. >> narrator: irenaeus had to contend not only with those who believed in vastly different gospels, but also with the followers of marcion, who believed that jesus should be represented by just one gospel. he looked for a compromise. >> irenaeus says that the number of the gospels is properly four;

these are the earliest, these are the best, but four is the right number. after all, there's four corners to the world; there's four winds; there are four areas of heaven; and there are four bets who reveal god's will in the apocalypse. four is the right number; these are the four. >> the story implied is that there is some smoke-filled room somewhere in the second century, and a bunch of these cigar- smoking christian big shots got together and they decided who was going in and who was going out. it was a wrap. they closed up, and then everything else was on the cutting room floor, and the janitors took away what didn't get in the canon. i think precisely the contrary is closer to a more responsible historical reconstruction, and that is that there is some kind of consensus among people in the jesus movement as to what constitutes reliable tradition, reliable literature-- literature that they want to read, that they want to hear over and over

again, and other kinds of literature that they don't want to hear. >> narrator: one criterion for inclusion was whether the gospel told the story of the suffering and death of jesus. this was crucial to the emerging sense of orthodoxy because the centerpiece of christian ritual, the celebration of the eucharist, cannot live without that story. >> and it is out of that movement that the four-gospel canon arrives. and it comes, interestingly enough, as a canon that preserves diversity-- within limits, but it preserves diversity. there is no claim that this canon represents four gospels that are all saying the same thing. it is, rather, an attempt to bring together as many christian communities into one major church.

>> narrator: by the middle of the third century, christians were buried alongside jews and pagans in catacombs, underground tombs beneath the outskirts of rome. there is evidence re of the growing homogenization of the christian story. the artwork on the tombs shows little sign of gnostic imagery. they are largely scenes from the canonical gospels which are now merging into one single story. >> what's interesting is what they choose, because what they choose of jesus is especially the healer.

he appears beardless, so he's a young... he's a new, young god, as it were. he's not an old fuddy-duddy like asclepius, the god of healing. and what's extraordinary is he would either have his hand or even a wand on the person he's healing. now, nothing that i know of in the entire greco-roman world ever shows asclepius with his hand on somebody he's healing. jesus is an asclepius who makes house calls. i think this is one of the great things that helps this spread. jesus is not shown as a transcendental being, he's down there in theud of human history with his hand on people's heads. >> narrator: the art of the catacombs also illustrates the christians' attempts to integrate into greco-roman society. >> as christianity moved out of the jewish sphere into the more

pagan sphere, then all sorts of pagan ideas and all sorts of pagan themes and images and pictures start pouring into christianity. >> we have this figure of the shepherd with the sheep draped over his shoulders. we, now, may tend to think of that as reflecting the gospel stories of jesus of the lost sheep or jesus as the good shepherd from the gospel of john. in point of fact, from roman perspective, this is the virtue of philanthropy, of love of humanity, and it's one of the most important virtues of roman cic and public life. >> narrator: all around the mediterranean world, the ancient pagan gods lingered in their

age-old temples and immemorial shrines. but their power was under threat. >> roman society, roman law, are both highly tolerant of religious diversity, as long as you do the things which every roman is expected to do-- sort of those religious acts which are your civic duty. nobody cares what you believe in your heart of hearts. then appears chrtianity, which is exclusive, which is intolerant, which will not allow you to do whatever everybody else does. and it's a profound shock to those who get to know it well. it appears as a dangerous rival to the present society as it begins tgrow strong. >> christian writers throughout the middle and later second century developed the techniques trying to argue that christianity was really a

superior religion, because it was monotheistic, over against polytheistic, and that it... christians exemplified higher virtue in their lives than did pagans. they pointed to examples of christians living in chastity, great virtue, self-sacrifice and on, throughout their lives. these christian apologists also made fun of pagan religion in a way that might not have been too prudent. they laughed at the various greek myths that formed the basis for some of greco-roman religion. they laughed at the stories of the gods-- their adulteries, their jealousies, their goings- on with each other, et cetera-- and could really make mincemeat out of these traditions. >> narrator: the ideas that had started with the carpenter's son were being reinterpreted. in the uncompromising language of apocalypse, jesus had preached the message of the coming kingdom of god.

