The Ultimate Relic - Quest for the True Cross | Free Documentary History

[Music] crucifixion was a common form of execution practiced for hundreds of years throughout the roman empire it was carried out with cruelty and contempt for the victims who were usually slaves or troublesome foreigners often a headboard was attached to the cross to explain the nature of the sentence of those who were about to die this is the story of how one routine execution in a remote province of the roman empire became the central image of christianity it is also the story of how the first christian emperor constantine changed the face of the world by bringing the true cross back from jerusalem and astonishingly it is the story of how a piece of that cross the headboard naming jesus of nazareth may have survived for two thousand years for as many as seventeen hundred years the church of santa croce in rome has housed a small barely legible wooden plaque although it's been dismissed by academics as a medieval forgery one man believes that it may in fact be an actual piece of the titulars the board nailed above the crucified christ with the mocking inscription dictated by pontius pilate jesus of nazareth king of the jews if professor carsten teder is right it is an object of unimaginable importance there must have been an inscription on the cross of jesus that was roman custom when someone was crucified according to roman law the reason for the punishment have indicated on a piece of wood or whatever as an historian i must say that all the arguments all the indications that we can assemble that we can put together would help us to to to come to the conclusion that it is not just legend not just myth but history and history involves historical people and tida set out to see what lay behind the biblical accounts of the crucifixion [Music] although obscured by religious language and iconography crucifixion was an agonizingly painful way to die jesus cried out my god my god why hast thou forsaken [Music] in one me jesus christ the only son of god eternally begotten of the father god from god light from light true god from true god begotten not made of one being with the father through him all the familiar words of the nicene creed have contained the essence of christian belief since 325 a.d to this day they're spoken in thousands of churches around the world in scores of languages for our sake he was crucial significantly fatida behind these words lurks a historical figure pontius [Music] pilate was a minor and vicious roman official who presided over hundreds of executions he's remembered solely as the man who sentenced to death jesus of nazareth fatida he provides a direct line to the titulars this ancient worn piece of wood bearing some of the most potent and moving words in the bible has only been removed from its case four times in the last six hundred years the vatican has been reluctant to grant permission for scientific dating nonetheless by examining the textual evidence tida believes that this piece of wood was inscribed on pilot's orders on the day of the crucifixion let's not forget that this was roman history the man who had crucified jesus was a roman prefect and the inscription on the cross of jesus was a roman inscription all this is part not just of christian history it's part of roman history therefore it's a legitimate story that we are trying to follow carsten teder bases his controversial claim that this is the headboard of the true cross on his study of biblical languages and ancient texts he's a distinguished expert on biblical manuscripts like this parchment from the judean desert what the ancients called tacography kind of shorthand writing but some letters are obviously like over here for example that's the greek delta down there there's a greek alpha and so on so you know it's greek shorthand yeah here in jerusalem in the john rockefeller museum we have contemporary evidence 1st century bc 80 that's exactly the period of jesus of the crucifixion just before and after so we are looking for letters or whole sentences that give us the type of handwriting the style of writing that comes as close as possible to what we have on the titulars and thus we can date the titulars the handwriting on that piece of wood it is this detective work that has led him to believe that the titulus is the real thing brought to rome in 326 a.d on the instructions of constantine the great the discovery of the cross remains led in time to a trade in mementos and relics which reached epic proportions by the time of the crusades the market was flooded with fake religious souvenirs as a result the authentication of relics like the turin shroud is notoriously contentious there are thousands of cross relics like this piece of wood which is said to be the cross of the good thief who was crucified beside jesus because most relics are at best doubtful it took a brave man to claim that the titulus almost unnoticed in the church of santa croce was not a fake but santa croce hides a secret which tida believes adds weight to his theory the 18th century portico and facade are not what they seem the church celebrates the arduous journey made by helena the mother of constantine to the holy land where she's said to have discovered the true cross in 326 a.d [Music] the magnificent exterior does not reveal that it is built onto a much older roman building and that behind this are roman ruins and these ruins and part of the church are the remains of helena's own palace it was to this very place that she would have brought part of the true cross and the titulars and it is on this very spot but the titulus has apparently remained ever since in the church itself helena's discovery of the true cross is recreated in frescoes above the altar elena is depicted as a young woman and the whole event is shrouded in pious medieval myth but helena's journey would have started here and she certainly lived out her remaining days here started with something which was thought to be a fake and asked the question could it be coincidence everywhere he found clues that it was much much more than that not far from santa croce is a seldom visited monastery cuatro coronati in its small chapel a wonderful series of frescoes from the late middle ages tells the story of helena and constantine tida believes that within these legends genuine historical facts about helena's journey are contained i'm looking for evidence for historical evidence and even in the high middle ages there are remnants of true historical knowledge and some of that may have been covered by later legends stories that have come up in the tradition of the church we have helena with the three crosses she's pointing at one of them probably the one she wants to to see tested first there's that later legend that the true cross could only be identified by someone being healed when he or she was touched by it and then the next stage that's the mystery what happened there it's certainly something we can't see we don't know anymore and that's part of our quest