[music] (Narrator)
I am David Suchet, and I'm in search
of one of the most puzzling characters in history:
A simple first century fishermen who somehow became
the founding father of the most powerful
Christian church on earth. Wow, look at these. (Narrator) We know
him as Saint Peter, mentioned more times
in the New Testament than anyone except Jesus. He was his right-hand man and a leader of the early
Christian movement. In later traditions, he's mounted in Rome and
revered as the first pope of the Roman Catholic Church. [speaking Latin] Peter's a real person. He's human. He's fallible. You sense with Peter something
we all can identify with, and that's doubt. (Narrator) But our
portrait of Peter is a mosaic constructed
by different authors, each with their own
stories to tell. He's always depicted as this
meek and timid individual, but Peter's a
courageous one. [music] Wow. (Narrator) Peter's character
and what motivates him has always intrigued me. Exciting huh? Yeah, for me. (Narrator) Flawed,
headstrong, never
fully understanding. A faithful friend, yet a denier in
the hour of need. Is that man a
friend of yours? He says,
"No. No, no. (Narrator) Yet somehow, Peter pulled the Jesus
movement back together when all seemed lost. In this series, I'll be uncovering
fragments of tradition and half-whispered
traces of Peter's life revealing surprising new
discoveries and theories about the man who
shaped a faith that came to dominate
Western civilization. [music] I followed Peter's story from his early life as a
fisherman on the Sea of Galilee through three turbulent
years with Jesus. But the man Peter thought
to be the Jewish Messiah, whom he hoped would deliver
the Jews from Roman rule, has been put to death. Now all is confusion. The Jesus movement is
in complete disarray. Its future seems dark. But suddenly there's
an empty tomb and actual sightings
of the resurrected Jesus. What should Peter do next? [music] According to the
Gospel of John, he seeks sanctuary in
the life he once knew back fishing on
the Sea of Galilee. But then the story
takes a dramatic turn. Very early one morning when Peter and
some of the Apostles were returning in their boat
from an all-night fishing trip, Jesus was seen
on the seashore literally cooking
breakfast over a fire. Peter, the compulsive,
impetuous Peter, leapt out of the boat
and rushed towards Him. But what happened
next, I think, changed
Peter's life forever. Jesus suddenly asked him, "Do you love me
more than these"-- the other disciples?" What an extraordinary
thing to ask Peter. He didn't know
how to answer. He almost avoided
the question; "Yes, of course,
I love you. Yes, of course I do." But then what happened
was even more surprising. Jesus, the Shepherd
of His sheep, handed over that
baton to Peter. "You will be the shepherd." (Narrator) Rebuilding a
movement that has recently lost a leader as charismatic as
Jesus will be no easy task. How does one take charge, meld,
and inspire a diverse group to a common cause, especially in
difficult conditions? Another one can start bringing
small stones from this-- (Narrator) It's a problem
that modern-day shepherd
Yakov is facing as he tries to marshal a
group of international
volunteers who have come
to live and work on his family's
Galilean goat farm. You are a team. You are a team. You will start to -- (Narrator) It seems
an idyllic life, but the volunteers
have never built a dry
stone wall before, and doing so in the pouring
rain before breakfast is probably not what
they signed up for. Start from here
and go further. [music] (Narrator) Of course,
Peter and the Apostles were laying the foundations
of the Jesus movement. Yakov only needs to inspire his
helpers to build a simple wall. But the central problem
for both remains: How does a leader keep a team
focused on the task at hand when the going gets tough? Work gets off to
a good start, but then Yakov is
needed elsewhere. [music] Yakov has gone
off in his tractor with a couple
of team members to find some nice big
rocks for the wall leaving the foundation
workers here to carry on. Apparently they've found
something better to do. (Narrator)
Without leadership the team
quickly disintegrates... until, of course,
the leader returns. [music] I think she heard
the tractor coming. [music] You didn't finish yet? [music] [laughing] (Narrator)
With Yakov taking control,
the team pulled together and even seemed to
be enjoying the work. There's also, of course,
the promise of breakfast. The reward for the followers
of the Jesus movement was in a revolutionary
new message that promise justice
and equality for all, something that would've
helped Peter inspire his growing community. [music] I want to just -- There's a gong. There is a gong. Saved by the bell. Does that mean breakfast? Yes, it does mean breakfast. Saved by the bell. The gong's gone. Have they now finished? Yeah, they're finished. You see? They are running away. They are running away, yeah. They've done a good job. Yeah, they did
a very good job. 10, 20, 50 more wheels,
you won't recognize it. [laughing] [music] (Narrator) In the
New Testament's Book of Acts, Peter's first task as leader
is to return to Jerusalem to reunite the
remaining Apostles and choose a
replacement for Judas who has committed suicide
after betraying Jesus. [music] Shortly after comes
the Jewish harvest
festival of Pentecost. It's only 50 days since the
execution of Jesus at Passover, and as Jerusalem fills
with pilgrims once more, Peter and the Apostles are gathered together
somewhere in the city. [music] Modern-day pilgrims are often
shown to this room on Mount Zion as a possible location
