The Truth About Christianity's Origins In Europe | Secrets Of Christianity | Parable

at the beginning of the christian movement jesus's followers were fed to wild animals for roman entertainment then as the story goes the roman emperor constantine had a vision of the cross which inspired him to adopt jesus as his savior as a result the west became christian but did constantine really convert to christianity or are modern christians worshiping a version of jesus created by a die-hard pagan this is one of the secrets of christianity being unearthed by investigative journalist simka yakubovic from deserts to tombs from rome to the holy land simca tracks down the truth behind historical myths long-held beliefs and some of the greatest biblical stories ever told [Music] simca has come to turkey to the city of istanbul back in the 4th century a.d constantine built his new capital here and called it constantinople by that point constantine had already legalized christianity but it's still a matter of controversy whether constantine himself became a true christian i'm underneath modern istanbul the city that constantine built until constantine some 300 years after the crucifixion christianity was essentially an illegal movement after constantine within a few years a few decades it would become the official religion of the roman empire and the reason why so much of the world today is christian the question is who was he and the religion that he created is it a religion that jesus would recognize in the 4th century a.d the roman empire was divided into four major areas each region had its own ruler but when constantine's father who ruled the west died in york england in the year 306 his army declared constantine ruler of the entire roman empire this sparked a bloody struggle to determine who would end up emperor in the year 312 constantine was pitted against the general maxentius who controlled the central region including the city of rome their famous struggle for power was depicted 1200 years later in these frescoes by renaissance artist raphael based on early christian sources raphael painted these narratives on the vatican walls and it's these frescoes that tell us the traditional story of how constantine converted to christianity but there's a much older work of art that tells a different tale it's called the arch of constantine and constantine himself had it built here in the center of rome to celebrate his victory over mcsanchez over six stories high constantine's arch was erected just 91 meters from the coliseum where christians were once killed for sport for fear of damage the department of antiquities in rome hasn't given anyone permission to examine it up close for more than 30 years until now the closest you can get to constantine is the arch behind me across from the coliseum it's constantine's victory arch and on it he sculpted his narrative the problem is you can't get close to it in 30 years no one has but now we're going to go up and take a look in his quest to decode the arch simka is joined by constantine expert elizabeth marlow who has seen the carvings on constantine's arch only from ground level or in photographs until now she has never seen them up close oh my god look at that that is so fantastic look how big they are from this elevated perspective simca can now see how constantine wanted his victory over max sanchez depicted in stone for all time this is amazing i'm excited spectacular to be up here everyone should see constantine's arch this way constantine's arch depicts the battle between constantine and maxentius for strategic control of the milvian bridge just north of rome according to the tradition depicted in raphael's paintings constantine's forces were greatly outnumbered but then constantine is said to have had a vision of the cross followed by a dream of jesus that changed his life and ours forever in that moment constantine was said to have denounced the roman paganism that he was brought up with in favor of a newfound belief in christianity he ordered his soldiers to paint their shields and banners with the symbol of the cross and led his army to victory he then went on to convert the entire roman world to the christian faith that's what the christian tradition tells us but what does constantine's arch have to say in this panel constantine's face was deliberately hacked out by a long forgotten opponent to his legacy here we can still clearly see the defeated maxentius drowning in the river tiber but is there any evidence that constantine really had a vision of the cross that converted him to christianity who's that guy behind him that's one of his own men carrying a standard that's a military standard no cross there no cross there you can't see that from down below no i see a shield very clearly yes no cross there no no when we look at the evidence from constantine's reign itself the arch of constantine really being the best source we have in the years immediately following that battle there's no trace of christianity on this monument no images of jesus no crosses no christian symbolism anywhere on his arch considering his vision you would think constantine would be championing christianity is it possible that there was no vision at all in constantine's day emperors had to win over the roman army was the vision invented to win over christian soldiers but wait a minute the roman army persecuted christians it crucified jesus there wouldn't have been christians in the roman army maybe there were [Music] to investigate the possibility of christians in constantine's army simca travels to northern england once the outer reaches of the roman empire it's here where constantine's rise to power began the area is littered with roman military forts like this one located at hadrian's wall on the scottish border and it's here that andrew burley has found evidence of christians in the roman army now what do you make of it well this is not a random thing this is a very purposeful thing now corresponding with the cross inside the room in this building here on the section of the wall next door there are seven crosses like this one inserted into the wall all in one section of wall to have seven so close together it's very unusual third century christian symbols carved into stone but the same roman army that crucified jesus evidence that christians were fighting in constantine's army even before constantine came to power winning them over would have been of paramount importance but were christian soldiers also serving in his rival mcsentius's army they'd be much more likely to be christians in in accenture's army than in constantine and constantine army was largely composed of people from from the far barbarian north where christianity had made very much less impact so it seems christians were well entrenched in the roman military before either constantine or maxentius fought their famous battle for the milvian bridge but if maxantius also led christians into his army then what's so unique about constantine's claim to be a christian sympathizer to learn more simka needs to find out what maxentius really stood for the only personal relics for maxantius's reign were recently unearthed here just meters from constantine's arch by archaeologist clementina pinella pinella believes that these royal scepters spears and weapons belonged to maxentius himself and were venerated by his faithful followers just as christians venerate the crosstalk [Music] presentation upon his victory constantine tried to wipe maxentius from history's good books by portraying him as a pagan tyrant and a christian persecutor so if the image we have of maxentius as an evil pagan tyrant has been fabricated is it possible that the image we have of constantine as a christian emperor has also been fabricated to answer that question simca now investigates a secret religion that claimed the most powerful people in the empire as its followers this religion worshiped a pagan god who had an uncanny resemblance to jesus early christian history states that the roman emperor constantine received a divine vision of jesus before defeating his archrival maxentius winning control of the roman empire and causing the western world to become christian but was constantine a true christian the most important statement we have from him is his triumphal arch in rome on it simca doesn't find a single christian icon but he does find pagan symbols on this panel constantine is surrounded by pagan gods the god of the river tiber a winged goddess of victory and by roma goddess of rome an archaeological patchwork of pagan symbolism compelling evidence that constantine only adopted christian ideas to gain favor with roman soldiers in both his and maxentius's armies but winning over common soldiers wasn't enough to gain control over the entire roman empire constantine needed the support of the officer corps and the roman elite many members of these classes belonged to a mysterious cult that had been around since before jesus that cult was called mithraism named after a mediterranean sun god called mithras how did constantine mobilize both these religions to serve his own ants can it be that what appealed to him was a blend of mithraism and christianity did he fuse the two together to create a super religion that would allow him to gain control over the entire roman world not far from the roman military fort where zimca has seen evidence of christian soldiers in constantine's army another fort was discovered in 1949 by a french bulldog sniffing for bones but instead of bones or christian symbols this fort revealed a special temple built by roman officers that were devoted to the pagan god mithras my father's dog same breed is this one french bulldog was sniffing around and found the middle altar as you can see it's very wet here it was all preserved due to the dampness now this is close to the roman fort yes and it was 500 foot soldiers and mithras was for the officers so that's why it's so small so the roman officer class which constantine belonged to secretly worshipped mithras at this temple at the exact same time an increasing number of ordinary roman soldiers were worshiping jesus right next door mithraism was an elitist and secret religion practiced only by men initiates walked into this clandestine temple lit only by a few torches arriving at the front of the temple these initiates would have seen an altar to the god mithras rays projecting from his head lit from behind by candlelight the halo effect symbolized mithras's status as a sun god a striking precursor to the halo that surrounds the head of jesus this could be mere coincidence if it weren't for the fact that archaeologists have found the remains of mithraic temples all over the roman empire and more often than not those temples were found hidden beneath the world's first christian churches to see one of these mithraims simca now goes to the santa priska church in rome here excavators pulled up the floor of the church and discovered one of the largest mithraic temples ever found in cavernous dark rooms like these the roman elites would worship in secret this is amazing i feel like i'm in the notre dame cathedral of mithraism well this is a pretty sizable one the idea is this is a recreation of the primal cave where mithras commits the sacrifice of the bull which is the core event in mithraism the one source of light in this dark temple illuminates the centerpiece a bass relief that depicts the main myth of mithraic belief jutting out from the primordial rock the sun god mithras the sun of the sun slaughters the sacrificial bull and through the shedding of his blood the universe is created anew essentially what we're seeing is mithras being seen as the key creator guard who makes possible the regeneration of life and you've got the primordial rock you know the cocoon out of which the whole universe is burned impressive but it also sounds pretty pagan and yet a strange inscription here suggests a more christian approach we don't have many inscriptions of myth through us right it's a secret and they didn't write that much this is unusual this place that it does have a very faded inscription that is correct one particular text the latin translates is and you have saved us through the shedding of the eternal blood you have saved this through the shedding of the eternal blood yes so here the central bloodletting yes is seen as an act of salvation yes and the the key event in the whole nature of cosmic creation and the whole nature of life mithras sacrifices the bull and spills its blood strangely corresponding to the christian concept of jesus offering his own blood to save mankind but the similarities don't end there a lot of the mithraic