now, jesus himself became the message... and the sourcof eternal life. >> the message that was preached here promised spiritual gifts to people that went beyond the everyday life experience and promised also immortality, promised a future life which would be liberation from sickness and from disease, and from poverty, and individual isolation, and whatever. there is a future for the individual, but one should not see the success of christianity simply on the level of a great religious message. >> narrator: to the subjects of the roman empire, christianity offered the invidual dignity in this life and hope in the afterlife. but it was also winning converts by offering a helping hand to the needy. >> for example, like other elements of the jewish community, the followers of

jesus tended to feed the destitute, take care of people who were widowed so that they wouldn't become prostitutes, and orphans, and so forth. that was a primary obligation of jewish piety, and jesus' followers certainly understood that. >> of course, there was no welfare system, so to speak, in the ancient world. wealthy romans had given money for programs such as the feeding of children, and so on. but even such programs that we know of didn't compare in size and scope to what the churches were doing. >> so christianity really established a realm of mutual social support for the members that joined the church. and i think that this has... was probably, in the long run, an enormously important factor for the success of the christian mission. >> narrator: by the year 250, christianity had grown so much that a stronger church

organization was needed to administer the welfare system. it was becoming a state within a state. meanwhile, rome's rulers felt their control of the empire slipping away, and christian undermining of traditional belief was no longer to be tolerated. >> the middle of the third century is often identified as a crisis in the roman empire. this is a time when the emperor is feeling under great pressure. there is a sensehat we are being besieged on the borders, that the barbarians may be coming in at any moment-- e persians are dangerous, the germans are dangerous, and so on. and so there's a great sense

that anything that upsets this ancient contract between the romans and the gods has got to be dangerous to us. after a long period in which the persecutio of christianity were really spasmodic, local, involved very few people, suddenly, in the middle of the third century, the year 250, the emperor decius decides that christians are a real enemy of the roman order, that they must be dealt with. they must be dealt with empire- wide, with all the police power that the emperor can bring to bear upon them. >> christians could be arrested simply because they bore the name christianu "christian." that was enough, under roman convention, to convict one of a capital crime, and the crime was being a christian. so put yourself in the... in the

position of society, you know, if you were, say, a merchant and wanted to limit yourompetition, all you had to do was point fingers at your competitors and say, "well, you know, i think they're christians." well, by roman convention, those people then could be hauled in on capital charges. >> what you have to do is get a ticket... a libellus. it's a chit saying that you have sacrificed for the well-being of the empire. and you go and you do your sacrifice, and there's a whole various response on the part of different christian communities. you can have your servant go and do it for you. he might also be a christian, but, you know, that's his problem. pay him, he'll get two chits, and then you're covered for purposes. or you can pay for the ticket but not actually do the sacrifice if you can bribe a friend of yours who is a magistrate. or you can just go ahead and get... you know, sacrifice, knowing that these gods are nothing. after all, that's right in paul's letters, that these gods are nothing. >> (dramatized): as to the eating of food offered to idols,

we know that no idol in the world really exists and that there is no god but one. >> narrator: decius was determined to be completely ruthless in persecuting those who refused to make public sacrifice. for the first time, ordinary christns were methodically rounded up. >> and the odd thing is it fails. the net effect of this is that a new cult of the martyrs appears in christianity, which strengthens the church. (crowd cheering in background) >> narrator: but ironically, very few christians were willing to be martyred. >> many christians were not made of the kind of moral fiber of the people who went to their deaths as martyrs-- that they had been willing to recant the faith, to offer a pinch of incense to the emperor.

>> cistians were sort of taking to the hills. we know this from the so-called lapsus controversy. what do you do with those christians who took to the hills and saved their souls as opposed to standing their ground and dying as martyrs? >> all this made a grave problem for the church when the persecutions were over, because many of these people then wanted to come back into the church. there were many controversies about this. >> narrator: 50 ars later, the emperor diocletian made one last attempt to wipe out the christians. he targeted thoswho held public office, but the persecution failed partly because christian institutions were now so entrenched in roman society. >> christians wanted to have their members knowledgeable an capable of reading the bible. so, we find that a large number of people in imperial administration are christians, because they could read and write, which constituted a big problem with the persecution of

the christians because they were thrown out of their office first when the persecution began, and suddenly, the... the government didn't work anymore. >> by that time, the christians are so numerous that they can't possibly be eradicated; they've already grown that much. so, in a sense, the persecution really doesn't catch up until it's already too late. >> narrator: by now, the jesus movement had spread its message to every corner of the roman empire. >> the last decades of the third century, you get a great insurge of people into christianity. there are some scholars who thinthat, in egypt, for example, by the 320's, there would actually be a majority of christians-- maybe a rather slht majority, but nonetheless a sizable number of christians.