for both the Last Supper and the meeting at Pentecost. Coming here can be an
emotional experience. [crowd] Around me, all around me,
is a group from Brazil. They are very fired up and photographing themselves
for the family back home. (Narrator)
The excitement and enthusiasm
of these modern Christians perhaps captures something of
the mood of 2000 years ago. I really don't think I've
witnessed anything like this. They're really very
fired up indeed. (Narrator) According to Acts, Peter and the Apostles also felt themselves
imbued by the power of God in the form of the Holy Spirit. In their excitement, the meeting spilled out
into the streets. When a crowd gathered
to see what was going on Peter began to
preach, converting
many new followers. Under his leadership, the movement was now growing
in number and confidence. [music] Stephen, we know
that at Pentecost Peter came out and started
making this very long speech, and we're told that hundreds
of people were converted. Where would that
have taken place? Some people talk about it
being a small room someplace off in the distance here, but he needed a bigger
setting for that. The setting was of a place
where their group could meet, and then it spilt
out into a courtyard where there were
people of all languages that were able to
listen to one another. The only place
that we really have that depicts that
type of setting is right over here
at the Temple Mount. We have the platform here. We don't have
the Temple to see, but it was over here in
that area in the porticos that surrounded the
Temple Mount where
they had synagogues. This is probably where
that event took place. You would say it was actually
in the Temple Mount itself? Yes, in the Temple Mount there were porticos all around,
stowas all around the edges. It was a very large area. The Temple building
itself was rather small compared to the larger area
that we're speaking about. I'm always interested
as an actor what happens to the development
of people's character. You start off as one person,
you grow into somebody else. You hear of sudden
conversion experiences when people are
suddenly different
after that experience. It seems that
because of Pentecost it was a sudden
change of character. And within a very short
period of time. You remember,
it was not long before that they were sitting in
a room together worrying because their Messiah
had died on the cross. Everything that
they had put aside, from their jobs and
families and everything
else, to follow Him, suddenly they looked foolish, and maybe these Romans were
going to come after them too. They were no longer timid. They were bold. That's what the day of
Pentecost meant to them. I can imagine in my
head Peter standing up and hundreds of people
being converted. We know that this whole
area was full of people. How disruptive would this
moment have been, do you think? Do you think the authorities would've been concerned
about what was going on? Local authorities
would've looked upon this with a great deal
of consternation because anytime they don't
have control, of course, then they are
very concerned, both the Roman authorities
and also religious authorities. There were people all
over for the feast. But all of a sudden, in one little corner
of the place, all this action
starts taking place, and everyone starts
running to the place to see what's going on. Yes, it did disrupt
things a bit, and does this happen
all the time? No. What a day. What a moment this was. Would you say that this
was the birth of the Church, Christ's Church? This is the point at which the Church
became a real spokesman and a reflection of the
life and ministry of Jesus. So yes, this would be,
like you say, the birth of the Church. The birth of the Church. [bells ringing] (Narrator) The Temple
Peter would've known was destroyed by
the Romans in A.D. 70 during the Jewish revolt. In the seventh century the
site was occupied by Muslims. Today it is the third
holiest place in Islam. Few places are as holy to
Jews, Christians, and Muslims as this place. Today it is known as
the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. By coming here,
I'm following in the footsteps of literally
millions of pilgrims. Dominating the site is one of the most iconic
buildings of the Middle East, the magnificent
Dome of the Rock. It's not actually
a mosque at all, but a Muslim shrine
built over a sacred stone. [music] (Narrator)
over is still hotly contested
by Jews and Muslims, but
Dome all is peace and calm. [music] I'm now standing at the
base of the Sacred Rock, a rock that is sacred to both
the Jews and the Muslims. For the Jews, this is the rock
where they believed that Abraham went to
sacrifice his son Isaac. For the Muslims,
this is the rock from where Mohammed
ascended into heaven. It really is one of
the most holy places in the whole of Jerusalem. [music] (Narrator) Today the Haram
al-Sharif is fairly empty, but every Friday thousands
of Muslims gather here to say prayers
on their holy day. Two thousand years ago, during the big
Jewish festivals, the space would've been
filled with Jewish pilgrims. [music] I really am taken back by the
vastness of this whole area, and I'm trying to imagine
what it would be like with thousands upon thousands
of worshipers here. [music] (Narrator) For the faithful,
then as now, this is far more than
just a place of worship; it's also somewhere to
study and discuss belief. [music] What are you doing here? We are learning the Quran. You're learning it? We are learning Quran. To understand it? Yes, we are understanding. Yes. This is our Quran
for the whole Muslims. Is it like a Quran study? Yes, study.