rituals very closely corresponded to what the christians would do in their worship the sacred meal that they would participate in is taking the body or the blood of this sacrifice by sharing a meal of bread and wine here here it's communion it's basically a communion a eucharist and those who partake in this feast will live forever so just as christians reenact the last supper with jesus before his death a form of communion was also practiced here and just as jesus died and was resurrected so was mithras which is why at this altar mithras is pictured right next to a sculpture of an egyptian god in this particular god if you look carefully at his forehead you notice that little lock that hangs down there that's actually what signify that he is the reconfiguration of the god osiris and osiris is the dying exactly the resurrection right god of the egyptians right just like christians mithraeus believed in the concept of resurrection which may explain why both religions were popular to members of the roman military faced with the daily risk of death who wouldn't put their faith in the possibility of resurrection and eternal life but what's most compelling is evidence that mithras followers celebrated his holy birth on december 25th the same day that christians would later celebrate the birth of jesus it was shocking to me when i learned that nobody talked about jesus's birthday as december 25th when right jesus was walking the earth yes it was mithras's birth that is correct and this is because december 25th was but the romans are always a traditional important holiday the feast of the saturnalia which went on for 12 days and everybody was expected to give presents during that time period so suddenly 12 days gift giving december 25th and a lot of these symbols do find their way into christian iconography as it turns out mithraism is embedded in the gospels themselves through the story of the three wise men at the church of saint paulina nuovo in ravenna italy the iconography is still methraic here we have the three wise men also known as the magi this is the scene that's recounted at the birth of christ that these three wise men are bringing these gifts to the christ child and the hats that they're wearing and greco-roman art this sort of became the standard hat that would be used in their artwork to denote somebody who's an easterner but these hats weren't worn by just any non-christian from the east called for g in caps they were the official hats of the matriarch priesthood also known as the magi even mithras is depicted wearing the same style of hat and although there are no christian symbols on the arch of constantine the arch is literally ringed by eight magi-looking figures wearing the phrygian hats of the matreya priesthood but if constantine was the worshiper of a sun god how could he have championed christianity unless he created a new version of christianity partially fashioned in the image of mithras to do that he would have had to convince christians that he was one of them while in reality supporting the introduction of pagan ideas into their faith and to do that i believe constantine needed the help of someone someone working on the inside of the early christian church constantine is known to history as the emperor who converted the roman empire to the teachings of jesus but the arch of constantine has no christian symbolism on it whatsoever and evidence found beneath the first christian churches suggests that constantine fused mithraism with christianity to win the patronage of the powerful roman elites but this leaves one problem how could constantine get true christians to go along with his version of their faith and what about the founding fathers of the church after years of persecution of worshiping in secret surely they wouldn't let constantine manipulate their religion for his gain or would they this compelling evidence to suggest that constantine's vision was a postscript to what really happened at the milvian bridge as it turns out while constantine was still alive there was only one church father who recorded constantine's life and his celebrated conversion to christianity his name was eusebius and besides becoming constantine's soul biographer he also became constantine's right-hand man in the christian world according to eusebius's writings it's here at the milvian bridge north of rome that constantine had a vision of the cross and a dream about jesus that inspired him to win the battle and change the world forever so here's the milvian bridge this is the bridge that gets associated with the battle so this bridge behind you becomes in a sense a metaphor for the change of human history yes the bridge becomes a way to refer to not necessarily the battle itself but the consequences of the battle yet in eusebi is his first draft of this account he doesn't mention constantine's vision at all no vision no dream yet so eusebius's first account of the battle of the milvian bridge that took place somewhere right where we're standing even eusebius who's like church father bishop great admirer of constantine does not mention visions in that account no [Music] without a vision of jesus how did constantine convince his contemporaries that he had converted to christianity eusebius's own writings suggest that constantine persuaded eusebius to rewrite his account of the milvian bridge during a great banquet that constantine held for the leaders of the christian church in the year 325 after years of persecution eusebius and his fellow bishops were now being hosted by the emperor himself and it seems that it was at this banquet 13 years after the battle of the milvian bridge that eusebius first heard anything about constantine's vision so constantine tells the story about the vision of the cross before the battle at the milvian bridge when constantine tells the story he emphasizes first of all the vision of a cross in the sky at noon time secondly he then had a dream in which jesus christ himself appeared and explained the vision to him almost like he's a prophet he has visions he has dreams jesus speaks to him precisely and here in these original texts by eusebius one can see the impact of constantine's story on eusebius and his fellow bishops so here's eusebius's description of the banquet he compares this banquet with the emperor to the coming of jesus and christians had anticipated if there was going to be a christian ruler it might well be jesus come back to earth and now suddenly it turns out to be the emperor himself now portrayed as a christ-like figure constantine turned his so-called vision into the official history and that history was soon propagated by christian art here we have raphael yes a raphael when he paints he paints a vision in the sky it's a cross by this sign you will conquer and so on this is mythology becoming history yes even without knowing the narrative you just want to stare at these frescoes so this is sort of a last attempt to reaffirm this papal narrative which had already been shown to be a fiction [Music] a myth based not on history but on a fiction but if eusebius's biography of constantine represents the myth what did constantine really believe in the only direct link we have to constantine is his arch which is adorned by pagan symbols but on it we can also see reliefs depicting three former emperors the philosopher marcus aurelius the conqueror trajan and the statesman hadrian all stolen from previous monuments and strategically recycled for his arch begging the question why would constantine decorate a monument to his own achievements with reliefs taken from other emperors unless he was really saying something about himself isn't he telling us what everybody thinks are winners are really losers and me i'm i'm the real winner at the end of the day i'm going to re-fashion the world in a way that hadrian trajan and marcus aurelius could not even imagine i would agree with you that constantine would have been very happy if people looking at his arch had been able to take away the message that he is going to supersede the legacy of even rome's best previous emperors but how is he going to do that the answer may lie at the very top of the arch here there is an inscription and it states in latin instinct to divinitatis which describes constantine as divinely inspired but if it's not jesus who's inspiring him which god is when looking at what's depicted on his arch what we find are pagan gods from the roman pantheon and none so prominently rendered as the sun god apollo [Music] the light is amazing and it's so appropriate with the rising of the sun god right there to have it illuminated by the sun this way before constantine's alleged vision he followed the official religion of the roman empire the imperial cult a pagan religion that worshiped apollo above all else much like the pagan god mithras apollo was the sun god that represented the light of creation according to the imperial cult constantine as emperor was a superhuman avatar the link between apollo and the rest of humanity [Music] and from the archaeology it's clear that constantine bought into this idea completely he commissioned this 12 meter statue of himself and not surprisingly the statue came with an enormous head built into this statue's healthy hairline may be evidence that constantine believed he was more than a mere representative of apollo there are dowel holes that certainly were for some kind of insert and it seems likely that it was for a raid crown that's not christian to me to me that's saying i am god right there's absolutely no humility uh in any of constantine's self-fashioning i mean he's very happy to have a 40-foot tall statue of himself looming over this space in the center of rome he allows cities in the north of italy to erect cults to his family to worship him as a god he is aloof he's giant and he's god-like yes he's super human he is superhuman the image of constantine with sun rays emanating from his head not only matches the earliest images of apollo it also matches the iconography of mithras and is it just coincidence that christian art begins to depict jesus the same way with a halo of light around his head or was constantine combining all the gods of light into one when constantine claimed to have had a vision of the melvian bridge which religion was constantine truly embracing did constantine abandon paganism for christianity or did he blend apollo and mithras into jesus christ and then re-fashion all three in his own image [Music] as it turns out when constantine had his arch built he topped it off with a bronze portrait of himself destroyed in antiquity this statue depicted him riding the same kind of chariot as apollo seemingly taking off into sunny skies constantine is known to history as the first roman emperor to convert to christianity legalize it and thereby change the world but the archaeology he left behind suggests an alternative history his triumphal arch is covered with pagan symbols and from the statues he erected of himself it seems that constantine not only worshipped pagan gods he saw himself as having a special relationship with them if constantine saw himself as divinely ordained he would have seen his reign as a new founding he would have believed that he was responsible for changing the course of human history and the new founding needs a new capital rome would no longer do so he went to what is today istanbul in modern day turkey and he founded a new capital for his new empire he didn't name it after jesus or the apostles rather he stayed true to his nature and he named it after himself he called the new city constantinople he left rome and he certainly never returned there again settled on this incomparable site it bridges the two continents it's strategically and tactically located in in virtually an ideal position easily defended and i think he wanted a monument to himself he wanted his own city with his own imprint on it [Music] despite constantine's reputation as the first christian emperor the most dominant feature of constantinople's skyline was not a christian church but a giant column that was once topped by a huge bronze statue of the sun god apollo the statue is long gone and the column is under renovation but at the time of constantine people were worshiping the sun god here when the city was built this was a big plaza or forum and that column was in the center of it it's about 100 feet in the air what's significant about it is that in subsequent years christian bishops and theologians were very upset about the fact that the people of constantinople conducted divine services here and yet constantine's statue of apollo was not like other pagan images he did make a slight modification