>> narrator: the turning point in the history of the christian movement occurred in the first decades the fourth century. it was a transformion filled with ironies. it was brought about by a roman general who worshipped, not jesus, but apollo, the god of the sun. >> one of the most surprising christian heroes in the entire tradition, i think, is constantine. he is, first of all, a successful general. he is, also, the son of a successful general and at the head of the army of the west, and he's fighting another successful general, struggling for who is going to be at the top of the heap of this... the very higher echelons of roman government. what happens is that constantine has a vision. >> in the dream, a cross appears on the sun.

the sun was very important to constantine, anyway. he had a thing about helios and very often represented himself with the sun god. but the intrusion of the cross was something new, and below this vision was an inscription, were the words, "by this, conquer," en touto nike. and he interpreted this dream to mean that, by this symbol of the cross, he could defeat his archenemy at the battle of the milvian bridge and become sole emperor. and so he had his-- so the story goes-- he had his soldiers paint the cross on their shields. constantine won the battle of the milvian bridge, became the

sole emperor of the roman empire, and then, in a dramatic ift of geopolitics, relocates the center of roman rule from the eternal city, rome, to a new city, constantinople. >> narrator: to reunite a divided empire, constantine moved the capital from rome to a more strategic location, the ancient city of byzantium, and renamed it constantinople. >> an important part of what was going on here was jockeying at the imperial administration. clearly, by the end of the third century, christianity was a major force to be reckoned with throughout the empire, and something that had to either be suppressed or had to be integrated. galerius, constantine's rival, who was one of the major instigators of the persecution, favored the option of suppression. constantine and his associates favored the option of integration.

>> constantine was a consummate pragmatist and a consummate politician. and i think he gauged well the upsurge of interest and support christianity was... was receiving, and so played up to that very nicely and exploited it in his own rule. >> when constantine came into power and started to favor christianity, he did do many things that plainly showed a support for christianity. he gave money for the building of churches, money for the copying of scriptures, he exempted clergy members from having to perform civic duties on town councils, that kind of thing. >> the bishops are able take advantage of constantine's mood and his curious intellectual interest in things like christology and e trinity and church organization. they're able to have bibles copied at public expen. they're finally able to have public christian architecture and big basilicas. so there's a comfortable symbiotic relationship between

the empire and the church. >> all that certainly stands in favor of his true christian commitment. on the other hand, he did retain the coinage with the sun god on it. he did say the day of the sun would be made a day of rest, but it's very unclear whether the day of the sun meant the day dedicated to the sun god or the day dedicated to jesus and his resurrection. >> whatever one finally decides about the nature of his conversion-- whether it's a real, sincere conversion or not-- it has profound impact upon the future of christianity, upon the future of western civilization. constantine's patronage doesn't just mean that a lot of new churches get built, though it means that. it doesn't just mean that the salaries of bishops go up astronomically, though it means that. it doesn't just mean that christians have freedom now to worship as they choose. it means that it has become part

of the imperial establishment, and obviously, that is going to mean profound changes for the society and for christianity. >> narrator: constantine showed his support by massive building programs, especially in jerusalem. ironically, the city that was destroyed one roman emperor was being rebuilt by another. but the new holy places in this traditional center of judaism were now all christian. to strengthen his new church, constantine called for more unity in organization and teaching. but such unityame at a cost. >> one of the first things constantine does as emperor is start persecuting other christians. the gnostic christians are targeted, marcionite christians and other dualist christians-- christians who don't havthe old testament as part of their canon-- are targeted.

the list of enemies goes on and on. there's a kind of, in a sense, internal purge of the church as one emperor ruling one empire tries to have thisingle church. >> to appreciate the remarkable, dramatic evolution that had occurred in so short a period, one might counterpose the image of pliny in his courtroom under the emperor trajan, sending christians off to their execution simply for being called christians, to the majesty of constantine presiding over the great gathering of bishops that he had called to resolve particular questions. the impeum, on the one hand, being used clearly to extinguish a religious movement; the imperium, on the other hand, ing used clearly to undergird and support a religious movement, the same religious movement, in so short a period of time. >> narrator: the cross, the hated symbol of death and

defeat, now emerged as the symbol of triumph. and in the eyes of some, the apocalyptic prophecy of revelation had at last been fulfilled. >> (dramatized): the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our lord and of his christ. >> narrator: the kingdom of god and the roman empire had now become one and the same. jesus of nazareth had become jesus christ, and his church had become a power on earth. a new chapter in history was about to begin.

alice: wow, there is just so much going on in that last segment of the program. the connection that jesus suffering on the cross and the symbolism it provided to people who were also suffering in life. bill: well and the cross, once a symbol of death, now takes on new symbolism, w a symbol of hope, for a religion now recognized and integrated within the roman empire. alice: hello, i'm alice ferris, and i'm here with my friend bill young. and we are taking this short break to ask you to take a moment and do something very important. and that's to support your local pbs stati, in this our last break in the pgram. bill: and when you do, we would love to send you the dvd of this informative, provocative documentary for you to enjoy over and over again. or maybe you want to send it to a friend or a family member, so they can experience this inspirational documentary. alice: if you've already made that call, thank you so much! because really, you are public television. sometimes i think we all forget that.

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