Teachers. We are students here. When you read this then your
teacher explains what it means and how it relates
to your faith? It's very interesting. (Narrator)
As an observant Jew,
Peter would've spent time carefully studying
his sacred book, the Hebrew Bible, perhaps searching for any
text that pointed to Jesus as the Messiah; something he could use
to win new Jewish converts. [crowd] For modern Jews, the tradition of
studying and debating the finer points
of Jewish scripture continues in religious
schools known as yeshivas. We are in a room
of young men, and there are two
people at the tables. What are they doing? Basically they're learning
together to understand. What do you do? We're checking each other. Okay, let's see. You say that,
so I'm saying different. Let's see who's right. Can it get very animated? Yeah. Sometimes
it's screaming here, but love screaming. Love screaming. It's love, and it's always
giving you energy, like I want more. I want to understand
what is going on. It's so beautiful. It becomes quite
passionate? Yeah, passionate. That's what's
beautiful about him. He can be right. There's nothing wrong. You go to the Rabbi,
you ask him, he's going to tell you
something different, completely different,
and he's right as well. Now, tell me why you
see lots of boys here -- they're moving like this... [rocks back and forth]. Okay, I'll tell you something,
what I think. Basically, Jewish,
all over the world, wherever you see them,
they can't stand. They can't sit down. They need to move always. They need to move, yeah? When you open the commandment
and you have the passion, you can't just sit like that. You're getting excited
from something, and you're sitting and
learning it like that. If you're excited,
you need to show it. You need to move. I'm excited. I'm moving. You get excited. You get happy. [crowd] Being here has really
taught me one thing, and that is that
this is nothing like a Bible study group
would be in England. I've not seen
anything like this. I've never seen
anything so passionate, but we are talking
about the Middle East, and we're talking about
this particular religion, the Jewish religion,
which is full of passion. It makes me think of
Peter and the disciples and even Jesus Himself. They were Jewish. They were Middle Eastern
debating the Law and trying to work
out what was in it. You can see them
arguing passionately. Not as we tend to
sanitize it in the West. From what I'm
learning about Peter, who is impulsive
and impetuous, I'm also learning that he was probably a
very passionate man as well. [music] (Narrator) But would that
passion be enough to win
over new converts? In a world where many
believed in miracles, performing wondrous acts
help to convince onlookers that Peter was filled
with the power and
authority of God. [music] How important were miracles
to the Jesus movement? I don't think
you could've had the beginnings
of Christianity without very miraculous acts
of power, acts of healing. We know that the Messiah was expected to do
extraordinary things because of one particular
Dead Sea scroll. It was 4Q521, and it says that among
the works of the Messiah, the Messiah would
heal the blind, raise up those who were
bowed down, raise the dead, and preach the good news. Jesus was doing this, proving that He had the power
that was expected of a Messiah. It's shown from what
the Dead Sea scrolls has brought to life. But then with Peter, I think Peter was very
important in continuing
the momentum that was first
established by Jesus. He had the power of the Holy
Spirit in him from Jesus, and he was healing
in the name of Jesus. Even to the extent that
if his shadow possibly -- is that right? Absolutely. Peter's
shadow would pass by
and people thought, "We could get healed by him
because he is so powerful." But he'd already
proven by that time that he had incredible
power working with him, healing in the
name of Jesus, making people well again
around the Temple. He was a fantastically
important figure. (Narrator) Peter's reputation
as a miracle worker helped win Jewish converts
to the Jesus movement. But what of the
non-Jewish world? [music] In the Book of Acts, Peter comes to realize
that the death and
resurrection of Jesus was not just for the Jews. It was meant to usher in a
new age of social inclusion for Jews and non-Jews alike. Peter was about to
convert the first Gentile, and as historian
Gil Gambash explained, in a world in which the
Emperor of Rome was
worshipped as a god, this was no ordinary convert, but a Roman centurion
called Cornelius stationed at the
Mediterranean garrison
town of Caesarea. What would it have meant
for a Roman centurion to be converted
to this new faith? For the time that
we are talking about this is revolutionary. Really? Yes. Once a person like Cornelius is
accepting the Christian belief, he cannot remain tolerant or
syncretistic or all-embracing in the way that he used to. Actually he wouldn't have
then worshipped the Emperor. Exactly. The Jews managed
to solve this in various ways and came to terms with
the Roman authorities, but the Christians
had a harder time. Do you think it would've
been a big moment for the Jesus
movement at that time to have a Roman centurion
wanting to convert? We're talking
about a movement that starts from