to it he replaced apollo's face with his own what's even better is the tradition continues that in this statue he put a relic of the true cross so he's attaching relics of jesus to or inserting them in this statue so he wrecks a statue of himself and this statue depicts him as apollo but for good measure we've got a little bit of the true cross mixed in yes did constantine pull off the greatest hoax of all time by pretending to be a christian was he actually equating himself with both apollo and jesus or did he merely see himself as their special emissary to find out simca returns to the arch but this time he's not looking at what's on the arch this time he's looking at how the arch was positioned from this bird's eye view he is reminded that constantine's arch is off-center by almost two meters from the original road that ran through it but why the romans were famous for their feats of engineering surely they wouldn't make a mistake when building the emperor's new arch there had to be some other reason a reason that must be hiding in plain sight based on ancient records we know that during constantine's time there was a colossal statue that stood 108 meters behind the arch but this was not just any statue it was a 30 meter high monument to apollo is there a connection between the statue and the arch expert elizabeth marlow thinks she's found that connection so then i started playing around on the living room floor in my apartment where i made a little cut out of the arch and i propped it up and i got a doll and i set him up and then set the arch up in front of him and i worked out the proportions very carefully lying down and peering through the central passageway for me that was the aha moment based on her living room reconstructions marlo came up with a compelling new theory as to why constantine's arch was built where it was but to prove her theory marlo first had to brave rush hour roman traffic so that she could gain the right perspective [Music] the evidence on the ground confirmed her hypothesis constantine's arch was built off center on the road so as to perfectly frame the colossus of apollo behind it according to marlow as you entered rome you would have seen apollo's head looming above the statue of constantine on his arch as if watching over constantine but as you moved closer to the arch itself the sun god would have dropped below constantine until he was left standing in the center of the main archway at the point when the statue is framed in the central passageway it is the figure of constantine that is now looming above in the sky as the sun is setting what is rising is constantine yes yes the arch is literally a reframing of the sun god with constantine on top of the arch marlow has revealed a clear example where on the surface constantine seems to be putting himself under apollo but covertly he is letting us know that he is greater than apollo can it be that he did the same with christianity seemingly worshiping jesus while replacing jesus with himself our investigation has revealed that constantine merged the great pagan sun gods mithras in apollo and replaced their images with his own maybe that's not blasphemy by christian standards but it does tell us what constantine thought of himself by depicting himself with rays of light coming out of his head constantine was telling the world that he was to be worshipped as a god now where does that leave christianity was constantine willing to step aside and bow down to the king of the jews as any christian would i don't think so i think constantine took jesus and refashioned him in his own image thereby turning the anti-roman rebel we read about in the gospels into a symbol of roman imperialism to find evidence for this simca travels to the archbishop's chapel in ravenna italy where there's a 6th century mosaic that depicts jesus in a whole new light [Music] that's a mosaic of jesus dressed as a roman soldier although if you look at it more carefully you can see that he's actually a roman emperor dressed for command he's got the military equipment and of course he has the cross over his shoulder so you can kind of see that christ is also taking on the role of being the roman emperor he's depicted as the emperor as the emperor in a military role so constantine didn't start running around dressed like jesus right he got jesus to dress like him right the irony is that after constantine jesus who had been crucified by the roman army was now depicted as its leader but what was constantine's goal was he trying to change jesus or was he trying to replace him [Music] to answer this question simca now looks into the plans constantine made for his own funeral well he was actually buried in uh in constantinople in the church of the holy apostles which no longer exists it was reported that he was buried with the 12 apostles surrounding him so constantine prepares his burial by creating a real coffin for himself right and then these pretend coffins for the other disciples right if you take jesus's place one way to interpret it is i i am jesus well you could see it that way on earth the roman emperors do become the stand-in for jesus because now with the christian roman empire the emperor takes on the role as being the leader of the worldwide christian community but by taking jesus's place did constantine see himself as someone who could promote jesus's message or subvert it can the arch also answer this question from this high vantage point simka suddenly makes a discovery that would have never occurred to him below how you position something relative to something else that's sacred geometry he's essentially putting himself in a relationship with the flavius just on the other side of constantine's arch is the famous coliseum built by the emperor vespasian flavius across on the left is a triumphal arch built by the same emperor's son titus flavius and in the center where there is now a circular depression in the grass once stood a giant fountain built by vespasian's other son domitian flavius one of the greatest persecutors of early christianity why would constantine want to associate himself so intimately with the flavian dynasty as it turns out the first century flavian emperors have gone down in history as the men who destroyed jerusalem and the holy temple in it they could literally boast that they had torched the house of god jesus wept for the destruction of the temple in contrast by positioning his arch in close proximity to the destroyers of the temple constantine was permanently linking his legacy with theirs but if that wasn't enough he celebrated the flavian name as his own he called himself flavius constantinus [Music] could it be that just as the flavians boasted that they had defeated the god of israel constantine scheme to defeat the religion that worshiped jesus as god's son but as we have seen constantine was going to do it not by oppressing christianity but by adopting it not by defeating it but by defining it he would out flavian the flabbians he wouldn't fight people he would fight their ideas he would defeat jesus by transforming him from a crucified judean rebel into a roman emperor for 1500 years people accepted the story that constantine was a true christian that he had a vision of the cross and that he converted a pagan roman empire to christianity but our investigation has revealed another story one that isn't particularly christian we're not the first other investigators have noticed discrepancies in constantine's character but they concluded that maybe he wasn't religious maybe he was just pragmatic but maybe he was religious after all not in a christian sense but in a pagan sense it seems that he put his faith in the sun he believed in the sun's only begotten son himself christian tradition tells us that the roman army crucified jesus in the 1st century a.d then went on to persecute christians for the next 300 years but is it possible that the religion of jesus was actually spread by the very same people who nailed him to the cross this is one of the secrets of christianity being unearthed by investigative journalist simka jakobovic from deserts to tombs from rome to the holy land simca tracks down the truth behind historical myths long-held beliefs and some of the greatest biblical stories ever told back in the first century a.d the roman imperial army occupied judea and was known as the most brutal military force the world had ever seen made up of 30 legions each with approximately 6 000 men the army was paid to put down anyone who defied roman occupation according to the christian gospels jesus of nazareth did just that branded as a heretic by the jewish authorities and prosecuted as an anti-roman rebel by the roman governor he was publicly executed by crucifixion in the year 30 a.d forcing his followers to worship in secret for fear of persecution at the hands of the roman army and yet just outside the ancient city of jericho there is evidence that the same roman army that oppressed christians may have been secretly worshiping jesus less than three kilometers from where the roman army was garrisoned in the year 70 a.d there is a cave that seems to have been used as a church as early as the first century simca has come here with the man who discovered the cave archaeologist yuval peleg the roman military was around here right here believes that the cave contains important archaeological information that may date to the time of the roman occupation simca wants to go down and take a closer look but the cave is known to harbor a potentially fatal disease called cave fever which is carried by ticks that live in the rocks so before descending into it both simca and yuval have to protect themselves but you know what this is a great natural church like the notre dame cathedral of the dead sea area as simca goes deeper it becomes apparent that this cave was once used as a church inside the cave's belly yuval peleg shows simca the image of a cross carved into stone based on its design it appears to be one of the earliest [Music] you know what that is that's a fish the image of the fish is one of the first christian symbols and was used as a secret handshake amongst early christian believers is it possible that this was a secret church [Music] a candle over here in the middle but who were the people worshiping here the answer may be provided by the symbol found next to the cross the roman sun god saul invictus the sun is very important symbol in the roman army for example apollo saul invictus romans worshiped the sun as the supreme god but here it is with a vertical line dividing it into two could this solar disk be how the first roman christians tried to integrate the christian idea of the father and the son into the roman belief in the son so is it possible that this cave was a secret church for roman soldiers from the nearby camp simca is now shown another symbol that may answer that question a symbol that looks remarkably like a roman military standard known as the aquila a banner topped by an eagle its wings spread wide in the shape of an upside down triangle i think it's an amazing thing in a place where you have purposeful crosses you also have something purposeful that looks like a standard some kind of flag with a cross in the middle like it flows down it could be even cloth or something we have a puzzle we have a sun crosses some kind of symbol [Music] here in this hole in the ground in the middle of the desert there are symbols that if properly decoded may tell us how christianity left the holy land and spread across the entire globe first clue fish which tells us that this is an early christian place second clue crosses which tells us that this isn't a single monk making one cross this is a congregation and the fact that it's underground tells us that this congregation is worshiping in secret now since we're in israel and all of jesus's earliest followers were jewish you'd expect to find jewish symbols in there but you don't instead what you find is the roman sun god and what looks like a roman military standard so is it possible that instead of suppressing christianity and oppressing christianity some early roman soldiers were actually spreading the faith before 2 000 years of history can be overturned based on scratches of the fish and a roman military standard simca will have to find more evidence so he now heads to megiddo called armageddon in the christian bible it's here right next to what is now a maximum security prison that archaeologist yotam tever has found a compelling connection between the roman army and the world's first christians in the second century the sixth african legion came here between tel megiddo where we standing now and megiddo