within Judaism, and that during that moment this movement is debating
whether to stay within Judaism or to emerge out into
the Gentile world. Now this involves two
very significant moves: One, to accept people
who are not circumcised, and two, to be able
to eat non kosher food. Very basic. Very simple. Once Peter comes here and accepts into this
new movement a Gentile, a non-circumcised person who is probably also
eating non kosher food, then this movement takes
a very significant turn, and from this point onward the entire Gentile communities
of the Mediterranean are fair game. We talk about Cornelius, but it's a huge
moment for Peter. I think that's exactly the
way we have to imagine it; by the audience to which
this story is turned, and this is a double audience:
One, Christians, right? One message to them, and then the other message to
the rest of the Roman world. Look, a distinguished
citizen of this town, a pagan, a centurion, this kind of person
is converting, so all of you out there
who are considering this can imagine that this
is doable, definitely. So a big moment? All around. [waves crashing] (Narrator) Peter's actions
spark a major debate within what was still
a branch of Judaism: should non-Jews entering
the Jesus movement follow Jewish Law? More worryingly, back in Jerusalem Peter
and his followers are
becoming a threat to the established
Jewish leadership and their Roman overseers. What was the problem
with the Jesus movement for these religious rulers? The Jesus movement,
which is a movement of people claiming to have
special authority which circumvents the normal
paths and channels of authority in the Jewish world; they're not taking their orders
from anybody except from God. They're claiming authority
in ways which pose a threat to the established Jewish
authorities in Jerusalem. A Kingdom of God
or Kingdom of Israel means not a
Kingdom of Rome. To preach the coming
end of the kingdom is something which
gets people in trouble in the Roman Empire. It's what got Jesus
into the trouble, and it's what's getting His
followers into trouble as well. His followers are even perhaps
a little bit more threatening because they claim
to be pointing to a really massive miracle which shows that
they've got to be right. They know who this coming
King is going to be, and He's been resurrected;
that's what they're claiming. The Jesus movement was
really going against Rome? Yeah, I think that's what
was probably most threatening in the eyes of the priesthood. They had to make sure from day
to day that the Roman governor, who had his garrison
in Jerusalem, and his agents
and his informers, that they were all happy,
because if they're not happy things are going
to go very badly. [music] (Narrator) The Book of Acts
tell how Herod Agrippa, the Roman-appointed
king of Judea, struck against
the Jesus movement and had Peter imprisoned. Execution was a
near certainty. But that night Peter
makes a miraculous escape. He travels across the
city and goes to a house where his friends
are in hiding. But the disciples
wouldn't believe it was Peter at the door. No, Peter. Peter's in prison. By now he could've
even been executed. Then Acts tells us,
"But Peter kept on knocking, "and when they opened
the door and saw him
they were astonished. "Peter motioned with his
hand for them to be quiet "and described how the Lord
had brought him out of prison. "Tell James and the
other brothers and
sisters about this, he said, and then he
left for another place." I've always found that
a very unsatisfactory exit for the character of Peter. "He then left
for another place." Where did he go? We're just not told. He just disappears. [music] (Narrator) A letter
in the New Testament, known as 1 Peter,
offers a clue. [music] Opinion differs
on whether or not Peter was the actual
writer of the letter, but it's addressed to
Christian communities
in Asia Minor including Cappadocia
in modern-day Turkey. Could he have come here? [music] There some places
on this earth that don't quite
seem to belong here. They're like fragments
of an alien planet. The whole region around
Goreme in Turkish Cappadocia is just one of those places. It's the most
extraordinary landscape shaped by volcanic activity
for the past 10 million years, and over time wind and water have carved these
soft volcanic rocks into the most bizarre shapes. People have lived here
since the earliest times, and it's also provided refuge for some of the very first
Christian communities. [music] (Narrator) As Christianity
spread through Cappadocia, places of worship were
carved out of the soft rock. [music] Art historian Ferda Barut took me into the
fresco-filled Dark Church. [music] My goodness me. Wow, look at that. These are extraordinary. Yes, that's true. I have never seen anything
like this ever before. [music] These frescoes are dated
from the 11th century. Do we have any
pictures of Peter here? Yes, we have. Here we see the
transfiguration scene. Here you see Peter
with curly, white hair at the left of the seat. (Narrator)
These wonderful frescoes
are from the 11th century, but we know that many
centuries earlier Christian hermits were
living in these caves. Intriguingly, when the
Cappadocian Christian leader, Saint Basil, sought to establish
a proper community here in the fourth century, he seemed to have been
influenced by Peter. Saint Basil especially
stresses upon the point that you have to live together,
not in isolated ways. You have to be in
contact with society. That's very interesting,
Ferda, because Peter, when he formed his
first community, told people that they
have to share everything: Money, goods, possessions. Do you think that
influenced Basil? Yes, of course. I think that because
Saint Basil mentions
Peter in his letters, and Saint Basil copies some of the rules
for his community here. He tries to build almost the
same thing for the community. [music] What was going on with Saint Basil and the
other Cappadocian fathers may well have been
inspired by Peter. [music] "Live in harmony
with one another; "be sympathetic,
love as brothers, "be compassionate
and humble. "Do not repay evil with evil
or insult with insult, "but with blessing,
because to this you are called so that you may
inherit a blessing." [music] Now this is from a letter
that mentions the Cappadocians and that also sung
credit to Peter, but is this proof that the
man himself was actually here? [music] (Narrator) Rock-cut churches,
big and small, are scattered across
this landscape. Many are filled with the
most beautiful frescoes. I took a moment to
go in search of more
images of Peter. [music] I'm now standing in the
oldest rock-cut cave church in the region. All around me on the
walls and ceilings are little panels
depicting the life of
Jesus Christ in sequence rather like a film strip. If I move into another much
larger part of the church which was added later when Christianity
was more established, there was no need to tell
the story of Jesus. Instead, they were
showing on the walls stories of the Gospels. Over there you can
see the Apostles and Peter in his
fishing boat. [music] (Narrator) Could Peter
really have come here? What would he have made of
this extraordinary landscape? I met up with biblical
scholar Helen Bond. [music] Do we have any
evidence at all that Peter was here
in Cappadocia? We have a couple
of little hints. In the Book of Acts
at Pentecost we hear that there are Jewish
people there in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast, and so they get caught up
in this whole Pentecost thing. It's possible that when
they go back to Cappadocia they take some
of the message. Is it possible that Peter,
in a sense, would have visited
them here? Yes, I think
that's quite likely if he thought there might
be a receptive audience here, if people had
already heard him. Perhaps people
have said to him, "We're really
interested in this. We'd like to hear
more about it." You would call
him a missionary? Yeah, he was definitely
a missionary. He was going out
finding synagogues, finding Jews that he can
convert to the new way of life. What would it have been
like being a missionary in this sort of country? Yes, I think
pretty incredible, but he would have known. There was a fairly
well planned out series of the Jewish
dispersion of the diaspora around the Mediterranean. Those were the places
that welcomed him too as a Jewish brother
from Jerusalem because, of course,
Christianity is still an evolution of Judaism. It's a branch of
the Jewish belief. [music] (Narrator) Another clue
that Peter may have been
active in this region can be found in one of the
letters of the Apostle Paul, a newcomer to the movement charged with
converting Gentiles. He writes of a
conflict with Peter in
Antioch in Asia Minor over the continuing argument of whether Gentiles
must accept Jewish law. [music] Oh, look at this. Oh goodness. Hear the echo -- ah, ah. Oh, it's quite ornate. It's quite pretty up there. It is, isn't it? This is an old church. Helen, you and I
are talking about a time when a church
didn't even exist. Peter had left Jerusalem, and all of a sudden we see
him turn up at a big meeting where there was huge
arguments and debates. It was quite fraught. What was it all about? You have to remember that this is the very,
very earliest stages
of Christianity. Nobody knew what they
were doing at the moment. They're working it out, working out what God's plan
for them is as they go along. They've been taking
the message out, they've been evangelizing,
and they seem to have been also offering the
message to Gentiles, and Gentiles have been
coming into the movement, sometimes in quite
large numbers. Everybody seems
to be agreed that offering the message
to Gentiles is a good thing. The question is
though on what basis? Do they first have to
become Jews and then
become Christians, Christian Jews in effect? Or are you allowed
simply as a Gentile to believe in what
Jesus has done, to be baptized,
and then to be a Christian? What was Peter's stance? According to Acts, Peter has a dream
in which he is told that he could eat any food, and all foods, all peoples,
are clean. This dream is
really telling him that the future is going
to be very different; that now he can sit down
and have meals with Gentiles. Could you see it as
a heated debate? I think it was
extremely heated, yes. [music] (Narrator) The argument
forced Peter to return at least
briefly to Jerusalem where he was able to
convince the Jesus movement that Gentile converts
did not need to observe all Jewish law,