prison in the big field over there so the sixth ferrata legion was camped right there the roman military yeah they're basically occupying judea they controlled the north part of of the country it was during teffer's excavation of the camp that inmates from the prison made their own amazing discovery while digging the foundations of a new cell block what they found were the ruins of a jewish village that bordered on the roman camp the teffer was excavating outside the prison and there right where the village and the camp met on the roman military side they found a mosaic containing images of fish at first they believed the fish were simply decorations but as excavations continued they found a definite link to christianity the first inception it was dedicated to jesus christ [Music] then we found another two inceptions the last one talking about roman army officer centurion that give the money for the flow so this mosaic there's an inscription dedicated dedicated by a roman officer it was confirmed the mosaic belonged to a house church that was built by a roman centurion it was positioned on the border between the jewish village and the roman camp conclusive evidence that rather than oppressing the first christians at least some roman soldiers were offering them shelter a place where both roman soldiers and jewish villagers could worship jesus together but were they practicing christianity as we know it today just like the sun symbol found in the cave near jericho the centurion's dedication may hint at a pagan sensibility the mosaic says dedicated to the god jesus christ but the new testament never refers to jesus as a god suggesting that the romans who worshipped here thought of jesus as one of many gods rather than part of the one true god to their amazement right next to the fish tephir's team also discovered remnants of a stone table leading him to believe that the type of worship that was going on here was already highly ritualized do you think this table is really a precursor to an altar yeah they don't become that and also yeah to share a communal meal this is huge taking communion eating together jews and gentiles and you found this right at the edge between romans and jews yeah woman and jews they living together now this is like a hundred years before christianity becomes the religion of the roman empire this is why it's so important because if you put everything together it's evidence of christian religion in the roman army yeah but was this christianization only happening in the holy land or could it be that just as in jericho and megiddo secret christians in the roman army were spreading the faith to roman forts throughout the empire to answer this simca's investigation leads him to the largest roman military base in the ancient near east the stronghold of dura europas [Music] the conventional wisdom is that the world's first christians were jews and that they were persecuted by the roman army to escape they fled north to modern day syria lebanon and turkey but we've seen evidence that as early as the second century some roman soldiers were christianized so is it possible that the world's first christians went north not because the roman army was persecuting them but because they were sheltering them not because they were fleeing from the roman army but rather because they were following the roman legions northward to find the answer simca has followed the trail of the roman army here to the syrian desert to a city the romans occupied in the second century this stronghold had been buried under desert sands for some 1600 years then in 1920 a soldier digging a trench accidentally discovered it when archaeologists began excavating they soon realized it was the long-lost city of jura europas [Music] because of politics it's impossible to travel from israel to syria so simca must ask his friend archaeologist dino politis to investigate these roman ruins for signs of christian worship [Music] segolin de pombrian has been helping to unearth the city's remains for the past two years we call dura the pompeii of the desert which is very incredible to have all this building in the same place despite the common belief that christians weren't worshiping openly in the first centuries for fear of roman persecution archaeologists here uncovered evidence to the contrary not just a house church hidden in a soldier's home with the world's oldest christian church here in durham what's what's the best evidence that we have christians you are going to see the most important which is the christian building this big door is the entrance for the main room i think it's the oldest we have in the world when archaeologists found the church they also discovered the world's oldest christian frescoes however they have since been sent to yale university the frescoes are proof that christians weren't just getting by at jury europas they were flourishing here in one of the frescoes there is an early symbol of christianity there is a good shepherd just over here you can see the sky also the chipper here and he's holding a ship early on the good shepherd became a symbol of jesus borrowed from the god addis worshiped in the roman army this is the first proof for christian art it's very important when first discovered this corner contained a baptismal font proof that the people who worshipped here were open about their christianity and were even baptizing new converts finding this christian church isn't enough to prove that roman soldiers were taking up the faith here but it does tell us that christians were being tolerated there are christians obviously living and painting beautifully their walls when christianity is supposed to be illegal but here there's no problem there is no problem does all this demonstrate that roman soldiers were converting to christianity unlike the cave near jericho where we found roman military symbols next to crosses this church has no explicit roman army symbols so if roman soldiers weren't worshiping here where did they worship just down the street from the church excavations have unearthed a temple devoted to the goddess artemis we are in the temple of artemis dated from the first century aiding so roman pagan period yeah artemis was a fertility deity she was the most popular goddess of the pagan world her cult was centered in ephesus modern turkey here in dura europas her temple was found right next to the roman commander's house known as the praetorium you could see this is a meeting room with some stairs you can have a seat yes we can see i can see inscriptions too in greek yes this is the name of the person who are sitting here strangely none of these inscriptions refer to the goddess artemis but right above a stone's seat that was inscribed with one worshiper's name archaeologists found a cryptic symbol painted on the wall the symbol is called the satyr square or magic box not only does it pre-date the christian church down the street it might just hold a secret christian message they have found for saturn square actually this is in this very temple it was on a plaster just like that this is a roman inscription and it could be like a chord for the christians it's for sure a soldier inscriptions is it possible that segolan de pombrio is right could this be a secret christian code that was used by roman soldiers the satyr square is made up of five latin words rotus opera tenet a repo and seder but the square is also a palindrome which means the same words can be read forwards and backwards top to bottom [Music] always the same so rota's read backwards becomes seder and opera read backwards is a repo but then hinged on the letter n the word tenet remains the same [Music] this appears strikingly similar to the cross found in the cave at jericho in the church at dura people worship christianity openly but in the army where it was illegal they may have needed the square to communicate their secret faith perhaps the square is a code within a code to find out we'll need to decipher the square dino now travels to the museum in damascus rumor has it that right after they were discovered three of the four squares were put into storage here you are responsible for the classical yes section of the museum here behind the museum's main displays the curator takes dino to the back storage rooms where sure enough there's christian artifacts from juror europas which haven't been examined for almost a century nobody's seen it no so these were wall plaster yes taken from dura dino immediately sees an image that looks like a roman military sign but instead of containing a vertical line like the one simca found in the cave near jericho this one contains a full cross does this once again illustrate how the first roman christians blended christian imagery with their own pagan beliefs something here something here suddenly dino sees a striking figure a pictograph that looks like jesus arms spread wide in what scholars call the oronte position a symbol of piety here there is a sun clearly visible behind jesus's head perhaps the oldest depiction of jesus ever found an image that would come to dominate christian art for millennia and right next to this image is an armored horse evidence of a roman military presence unfortunately nowhere in the museum's artifacts can dino find the satyr squares that he had come here to investigate we have nothing like this here no do you know the last time these were seen have you ever seen this no no a dear europa we've seen evidence of the earliest christian church a place where they were baptizing people and gaining converts but what about evidence of christians in the roman army well they did find their four saitor squares is it possible that as roman emperors began to persecute christians the newly minted christians in the roman army adopted the square as their secret symbol is it possible that the army that had crucified jesus was now spreading christianity in his name simca is searching for evidence that the same roman army that persecuted christians was actually spreading its teachings behind the backs of its anti-christian emperors so far his investigation has turned up images that seem to be fusing christian ideas with roman sun worship all found in military camps throughout the near east he has also found an ancient symbol called the seder square does this latin palindrome contain a hidden code that was used by secret christians in the roman army the answer may be found here in the ancient ruins of pompeii once a center of roman culture it was destroyed in the year 79 a.d when mount vesuvius erupted showering pompeii with fire and ash buried for almost 2 000 years under six meters of pumice pompeii is the perfect portrait of roman life frozen in time just 49 years after the crucifixion of jesus in the ruins archaeologists uncovered the remains of an ancient training facility for roman soldiers what suggests that this is a military place we have a couple of graffiti on the columns here that do suggest that there were soldiers here we're in what's been called a palestra or a campus this could have been like the campus marshes in rome where the military could go and practice surprisingly in the ancient graffiti that was edged into one of these columns archaeologists discovered the oldest seder square ever found the square itself no longer exists but there's photographic evidence of the exact spot where it was carved that's the exact spot it is right here it's as though we're looking at it to get to the hidden layers of the square simca asks professor benefiel to explain the plain meaning of the words people have suggested that you could translate it this way sator the sower a repo is not a latin word so it's been suggested that that's just a name tenet holds opera work rotos the wheels a repo the sewer holds the wheels in work and it's thought that there could be a sense of you know you must work hard reap what you sow all these different things it doesn't make a fabulous sentence but there's not an obvious meaning and so what's your gut feel what's going on with this box i think that this was a game that anyone could play when you're relaxing or waiting in the shade on a hot summer day and that's maybe why it got written up here so was the satar square nothing more than a game a meaningless distraction for roman soldiers with a lot of time on their hands i'm not convinced if it was a game what were the rules and how much fun could it be playing with a sentence that basically tells you to work hard i think when it comes to the sator square there's a lot more than meets the eye but to prove it i'll need a second opinion and who better than an expert on ancient games now travels to the british museum in london which houses the largest collection of roman artifacts in the world it's here that he meets with ancient games expert irving finkel the romans liked to carve their war games in public places on pavements and on stone and sometimes the points of the game instead of being just with dots or something were actually laid out with letters which read together made sense and then you encounter the sator opera you think yourself oh this is some kind of five by five game but i'm fairly sure that it's nothing to do with that whatsoever and it has to be separated and regarded as an altogether different category let me see if i understand you're saying given what you know about games this is not a game i'm certain it's not a game yes because the kind of place that it's found coupled with the amount of labor it cost to carve it on stone which is not a slight matter means that it had more significance than that and since the primary significance is so unclear i should think the secondary underneath significance is the real one using has meaning it certainly has meaning because you don't find lots of latin inscriptions which are meaningless dr finkel has confirmed simka's original suspicions the seder square is definitely not an ancient roman game but does it contain a hidden christian meaning in an attempt to decipher the square scholars considered whether the surface meaning of the words were a diversion so they scrambled the letters to see which latin phrases they could build what they came up with ranged from the political the one in power is at fault to the demonic satan cruel in all your works but most were simply absurd he terrifies the rutabagas leaving most researchers to believe that the square was nothing more than a collection of random words chosen only for their ability to fit the design to find out how random these five words really are simka has called on the help of computer scientist and medical research professor michael brudeno who uses mathematical formulas to determine the randomness of human dna sequences simca has asked him to apply the same techniques to see whether the square's letters conceal a secret code you're looking for things which happen by chance very often and trying to tweeze apart is there a hope of this being non-random professor brudeno assembles a database of all the five-letter words in the latin language that can be read both forwards and backwards to see how many five-word squares can be built the results are astonishing so from these we built 50 000 squares 50 000 squares so 50 000 square that's a lot of squares it's right now generating all 50 000 squares of the 50 000 word squares that the computer generated only the sater square's debatable message of holds the wheels and work appears to have any metaphorical value whatsoever so what does this tell you as a kind of uh pattern finder these squares are hard to build with 21st century technology it took us a couple of weeks to get to sort through all of them the person who found these put in some time into this so it seems unlikely that the seder square was just a random invention it must have had some kind of meaning what do you think i think the person came in with an intuition that these are the letters which i want because if he chose pretty much any other letters the person wouldn't have succeeded in building the square so the satar square was not a roman game after all it seems to have had a hidden meaning built into it from the outset but did that mean have anything to do with being a secret christian in the roman army to find that out i'm going to have to go to the other end of the empire to the forts of hadrian's wall if i can find a saitor square there then maybe i can prove that this is the cryptic symbol behind the spread of christianity [Music] seneca believes that the roman army that nailed jesus to the cross also spread christianity to the ends of the roman empire it happened as a result of the sophisticated network of roads the roman army built to flex its muscles over the people it ruled the roads didn't just move soldiers but also ideas one of which was christianity so far simca has found evidence of christianity among roman soldiers serving in the holy land and nearby syria he's even found a mysterious symbol called the satyr square that may contain a secret christian message but is there any evidence that roman soldiers serving in the area of the holy land made it to the farthest reaches of the empire and brought christianity with them in manchester they found military discharge diplomas belonging to roman soldiers from the 2nd century a.d what have we got here these are very helpful because they're a snapshot in time of the garrison of a province does the picture tell you of movement the name of the place where he came from doesn't survive complete it would suggest he came from heliopolis in syria that's very close to jesus country yeah we're talking 133 132 jesus was crucified in 33 which means that they could have come into contact with the very earliest christians it is quite possible so soldiers from the holy land made it to england but were they christians it seems at least some of them were because there's evidence that roman soldiers sent for and married christian women this is the tombstone of a lady called aurelia aya [Music] she herself came from solonas which is in modern day croatia and that is one of the earliest christian cities in mainland europe um so that suggests that she may be a christian and the idea is then supported by the fact that she lived without blemish it's an epithet which tends to be used in christian contexts so information pulled together suggests that this isn't christian the tombstone shows us that not only was she a christian but she traveled across the roman empire to get married to a roman soldier it seems soldiers from the holy land traveled to roman britain and some of them were sending for and marrying christian women but if the roman army had a secret population of christians is there evidence of that in a military context simca now travels north to hadrian's wall built in the second century to defend against celtic tribes from the north vindalanda was one of the military forts along the wall it's here in the soldier's barracks that archaeologists have uncovered the foundations of a christian church a christian tombstone crosses and a so far undeciphered symbol carved into a portable altar this sun cross reminds us of the ones we found at the cave outside jericho and a jury europas but it has evolved even further it's now more like an abstract portrait of the crucifixion further evidence that roman soldiers were fusing both pagan and christian ideas into one and that they were carrying those ideas with them to the farthest outposts of the roman empire the most famous christian in the roman army is the first english martyr saint alban saint alban is said in the accounts to have been martyred by caesar who caused this soldier to be arrested for being a christian refusing to carry out pagan ceremonies and has him executed this story demonstrates why it was important for christians in the roman army to keep their faith a secret and share a symbol that no one could decode i think that the square is likely to be christian christians would be able to use this as a secret way of communicating with each other to find that symbol simca now travels back to the city of manchester once a western outpost of the roman empire it's here that archaeologists uncovered the fragment of a satyr square that just might be the oldest christian artifact ever discovered on british soil [Music] so is this a big surprise you could say that yes it's it's one those um wonder moments for an archaeologist when you come across a phone like this you've recreated that around we have enough there to enable us to be very confident in reconstruction this is a very standard piece of pottery called an amphora and these are big storage jars which we use for olive oil fish sauce wine this kind of clay jug was used to store wine and the fact that it has the seder square engraved right on it strongly suggests it had a ceremonial purpose maybe it was used during communion and the interesting thing with this find it came from a rubbish pit between two buildings simcon now finds out that the rubbish pit was located next to a roman military fort there would have been auxiliary soldiers bringing their religions with them one of which would have been christianity so why not for a soldier to put this piece of graffiti on the emperor for a subverted religion that he totally believed in so you just look at it some letters but it could preserve somebody taking risking their lives for their faith i think it's remarkable that he's got such a small fragment that was such a big story in the centuries that followed squares just like this one found their way to roman forts in portugal france and hungary wherever the seder square went christianity soon followed but can the secret message of the sater square finally be decoded simca has found the satar square in a roman military context at the farthest outposts of the roman empire in both britain and syria he's convinced the square holds the missing clue of how christianity spread to the western world but he still doesn't know what the square really means to break the code he's going back to where the earliest seder square was found here in pompeii back before the eruption of mount vesuvius pompeii was the roman version of sodom and gomorrah the streets were lined with brothels like this one the walls covered with body frescos depicting sexual pleasures that anyone could experience for a price but not everyone in pompeii was drunk on sex and paganism some people believed that pompeii was going to be punished in the manner of the biblical sodom and total annihilation this piece of ancient graffiti invokes a curse against pompeii revealing a distinctly christian point of view what do we make of it you always want to start with what's the clearest and this is a karim c-h-e-r-e-m is a transliteration of a hebrew word and it's often in the hebrew bible the old testament so it's always used for divine retributions just blotting out and then pointium it's written in latin it's a attempt to represent a greek word point a a blow or a strike ponium harem means to strike with utter destruction exactly and these are the five pointed stars solomonic because if to bring power to a kind of a curse maybe the harem curse was found in the doorway to this house it seems to have acted as an amulet warding off immoral activity but who were the people who lived here inside archaeologists found a fresco that depicts the owners a man named pacquiao procolo and his wife from the fresco we learned that pacquo wasn't italian he probably came from the middle east in his hands he holds roman citizenship given to soldiers after 25 years of service but is there any evidence that pacquo procolo was a christian from the pompeian record we learned that at one point he purchased a bakery he then discovered that his building was adorned with pagan sexual imagery which pacquo felt compelled to cover up evidenced by the remains of white plaster then inside above the bakery's main furnace archaeologists uncovered a cross strong evidence that this former roman soldier was now practicing christianity openly simca now wants to see if any other artifacts were found at pakwo's house suddenly he is presented with an inscription whose existence he was not aware of not a photo not a fragment it is the world's oldest surviving sater square [Music] the same house he said but they're saying that this satoru square was found in the same house as the ethereum inscription this square is dated no later than 79 a.d just 49 years after the crucifixion of jesus and right above the square we also find the image of the fish inscribed in the same style as the one found at the cave near jericho [Music] i think we found where the magic box came from clearly the square was no game here it was found in a doorway alongside biblical symbols and curses we even know the name of the former soldier who inscribed it paquo procolo but we still don't know what it means so simcoe pays one final visit to dr irving finkel the likelihood is it's an early christian device in which they want you to write the words party and noster in such a way that it wasn't obvious that that's what it was and you think it has christian meaning anybody who takes the effort to write in the inscription has a meaning behind it and meaning is sometimes transparent and sometimes obscure and sometimes both at once dr finkel believes that the square refers to the phrase pattern noster as it turns out when you reorder the square's 