including circumcision. It was one of the most
important moments in the history
of Christianity. The whole of the pagan
world was now open to
the new faith. [music] If Peter did travel
beyond this realm, it's quite possible that he
visited and spent some time in Asia Minor
here in Cappadocia. Certainly there were Jewish and
then Christian communities here since the earliest days, and traditions about Peter
and Paul visiting this region still lives on. But there's nothing to say
that Peter ended his days here. So where did he
possibly go next? [birds flying] (Narrator) One tradition is
that he traveled to Rome. [music] On the Via Appia, the ancient road from
Rome's seaport to the city, I met biblical
scholar Ed Adams. Ed, we're told that Peter
might've come to Rome. Do we have any evidence
that he was here? There's no explicit evidence
in the New Testament, but there's a very strong
hint in Peter's first letter. He gives a greeting from
"She who is in Babylon." Now, "she" probably
refers to a church, so the question
is what's Babylon? Now it probably wasn't
historical Babylon because it was a
wasteland at this time. It's very likely that
it's a code word for Rome because it was used in this
way in ancient Jewish texts and also in the
book of Revelation. Babylon is a way of
talking about Rome, so it looks to be that that
letter was written from Rome. When Peter came to Rome
he would've come this way? He would've walked
the Appian Way from the south into the city. I do find that
extraordinary that we're actually
standing on it. [laughing] Unfortunately, I think we
still have some way to go. We do indeed. [music] Gosh, what a view. There's Saint Peter's. Saint Peter's, yeah. The tradition is that Peter may have founded
Christianity in Rome? That's right. There is an early tradition
which states that, and I am skeptical of that because in Paul's
letter to the Romans he presumes a church
which is already in existence, and he never mentions
Peter in that letter. You would expect
him to do that if Peter had been
the evangelizer of the church at Rome. If Peter didn't found
Christianity in Rome how did he come to be here? The most likely explanation is through traveling
Jewish believers. There had been,
for quite some time, a very strong Jewish
community in Rome with very strong links
back to Jerusalem, so there was a recognized
route from Jerusalem to Rome. [music] We know that in Jerusalem,
before this time, Peter performed many
amazing miracles. Were there any miracles
performed here? In a document called
the Acts of Peter, which purports to tell us about
Peter's activities in Rome, it's really all about
Peter's miracles. For example, in one scene
Peter sees a smoked tuna fish hanging in the window. He takes it, he throws it
in a nearby pool, and the fish start swimming,
comes to life. The fish becomes a
tourist attraction and passersby stop
and look at it and feed it with
breadcrumbs. [music] The Jewish community in Rome is said to be the oldest
Jewish community in Europe, and it was well-established
in Peter's time. If he did come to the city, it would've been the obvious
place for him to stay. [music] Where we are here
is a Jewish community, the Jewish --
you would say quarter? Yeah, we call it the
ghetto neighborhood. Riccardo Di Segni has been the chief rabbi
of Rome since 2001. What do you think
the community in Rome would've felt about the
new Jesus movement -- Jews coming, believing in that
here in Rome? How would they
have been treated? The Jewish was split
into different parties, and they quarreled
with each other. They were very disordered. Did they fight each other? Yes. This is a community
where we fight about any issue. [laughing] We have very deeply
rooted customs. Can you tell me anything
about Peter here? We don't as Jews have
specific news about
Peter coming to Rome, but we have some
interesting legends. Go on, tell me. He was a religious poet who
composed poems and prayers. There is a legend that says
that one specific prayer that we recite on the
morning of Shabbat, which is called Nishmat
Kol Hai, a very beautiful
religious poem, had been written by him. It is not true, but it's very interesting
that this tradition is kept. It means that the
specific character is considered with sympathy. [music] (Narrator) It was certainly
a curious legend, but it also perhaps
points to a simple truth: That Peter always stayed
close to his Jewish religion. Of course, in the
centuries that followed, he would be claimed by the newly
emerging Christian church. [music] In this backstreet of Rome
is a little piece of England that has been
here for 650 years. [music] (Narrator)
The Venerable English College
is a Catholic seminary that prepares young
Englishmen for the priesthood. It seemed a good
place to talk to a future
generation of priests about Peter and his
significance to them. This is the English College? That's right, and the oldest English
institution outside of England. Say that again? The oldest English institution
outside of England. You've got to understand, in the year 1300
the Pope at the time, Boniface the 8th
declared a holy year inviting pilgrims to come
from all over northern Europe. They came in the thousands,
including Englishmen, and that code of arms
was above the door here saying, "This is the
English hospice; you can stay here." What was their pilgrimage
at that point? Coming to Saint Peter's tomb. To Saint Peter's tomb? Exactly. The Pope at the time
was trying to refocus European Christianity
back on to Rome, and that was the
very purpose of it. That's the start of this now
seminary as an institution. Pilgrims to see
the bones of Peter? To come to the
tomb of Peter. We're going to do two things. We're going to take the excess
wax off here with your hand, first of all. Just going to take
this top edge off. Oh, I see. Just so it looks
a bit smarter. Here's your knife,
and there's your candle. While I'm doing this, tell me what you feel
about Saint Peter. What is he to you? He's accessible. I think that's the key word. Some of the saints in
the history of the Church are perfect,
and that's wonderful. They've lived perfect
human lives. They've had every human virtue
you would ever want to have. Peter didn't. Peter messes it up
all the time, and I think most
of us in the Church can completely
relate to that. These are the scrapbooks. Another job in the college is
to cut out bits of newspaper and put them
in these books. Is that your job? No, it's another one. The first one here from 1850. Let me read this out loud. It's the most amazing language. "Do not be humbugged by the
exploded cry of no popery. "It is a phrase coined
in the mint of persecution and only fit for
ancient apple-women." That's wonderful, isn't it? These are wonderful. That's like one
of my scrapbooks. I'm not in here. Last year was
a very big year with the election
of Pope Francis. We all ran in the rain to the
square to get our positions, and I'm somewhere
there with my friends. It was very dramatic. What do you think
of Peter then? The amazing thing
about Saint Peter is he makes mistakes. Certainly at the start
he's not always so perfect or living up to Christ,
if you will, and I can see so much of
myself in that story as well. [music] (Narrator) Today Peter's
legacy is an inspiration, and part of that is the
tradition that he was martyred. I wondered how Peter
could have met his end. [music] [firetruck alarm] Exciting huh? Yeah, for me. [firetruck alarm] (Narrator) If he were in
Rome, then he would've been part of one of the most
catastrophic events in the history of the city. The Great Fire of Rome broke out on a hot summer's
night in A.D. 64. Would the fire have
spread very quickly? There were poor houses also with combustible
materials mixed together. Just dry wood? Dry wood and there was also
no water in the houses. Oh, now that's interesting. It was very
difficult for them. What were their ways
of fighting a fire like we have the fire
brigade now like you? At the time there was
not a real fire station, a real fire unit. [firetruck alarm] The Great Fire started actually
here in the Circus Maximus. You have to imagine that there
was seating up on either side, and outside under the arches
there were shops. In one of these shops that it said sold inflammable
goods or inflammable materials, the fire started,
and it was a summer evening. It was very hot, and there was
a strong wind. It said that the fire swept
down Circus Maximus here, and the flames were
generated by this wind
that could sweep down. It really was a catastrophe. (Narrator) The story goes
that after the fire the Emperor Nero turned
on the Christians. What evidence do we have of Nero's reactions
after that fire? Nero behaved very well
in the immediate
aftermath of the fire. He set up camps for people, he
organized food supplies, etc. But after a short while, because of his
grandiose building plans for rebuilding Rome, people became very
suspicious of him, and there began
to be these rumors that he had started it
just for this purpose. What about the rumor,
or is it fact, that he then blamed
the Christians for starting the fire,
using them as scapegoats? We do know that Nero
was a person who was -- he was a very nervous
Emperor in many ways. He did like to find scapegoats. It seems not out of character
that he would do such a thing, and tradition has always had it that it was the Christians that
he chose as his scapegoats. (Narrator) That tradition
goes back to the writings of the Roman
historian Tacitus. He falsely charged with guilt and punished with the
most fearful tortures the persons commonly
called Christians. But what of Peter? But it's possible
that in the aftermath of the Great Fire of Rome
that Peter got swept up in Nero's attempt to
scapegoat the Christians and was executed. If that took place, then he would've
been burned alive because the Romans killed
arsonists by burning them. It was sort of an eye for
an eye, the Lex Talionis; we'll burn you because
you burned the city. Where does the tradition that Peter was martyred
upside down come from? The tradition that Peter
was crucified upside down comes from much later;
from 100 years after he died. The idea that he was
crucified upside down because he didn't think he
was worthy to die like Jesus, the story you hear
in Sunday school, that's actually from
another 400 years later. Four hundred years? Four hundred. Now it is possible
that the Roman soldiers might have acceded to a request
to be crucified upside down, or they might actually
have been punishing him if Peter had been on his way