25 letters in the shape of a cross using the square's only n as your axis you can create the latin phrase pattern noster which is translated as our father the first two words of the most important christian prayer in the gospels arranging the words in this way leaves four letters outstanding two o's and two a's which seems to represent jesus's famous lines from the book of revelations i am the alpha and the omega the beginning and the end but there may be one other christian message encoded in the square it involves a repo which is the only word that has no meaning in latin what if it is a mix of greek and hebrew just like the curse found in pacquo's doorway in greek there is one word that sounds a lot like a repo that word is aleppo which sounds like a greek version of the hebrew a once again forming the alpha and omega using the word aleppo would have ruined the palindrome so the similar sounding arepo was used instead if this is right the seder square's five words read the alpha and omega hold the wheels in work in other words decoded the secret message that roman soldiers were spreading is jesus makes god's work possible found with roman and early christian symbols the satyr square hides an image of the cross a secret prayer and a concealed message all pointing towards a christian meaning founded roman military camps across the empire it also tells us that at a time when christianity was an illegal movement roman soldiers weren't just adopting christianity they were adapting its symbols for their own needs thereby shaping christian ideas and icons for future generations of worshipers the common perception has been that the roman army persecuted christians for the first 300 years after the crucifixion and that christianity was being spread by apostles and martyrs but compelling new evidence suggests that this is not the whole story finding the sator square all over the roman military world tells us at least three things first that roman soldiers were risking their lives and worshipping in secret second that their idea of a sun god was influencing their idea of jesus third that the religion of love was being spread not only by people fleeing the roman army but by people serving it in the first century pompeii was the sin city of the roman empire here rome's elite reveled in sects and sadism meanwhile the earliest followers of jesus were preaching repentance to the romans and predicting the end of days and then it happened the vesuvius volcano erupted and wiped out pompeii and neighboring herculaneum was the eruption the best thing that could have happened to christianity did vesuvius provide christianity with the launch it needed this is one of the secrets of christianity being unearthed by investigative journalist sunka yakubovic from deserts to tombs from rome to the holy land simca tracks down the truth behind historical myths long-held beliefs and some of the greatest biblical stories ever told volcanic eruptions have been known to influence the spread of religion during the biblical exodus it is said by many that the eruption of thera in greece helped moses by generating catastrophes recorded in the bible as the plagues in modern times the eruption of krakatoa caused millions to convert to islam making indonesia the most populous muslim country in the world but what about christianity does it have its own volcano i think it does on the morning of august 24th 79 a.d the people of pompeii woke up thinking that it was just another day in this playground of rome's elites but by 10 am a slight ash started to cover everything by two in the afternoon the ash turned coarser driving people indoors others started fleeing the city but it was too late 7 30 the next morning the volcano sent a gas cloud 20 miles into the air boulders of fire then rolled down the side of the mountain incinerating everything in their path [Music] bodies of the inhabitants were trapped in cocoons of hot ash creating these castes that would immortalize the dead as it turns out the eruption may have been the catalyst for the spread of christianity in the roman empire to understand why we're on the trail of a 2 000 year old mystery the investigation begins in the city of herculaneum also buried by the eruption in february of 1938 while digging up the ancient city archaeologists discovered something that could turn biblical history upside down today the public is kept away from this site they uncovered the clear imprint of a christian cross that had been nailed to a wall and then pried loose this cross can date no later than 79 a.d when the city was covered in ash for two millennia the problem is that scholars believe that the cross as a christian symbol did not come into use until 300 years after vesuvius few people want to challenge this opinion and yet in a city that was covered in ash less than 40 years after the crucifixion of jesus here is a cross seemingly treated as a christian symbol how could that be anything but a cross you see actually where it was bolted when they found it the floor was still there and there are images where you had an altar in front of it and a thing to kneel on it's controversial because it's not supposed to be there but what else can it be this establishes crosses in 79. according to the church fathers the earliest followers of jesus who were jews used a cross or an x as a symbol of their faith for them the x stood for the letter tau the last letter of the hebrew alphabet the x symbolized the end perfection righteousness the cross at herculaneum suggests that 300 years before the roman empire converted to christianity and adopted the cross as its symbol in the pompeii area the hebrew tau was already morphing into the gentile or roman cross we recognized today it's the upper room of a wealthy house it's not really a chapel i think it's a private bedroom of probably a jewish or christian slave so i think unquestionably in my mind this plastered remain is across a t but you know some people say it was too early it couldn't be a cross the cross is much later maybe it's a bookshelf that's what people say that's nonsense if you think about it you look at the shape of it this isn't how you would bracket a bookshelf and then it's pride off the wall do you pry your bookshelf off the wall and run with it you know when the city is being destroyed but the plaster tells the story there's white plaster around it this is to outline it and to say this is the center of my devotion and we have a early christian text that's been overlooked it's called the letter of barnabas it's from the late first early second century so same time as the destruction of pompeii but the writer says that the letter t which symbolizes the cross stands for jesus to understand what christians would be doing in the pompei area just 49 years after the crucifixion the detective trail takes us back to where it all started jerusalem in the year 66 a.d in roman rule judea revolution had broken out after four years of fighting the romans captured jerusalem and its temple judaism's holiest site the roman general titus torched the temple and turned hundreds of thousands of jews into slaves among them were the earliest christians from places like jerusalem bethlehem and nazareth some of these slaves must have known jesus now they found themselves in places like rome and pompeii they were disgusted by what they saw a culture where power and violence were the currency of the day and sex was a religion it's almost impossible to know just what to make out of all the sex in pompeii the way that just a great phallus can stick out of a wall in a street as you walk past if i'm a christian or a jew brought in as a slave to pompeii i'm walking down streets where there's phalluses what would i have thought being thrown into the world that was pompeii i think what worries them is how they have to live do they have to live as slaves offering sexual services that's where the real moral crunch will come that's the grim law of of of war that if you're defeated you are enslaved you're led off in captivity and you have to do precisely the things the giving pleasure to others that is always unpleasant for you yourself for these deeply religious slaves it must have seemed as if they had stepped into sodom and gomorrah and then nine years after the destruction of the jewish temple vesuvius erupted ironically titus the very general who had destroyed the temple was the newly installed emperor of rome it certainly is very clear in the early christian narrative that the destruction of pompei is a consequence of the destruction of the temple in jerusalem what's far more interesting is to see that idea take shape in the roman consciousness and particularly an emperor titus is increasing paranoia we're talking about someone who feared fire greatly and for good reason given what happened in vesuvius he's also facing an epidemic where people are febrile all throughout rome and that increasing fire within made titus take cold baths and actually bury himself in snow it was as if he was trying to fight back the force of fire itself because he felt as though there was something he had not fully extinguished in the temple of jerusalem as though this last ember of spirit had survived and the wrath of the god of israel was coming for him i believe that the eruption of mount vesuvius in the year 79 drove thousands of romans to join judaism and its newly created sister religion christianity especially christianity so i believe that while paul gets all the credit it's really vesuvius that launched christianity into a world religion to test my thesis i've set up a road map i have to find evidence right here that there were jews in pompeii prior to the eruption why jews let's remember at the beginning of the movement they were all jews including jesus and all his disciples and secondly i have to find evidence that these newly minted christians so to speak warned their pagan roman masters of the impending disaster why did they have to warn before well because otherwise the romans wouldn't have seen the eruption of vesuvius as divine punishment so let's test the theory and follow the trail of evidence we begin with the new testament the book of acts describes the missionary journeys of the apostle paul there it states that he made a point of preaching in busy harbor towns where new ideas would quickly spread he actually describes coming here to puts wally the harbor of pompeii scholars believe this journey happened around 60 a.d six years prior to the jewish revolt against rome and nineteen years before the eruption of vesuvius during the beginning of the first century all the traffic that came from all over the mediterranean came here through potoli so in the book of acts when paul lands uh he's landing right here yeah i mean it's no accident that he's landing here when he's going to rome right this is the way people would have traveled the coast between the bay of naples and rome was too treacherous and so people would sail here into pozuoli and then travel across land to get to rome it says that when paul landed right over here he was met by brothers that means fellow jews who were followers of jesus that converted to this movement definitely jews coming from the holy lands to italy on their way to rome would be passing through that's amazing because that's christians right the religion is already spreading pretty quickly before paul even gets here yeah this is probably the ellis island of the ancient world seeking their fortunes in the capital of the empire jews like paul were heading to rome in droves when paul landed here in the year 60 he was put under house arrest for causing a disturbance two years later he was released and two years after that he was beheaded paul was probably swept up in the mass persecutions of christians that followed the great fire of rome in 64 a.d the archaeological evidence of the fire is here the circus maximus a massive racetrack that could seat over a quarter of a million spectators one night in the year 64 the stables caught fire and the city of rome burned the response to the fire tells us there were already a lot of christians in rome prior to the vesuvius eruption so this is a fire that destroyed three quarters of the city this is where nero according to legend was fiddling with while rome was burning yes what does uh nero do afterwards well he blames the christians for the fire the thing is for nero to blame the christians in 64. there's got to be enough of them to make that accusation credible right that's what's amazing here we are only in 64 in 64. 