to martyrdom and had said, "This is great, I'm going to die
like my Savior," they might have said,
"No, you're not. We're going to execute
you upside down," just as a way
to punish him. They did have a lot of freedom,
the soldiers did, when it came to executing
common criminals, and they were very brutal. We can imagine that he
might've been crucified. He might also have
been quietly beheaded or perhaps garroted
in a prison somewhere. Do you think they would
have singled him out or was he just one of many? If Peter had come to Rome we can imagine
he would have been a celebrity to
other Christians. This is someone
who knew Jesus, who touched Him,
who lived with Him, which would have made
him a leader here. The Romans, when they did
try to target Christians, did target the leaders because those would
leave the biggest impact
on the community. That would be devastating for
a small Christian community to lose someone like Peter. (Narrator) Whatever the truth, the image of Peter
crucified upside down is now one of the
founding traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. This is Filipino Lippi's
crucifixion of St. Peter, and what I think is really
extraordinary about it is that it introduces
this idea of movement. You can see the
figure on the right with a pulley pulling him up, these two figures on either
side holding him in place, so this is the moment,
literally, of crucifixion. Jerry, as an actor,
whenever I look at a picture I always look at people's
costumes and people's faces and where they're looking at the relationships
between people, and I notice here that all
the other faces are dark except that person there
looking right at Peter's face with such a feeling
of sorrow and sadness. Actually the focus is
not on Peter's face. It's on the everyday figure who is showing the sorrow
of Peter's crucifixion. Mirroring our sorrow. It's our sorrow. But let's look at
the next painting which is just through here. What happens here
is a complete change. This is Michelangelo. This is in the Vatican, and this is an
extraordinary painting. Look at the figure
of Saint Peter. He glares at you,
so he gives you the emotion much more powerfully
than any other -- He's looking out. He's glaring at you, David. He's saying, "Look at
what is happening to me." This is actually
an angry Peter. Let's move on and look
at the next picture and
how this idea develops. This is Caravaggio's
rendition of Saint Peter. Oh, well that is amazing. Isn't it? Oh, this is extraordinary. People were absolutely
scandalized when it was first-- Why? Because they just thought that you can't portray a figure
like Saint Peter in this way, clearly in pain,
clearly in distress, clearly not wanting
to be here. This is not the calm
notion of Peter saying, "I am a martyr. I welcome this." Caravaggio's saying this is difficult, hard,
horrible, painful stuff. To me, Peter's almost
looking at his hand and saying, "So, this is what Jesus felt." Exactly. I think this is
what Caravaggio captures. He's not just a symbol
of the Church. He's a real man. This happened to him. Not a saintly picture. No, I think we've
definitely moved from -- Peter really is an icon. He represents a certain
aspect to the story to by the early 17th century he can be identified
as a man in the street who is suffering
extreme pain, but at the same time
he's a very important figure in the story of Christianity. (Narrator) If Peter
was executed in Rome, what happened to his body? The Roman Catholic tradition is that he was buried
on the Vatican Hill, the very reason the basilica
that bears his name stands there today. [music] How could he have
come to be here? [music] In the 1940s, Vatican archaeologists made
an extraordinary discovery. A few meters below the
floor of Saint Peter's was a Roman Necropolis
or City of the Dead. During Roman times
it was forbidden to bury the dead within
the walls of the city, so mausoleums sprung up along
the roads leading out of Rome. One of them ran up
the Vatican Hill alongside the Circus of Nero, an ancient race track where the
Roman historian Tacitus says the Emperor
executed Christians. By the mid-second century
Roman Christians were marking what they believe to be
the grave of St. Peter with a red wall and a
shrine called a tropaion. When archaeologists
got below the tropaion, they uncovered
an empty grave. Bone fragments were
later found nearby purportedly belonging
to St. Peter, though no pope has
ever definitively declared that they are his remains. It's from Peter's
life and death that all subsequent
Roman Catholic popes draw their authority, and that's how many
people in this crowd probably best remember Peter
as the first Bishop of Rome, the first pope. But whether he led
a church here or even came to the city
and met his death here, we can never be quite sure. But I can't help
wondering what Peter, the humble fisherman,
would have made of all this. As he looked back on his life maybe he saw those three
years he spent with Jesus like a sudden storm sweeping
across the Sea of Galilee; dangerous and unpredictable, and yet somehow he managed
to battle his way through those dark waters
and set a new course. One that would ultimately
launch a new religion far away from the
shores of Galilee. What a remarkable journey. What a remarkable man. [music]