30 years after the crucifixion and here we have him being able to say this is a group they're substantial enough you all know who they are and you all know that the troublemakers they're doing illegal things and they're the ones who are responsible for this these early christians like paul who were blamed for the fire of rome were beheaded fed to lions and crucify for pagan roman entertainment two years after the persecution of the christians of rome the jews of judea rose in revolution four years after that they were defeated in the year 70 a.d tens of thousands of jewish slaves were brought to the italian peninsula many of them were early christians new evidence suggests that with the help of a volcano they were about to take over the roman empire most historians say that the apostle paul launched christianity and the roman empire but think about it how could one man convert the most powerful empire the world had ever seen no matter how effective paul was at spreading the message of the gospels think how much more effective an act of god would be i think that the eruption of the volcano vesuvius in 79 a.d gave christianity a huge push a push that history has forgotten and the romans would have perceived that volcanic eruption as an act of an angry god to be precise the god of israel payback for rome's destruction of the temple in jerusalem just nine years earlier at that time the romans torched the temple of jerusalem and took tens of thousands of jews to rome as slaves many of these jews were early christians to commemorate the victory over the god of israel the romans built a number of monuments including the coliseum they used jewish and christian slaves financing the project with monies plundered from the temple in the year 70 the colosseum literally went up as the jerusalem temple came down and only a hundred yards from the coliseum stands the arch of titus the story carved on its stone surface is a boastful testimonial to the sacking of jerusalem a celebration of the looting of the temple's wealth and the persecution of hundreds of thousands of jewish slaves from judea oh here we have really fantastically well preserved example of a triumph procession and a triumph was a mega parade there was everybody there was the emperor there were slaves from the place that you conquered there was all the spoils of war that you brought back there was money in this case here that brought back the menorah from the sacking of the fabulously wealthy ornate temple in jerusalem rome destroys jerusalem in 70. jesus is crucified in 33. we're only talking 37 years right am i right some of the people following this procession in chains may have actually heard jesus preach yes absolutely within the realm of possibility they definitely could have witnessed seen heard jesus and then ended up as fate would brought them as a slave to rome according to the gospels jesus had predicted the destruction of the temple now that it had happened jews generally and in particular the followers of jesus were waiting for the romans to be punished for their deeds in the meantime they would have been sent to places like pompeii serving as slaves in opulent roman villas such as this one here the followers of the god of israel found themselves serving pagans who worshipped many gods every house in pompeii had a shrine to their domestic gods the gods of that household but what you could do is you would have little statuettes of the gods you want to worship and you could pick and choose so a lot of merchants would have mercury because he brought profit all these gods are there to protect there would have been only one group the jews and the jesus followers among the jews that would have said god's not going to protect you you burned down his house in jerusalem you're gonna be punished unless you change your ways yeah exactly it's a very different way of thinking the romans may not have been thinking about divine punishment but the slaves were there's very clear evidence in in the acts and in other documents that christianity was a religion that had a major appeal in the slave community but it would be hard to get at archaeologically in antiquity there's a hierarchy of ways of writing so the grandest bit the public bit is you take a great big piece of marble and you write in great big letters that high the name of the emperor and the official announcement whereas the graffito with a a little scratching thing maybe a stylus or someone written on the wall in a hurry by someone who shouldn't have been writing on the ball there you may just catch a bit of a trace of the suppressed christian voice professor wallace is right the suppressed voice can be heard in overlooked graffiti the first one on the wall of an ancient toilet here we are in a latrine i think this is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the presence of jews in pompeii this whole wall basically of the latrine is taken up with a humongous message it's not a very nice message but it names a woman named martha hebrew right it is hebrew and here's what it says this is the dining room of martha and then at the very end kakat she is defecating in her dining room so martha whoever's writing about martha look look at martha she she craps where she eats yeah but not only do we have the name martha trichlinium is spelled t-r-i-c-l-i-n-u-m in latin it's spelled as it sounds but here triclinium has an h in it so it would be pronounced trichlenium instead of triclinium a latin speaker from italy would have never written would have never said it that way they would have just said trig clinium martha and the person who's writing about her probably both jews yeah and and probably slaves and actually you can see that if you're sitting here using the latrine you would be looking directly at that wall with this huge inscription that's really hard to miss so basically it gives us hard archaeological evidence that there were jews maybe judeo-christians slaves in pompeii prior to the eruption yes so a crudely scratched joke on the wall of a latrine becomes solid evidence that there were jews and perhaps christians in pompeii at the time of the eruption and they were slaves that's the key these slaves may well have been the key players in rome's conversion to christianity think about it slaves like martha may have heard jesus sermon on the mount and yet ended up in a pompeii brothel i'm convinced that the eruption of mount vesuvius that destroyed pompeii in neighboring herculaneum also helped launch christianity in the roman world so far we've shown evidence that hebrew and perhaps christian slaves were living in pompeii at the time of the eruption we've also seen that one of these slaves had the hebrew name martha the evidence suggests that people like martha helped convert rome from paganism to judaism and especially christianity but when she got here the best martha could hope for was to be a household servant the alternative was life in the brothel here we go here we're in the hallway it's smaller in there really yeah this is the first room they had cushions on these beds they did there would have been cushions pompeii was a really busy city with people traveling through and this was a place where you could meet people from all over are these free women or slaves these are probably slaves i know some people see this as erotic it's quite violent well if you were a slave in the ancient world you really didn't have much control over your life so it was certainly not a very nice existence but is there any evidence that some of these women who ended up in this brothel were christians brought as slaves after the fall of jerusalem just across the street there is a building known as the hotel of the christians and we're heading into the atrium this is called the hotel of the christians partly because there are many small rooms around the atrium so it's thought that this could have served as some sort of hospitality establishment but of the christians because very early on in 1862 there was discovered a very enigmatic graffito but there's this one word that has fascinated everyone cristiano's this charcoal graffiti had been preserved under ash for 1800 years until archaeologists uncovered it exposed it became susceptible to the elements because it was written in charcoal it just needed a few rains and some sun and it disappeared within two years but in the short time between its discovery and its disappearance there was only time for two experts to make tracings of it so everyone has been working off of these tracings that were done in 1862. then it would be the earliest archaeological attestation to the word christian anywhere cristianos yeah as an identity now the problem was that nobody could make heads or tails of it correct pretty much there's a lot of writing obviously it's more than one word but the writing around it seems to be pretty puzzling and gibberish so in 1926 professor newbolt comes up tonight with the idea that that what comes up with the idea that we have an inscription that mentions cristiano's that is transliterated aramaic and it's written in latin characters aramaic is a hebrew-like language that jesus spoke according to this theory to understand the inscription all we have to do is swap the latin letters for aramaic ones when you do that you know i can even understand from modern hebrew it says a strange mind has overtaken a doesn't mention who a is who is now being held as a prisoner among the christians now that makes a bit of sense to me if you come with a bunch of guys to a hotel across the street from a brothel and suddenly one of the guys you're expecting to party with disappears he's not doing that anymore he's seen the light he's born again you may very well scratch on the wall he's being held prisoner and missing all the fun we now have archaeological evidence that some of these sex slaves were fighting back with religion they were converting some of the pagan romans to the new religion christianity we now even almost know one of them by name by its first initial a but if some of these romans were converting to christianity what happened to them what happened to a from the texts we know that wild dogs were let loose on christians wrapped in animal skins and amazingly in nearby puts wally we have physical evidence of those early christians we have ancient graffiti of a man wrapped in an animal skin dating to the first century a.d this is the oldest graffiti of a crucifixion ever found it caricatures the person crucified by depicting him with a big nose the crucifixion is depicted from behind so you can clearly see the cross it was photographed in 1926 but today as with so many other graffiti finds nobody seems to know where it actually is following the original archaeological report which states that the crucifixion was scratched on an ancient tavern wall simca and rebecca set out to find it like one of the earliest crucifixion thing i thought we could just drive up to it no i mean all the authorities i've been talking to they know nothing about this thing so i would suggest let's try over here okay let's try it okay oh after a few wrong turns the investigators think they finally found the network of ancient taverns these are definitely roman ruins look you see plastic huge yeah there are probably taverns all over the place so you're under some building and you've got a roman basement yeah what would be interesting is to if we could go in walk through that little hallway there and see if that's in fact just one room back there or if it's connected to other spaces right it looks pretty hey nothing like trying the door i think we're getting in here follow me you know a flashlight is the archaeologist's best friend ah great here we are i just happen to have one it's not open to the public no and the rooms just keep going and going just keeps going yeah oh my gosh there's ancient plaster right there this wall with white this looks like an ancient a because in ancient graffiti instead of having a horizontal bar it's usually diagonal like this a treasure trove of ancient graffiti but no sketch of a crucifixion simca and rebecca persevere after hours of hunting they find the exact spot where the crucifixion graffiti was originally discovered but whatever is not etched in stone is disappearing fast this is why it's hard to find graffiti is because plaster is so friable it easily comes off of walls and we're incredibly lucky when someone takes a photo and publishes it because that is probably all we're going to have 50 years later luckily the photograph survives evidence that prior to the eruption of vesuvius hundreds perhaps thousands of romans people like a paid with their lives for their christian faith and yet pagan rome was not succeeding in wiping out the new religion in fact there's archaeological evidence that worshipers of the god of israel were warning their roman masters that they were marked for utter destruction when it comes to ancient artifacts people like big things villas pillars temples they ignore little things like graffiti but as we've seen graffiti can tell you a lot in pompeii graffiti tells us that there were jews and christians right here before the eruption not only that graffiti shows us that some of these christians were converting their roman masters to their newfound religion in fact these new converts were paying a heavy price for what they now believed we saw the earliest image of a crucifixion found anywhere and we have archaeological evidence that the jews and christians of pompeii were warning the roman masters were warning their pagan neighbors that they would soon suffer the wrath of the god of israel in 1921 a photograph was published of graffiti scratched on wall plaster attached to the published photograph were directions to a specific pompei address house 14. it should be here you see how the plaster is gone but luckily we have a really good photo we have two words one in greek one seemingly in latin and then two stars what do you make of this well start with the middle word so that's an attempt in latin letters to represent the word karim which is one of the most chilling words in the hebrew language that's the word used in the bible when god utterly blots out a place sodom and gomorrah were made karem and then you've got the poinum which is not a latin word but it's a latinized word i think it has to be from the greek point which means to smite so smite utterly destroy and then the two stars they're five-pointed they're the solomon stars uh we see them on magic bowls what it shows us is that people in this culture particularly jews and christians were warning their friends and neighbors and saying just wait you think you're in the lap of luxury you think everything's fine everything's peaceful just wait because god has something to say in an effort to identify the context in which the harem graffiti was found simca and professor tabor go to an on-site storage facility they want to identify the house where the graffiti was found suddenly to their surprise a worker brings out the original harem inscription the plaster was taken off a wall some 50 years ago and until now everyone's only have the photograph finally here is the original they said it doesn't exist anymore i never thought i would see it so here's karen it couldn't be any clearer and there's ponium that's so clear and there are the two solomonic stars what's the significance of finding it in pompeii i knew it was in a house but whose house and what else do we know about this person and that's the most important thing with archaeology is to interpret the graffiti but also where was it found context yeah the context so that it tells more of a story than just the words just then francesco one of the workers who was around during the discovery of this graffiti comes out if you can explain where this was found this is not what had been published house 14 is wrong the house of paco procolo was found with a painting of the owner and his wife on the wall simca concede that francesco sent him to the right place it's clear where the plaster came from right in the doorway it seems that the stars of solomon are a kind of amulet designed to protect the family from the harem or destruction that they felt was coming people put all their pagan stuff right in the doorways to kind of protect the house makes sense that a christian a jew who rejected paganism would put his inscriptions also in the vestibule do we know anything about this man jerusalem whoever owned this bakery this used to be a bakery used to have these penises phalluses for a good luck charm but then here's the key see the two tones over there the two tones tell you something it tells you that it was plastered over it means that whoever held by that lucky charm suddenly didn't want it there he converted to christianity francesco show simcoe one final astonishing piece of evidence the same bakery owner who wrote biblical words on his doorway and had phalluses covered over put a cross in one of his bakeries the significance of this cross here it's graffiti and it's graffiti that looks almost exactly in terms of the plaster like the cross that was found in herculaneum where was it found it was found over the oven this settles the issue of herculaneum because they weren't keeping books up there on a shelf it must have been a religious symbol the cluster of clues pointing to an early christian movement in pompei is incredible a cross found in a bakery a baker who covers phallic symbols and the same maker who in his own home has a graffiti of the hebrew word marked for utter destruction it seems that he was trying to protect his family from what he believed was imminent destruction that destruction was not long in coming in 79 a.d just nine years after the temple in jerusalem was destroyed ash began to rain down on pompeii right where we're standing now we would have been inside the volcano inside the nozzle of a giant rocket engine that's firing its uh thrust straight up into space basically 10 000 tons of rock that are going up into the atmosphere per second it flows like a giant red-hot tsunami over the land and the cloud itself is hot enough to radiate enough heat to ignite the trees that are pinwheeling toward people if you saw this thing coming you would try to get away but you just did not have a chance to experience the devastation from the perspective of a pompeian family charles pellegrino takes simca from the mouth of the volcano to a middle-class home on the edge of the city so charlie what's the significance of this place some of the roman letters and writings that have survived specifically pliny the younger who was 17 years old at the time he gives us the time of the start of the eruption around lunchtime and what we're seeing here is the relatively gentle eruption you have people who are able to climb up on top of the pumice hoping that whatever is going on it is going to slow down it's going to stop it's almost like people at a flood you keep trying to go higher and then you hope it stops and then you're gonna drain right and right on top of this very sequence higher up we find the people themselves okay now let's follow in the footsteps of the family okay take us right up perhaps the people are able to make some kind of rudimentary shelter which is suggested by the wood that we see here herculenium dies between 12 and 1 a.m the first surge cloud goes right through herculaneum hotter than steel emerging white hot from a furnace and within about a three second period every person every animal every plant the termites and even the bacteria are instantly carbonized over here in pompeii life still goes on for a while but at about 7 30 a.m the fourth surge cloud this is right here right here literally megatons of it and it surges across the ground like a tsunami made out of ash and here the people would have died in a time frame within two seconds possibly less than one second these are the people who were able to climb up on top of it here you can even see one figure that's putting an arm over another figure there are skeletons inside every one of these cast now this is very very sad because it looks like somebody's sheltering maybe a child and a parent well what we have here we won't know until we x-ray this one oh my god it could be bloating or it could be a man trying to shelter from the ash getting into the mouth of someone who was pregnant the minute you said that i suddenly realized yeah we're looking at a pregnant woman and her husband is trying to shelter her yeah and it speaks for us all you know that in a moment like this you have this moment of mutual human tenderness that might be a different civilization but these people are us a few weeks after the eruption that may have killed as many as 20 000 people an overwhelming number by ancient standards pompeii was a cold corpse of a city people had died where they were thousands of bodies lay in their homes and out in the streets the whole city was buried in small pumice stones and ash up to the top floors but there is evidence that after the eruption romans from other towns tunneled down to floor level crawling on their hands and knees coming face to face with the destruction the tunnelers recorded their interpretation of the events as the wrath of god host fata nowisima after the most recent fata the sun strengthens these pleasing to god people against the coal people almost like a biblical reference that this is punishment divine wrath there are those people and this is a very biblical terminology who are pleasing to god and there are those people the pagans who are not pleasing to god and they're dead they're frozen you can literally see the wrath of god strikingly the eruption of vesuvius parallels a much earlier story the jews and christians knew all too well sodom and gomorrah sister cities whose inhabitants were notorious for their sexual deviations the book of genesis records that as punishment for their sins sodom and gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone incredibly there's a graffiti that directly links pompeii to sodom and gomorrah today been made into a kind of modern guard house but in the first century this was somebody's home and maybe the day of the eruption or even the day before the volcanic eruption somebody hastily scrawled on the wall and charcoal the chilling words sodom and gomorrah i mean somebody literally is writing this while the ash is falling down possibly yeah it's not there anymore it was on one of these walls it's now modern plaster and it's been taken off to some museum what do you make of this charcoal inscription showing up here this has to be a jew or a christian who's thinking why is the volcano erupting because this is sodom and gomorrah and god is punishing this place it's amazing aren't we imposing our view how they would have interpreted it what do we have that says you know what now we know that christians and romans interpreted the eruption of the vesuvius as the divine wrath of god in the last book of the new testament the book of revelation if you read that it has to be a description of the destruction of pompeii now wait a minute you're telling me that pompei's mentioned in the new testament not by name what the text says is babylon is going to fall babylon means rome so it's everything from the city of rome the culture of rome but the date of that text is from the time of the emperor titus and it's around the year 79 this text is written and it talks about the city will be destroyed in one hour the smoke of its burning will be seen in the harbor and mentions fornication and immorality allegorically this is sodom and gomorrah what you're suggesting is that hiding in plain sight in the new testament itself the interpretation was that this is divine retribution they saw the burning of pompeii as the beginning of the end as rome is headed down how do we know because god burn it in a single day like sodom and gomorrah and that's what happened right where we're standing i can just imagine a slave from the holy land cringing in a corner there's nowhere to run and ash is raining down he or she someone like martha would have seen the glory of the temple in jerusalem and its destruction then in pompei as a slave they would have witnessed and maybe even experienced violence and orgies now as vezuvian ash was coming down i can imagine martha dipping into it and writing the epiteph off pompeii sodom and gomorrah less than two years after the eruption the emperor titus died a few romans converted to judaism but a more sizable group converted to the new more accessible jewish sect already being called christianity it was this group that laid the foundation for the whole empire to become christian less than 250 years after the eruption and for christianity to become to this day the most populous religion in the world and all this was accomplished with a little help from a volcano called vesuvius

Channel: Parable - Religious History Documentaries

Views: 1,492,909

Keywords: parable, parable channel, parable documentary, religious history, religious history documentary, bible documentary, bible documentary bbc, jesus documentary, constantine emperor of rome, constantine emperor facts, constantine emperor conversion, constantine, constantine documentary, christian origns, christianity, christianity explained, christianity vs islam debate, christian mystery, religion vs science, religion debate, religion documentary, christian myths

Id: Q113IYFh5z4

Length: 132min 4sec (7924 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2022