to find out what was it was it the titulars and pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross and the writing was jesus of nazareth king of the jews this title then read many of the jews for the place where jesus was crucified the accounts of the crucifixion of jesus what happened the fact that he was crucified according to roman law that there was a roman headboard a roman inscription that isn't just fanciful gospel story telling it is a fact corroborated by non-christian literature and well established within christian literature [Music] castantida believes that the surviving section of the titulus is actually only a part of the whole board reading jesus of nazareth king of the jews in three languages hebrew greek and latin in that order this is a load of languages that does not conform to any of the surviving literary sources in the four gospels or any other later account so that alone means it can't be a late forgery a forger obviously copies an existing model but all models all the gospels or other models have a different order of languages to teader this is evidence that the titulars must have been written before the gospels because a forger would surely have copied the order of languages in the gospels [Music] second what we'll also realize is immediately by looking at this piece of wood is that the second and third line the greek and latin lines are written from right to left in mirror image writing now writing from right to left is of course the hebrew way it would be correct for the first line but not for the week of latin text again no one who will ask for a for a forged titulist that was so obviously wrong so these are the two starting points the two things you see immediately striking observations that rule out a forgery straight away [Music] reversed the reconstructed mirror writing suddenly becomes clear we can read jesus of nazareth tida was the first scholar to give this serious thought he speculates that it was written on pilots orders by a jewish scribe accustomed to writing from right to left although he can't prove it tida believes there is further evidence that the titular was not written in a later era this letter is an abbreviation used at the time but which died out by the end of the first century we know of course what the earliest possible moment in time was that's the 7th of april 1830 when jesus was crucified and that foreign historic foreign historian for an epigrapher or pepperologist or philologist that's that's brilliant evidence you know the earliest possible moment in time when it could have been done but you also know when it ended when this type of writing this typical way of writing hebrew or greek of latin stopped so you've got a frame you've got a beginning and an end which is in our case the one we want to establish the thirties of the first century convinced that the titular was not a forgery tida's next task was to establish how it came to rome helena's journey to jerusalem was the result of her son constantine's desire to unite the empire a process that had started 20 years earlier in york [Music] in the year 306 constantine was acclaimed emperor here on the far northern fringes of the roman empire after the death of his father the empire was divided between four competing emperors and constantine became ruler of the west [Music] york was the start of constantine's journey to mastery of the whole roman empire but first he had to take control of the divided empire [Music] his eyes turned inevitably to rome and to his bitter rival emperor maxentius [Music] it was a question of of killer b code eater b eaton that the experiment of having four emperors in the roman empire was never really going to to work and that the sooner that he got his plans together and and and took positive action preemptive action the better it would be for himself and for his family although constantine was far from being a christian at this stage he and his advisors had noted the growing power of christianity even in the remotest parts of the empire these orantes or early christian praying figures were found in britain a thousand miles from rome for constantine this was not a religious issue so much as rail politic i think constantine's conversion was a gradual conversion it was a conversion to a god whom was in some sense identifiable with the the sun god apollo and yet was also identifiable with the christian one supreme god years later constantine was ready to attack rome he had first across the milvian bridge guarding the northern approaches to the eternal city it was here that he had a vision of the cross it was reported that it appeared in the sky above his encampment this was his road to damascus his biographer writes constantine was advised in a dream to mark the heavenly sign of god on the shields of his soldiers so he ordered his men to use this early christian symbol the cairo this was to be the first official use of a christian cross in the roman empire although outwardly it did not depart far from the traditional roman military designs constantine was hedging his bets on the morning of october the 28th 312 constantine attacked the superior forces of maxentius armed with the sign of the cross he triumphed maxentius fell mortally wounded into the tiber [Music] constantine was master of rome the wellspring of power he was quick to celebrate his own achievements he built a victory arch right at the center of rome close to the coliseum itself the freeze on the arch shows his advance on rome carried out with the mercilessness traditional on these occasions it concludes with his address to the senate an event of great symbolic importance he depicts himself as a true roman at ease with roman traditions soon after his victory he'd extended toleration to all christians but the only hint of what he was contemplating is in this discreet tribute to divine inspiration what he had in mind was something which would shake rome to its foundations the adoption of christianity by the whole empire this enormous statue once stood on the capitoline hill it sends an unmistakable message to pagan rome here is a man determined to impose his will on the empire although by now he was leaning towards christianity constantine could still be utterly ruthless in the best roman tradition he murdered his own son and his first wife believing they were conspiring against him they were officially obliterated from the public record after establishing himself constantine looked for a defining principle for his diverse empire a glue to hold it together christianity was flourishing in rome and constantine was politician enough to see how it could serve his purpose in the christian catacombs under the streets of rome there is abundant evidence that by the time constantine took power christianity was irresistibly on the rise previous emperors had tried to snuff it out but christianity was replacing the roman gods and symbols which can still be found here in a time of transition constantine understood that he could not be left behind with the roman gods [Music] the signs of christianity's growing confidence are everywhere although the cross itself was not the icon we know today the cross was not an object of veneration it was something to be almost imitated in prayer the position of the first christians was a cross-like position to interpret as it were that as a christian you followed christ even into martyrdom even into death when find crosses you won't find scenes of people dying although in symbols and inscriptions are about hope it's hope in the resurrection therefore we have the dove as a symbol of hope the anchor as a symbol of hope the fish that was prepared by jesus after the resurrection for his disciples and of course we've got the cairo the christ monogram the first two letters of his name in greek what constantine did very cleverly was to reinterpret it to make sure that people understood that the old system the old value system the old symbols the old science had now acquired a new christian a true and deep christian meaning constantine became almost infatuated by the symbol of the cross i think that he associated it very closely with his victory over maxentius at the battle of milvian bridge in 312 and i think thereafter the cross became the center of his idealism and his ideology the cross had become constantine's talisman the symbol of his triumph now he needed something more substantial his next step was to make that symbol reality to do this he needed evidence carsten teder has come here to the british museum in search of helena who played a key role in the whole story constantine enlisted the help of his formidable mother to mount his takeover of christianity this is one of the earliest known depictions of her helena was someone who came from not a very privileged position it's believed that she probably came from somewhere near the black sea and that she was a bit of an outsider a bit of an upstart and not quite worthy to be the first wife of any emperor or prospective emperor so she was a character who was very much a self-made person and someone who was who was driven with ambition for herself and for her family helena the daughter of an innkeeper was constantine's father's lover she'd been pushed aside when he married but remained close to her son throughout his rise to power and appears to have been as tough and ruthless as he was constantine certainly trusted her enough to dispatch her to the holy land to bring back the concrete evidence he required of the new religion i think for constantine and for helena it was very important that christianity was a historical religion which had historical traces and which could be found and held onto and seen and and exported around so that everyone could see that this religion was a true historical faith castantida has followed helena's journey all the way to the holy land in his efforts to link her to the discovery of the titulars i've become convinced that from an historical perspective that it is a true story that he did go to jerusalem and that she did find the sights and some objects that were related to the historical jesus helena was 80 years old when she started her epic two-year journey to the holy places something entirely new in history was underway the first royal pilgrimage helena's journey to the holy land was the logical conclusion of the christianization strategy that she and her son had been implementing for more than a decade they had very good reason to believe that when they got to jerusalem they would find something ultimately helena reached jerusalem in the year 326 in her search for the holiest site in christianity the site of the crucifixion and [Music] resurrection many sites are either lost or buried today under two millennia of occupation and rebuilding when helena arrived 200 years after the crucifixion they were still well known but it is vital for carstentida to know that helena was looking in the right places if he's to prove that the titulus is genuine the question of the authenticity of the holy sites and particularly the location of the tomb of christ has long been a subject of controversy but now most historians agree that the site of the crucifixion is here at the dome church of the holy sepulchre layers of history lie one on top of the other a hundred years after the crucifixion a roman temple to venus was built in the new roman city of aeilia capitolina above the site a contemporary writer records that it was already being demolished on constantine's orders and replaced with an enormous christian basilica when helena arrived i think what she found in progress was the demolition of the roman temple in the beginning of the works of the construction of constantine's great complex on the site of course a very interesting question whether he got the right place and i think the answer to that today is probably he did because 30 years before eusebius had actually described the golgotha as the place of the crucifixion which is in alia in the roman city of helio capital you know to the north of mount zion in other words it was a jerusalem place name and he says which is pointed out now and that was 30 years before constantine so i think there was a well-known jerusalem landmark which guided constantine's excavations during the first centuries of the christian era there never was any rival side to gorgatha the one side which is now covered by the church of the holy sepulchre rival sites were invented if you like in the 19th and early 20th centuries the problem that irritated many observers many historians was the fact that gorgatha i.e today the church of the holy sepulchre is within the city walls and the gospel story and the letter to the hebrews and other documents tell us that jesus was crucified outside the city perimeter so that was a contradiction apparently until archaeologists discovered that in 41 11 years after the crucifixion a third wall was built and therefore when jesus was crucified gorgatha was well outside of city walls [Music] the evidence that this is the true sight of the crucifixion and the place where helena found her relics lies deep and is attested by marks left by generations of christians here the crusaders incised crosses into the walls a thousand years ago and even further down below the holy sepulchre is this almost unknown chapel here a fascinating piece of graffiti was discovered 25 years ago and identified by israeli archaeologist morgan broshi it wasn't so elegant as it is today but it was pretty clear one thing is for sure the pilgrims are from the latin west this depiction of a typical boat of the time was left here by pilgrims from europe who knew this site as christ's tomb long before helena arrived there is no doubt that this is exactly what was done here 16 centuries ago now what fascinates me about this example of a graffito is that they're inspired by the bible i mean this is a quotation domini evens it's uh refers back to psalm 122. doesn't it dominique we are here which is a psalm of pilgrims and this is what they have in mind they are grateful that they have been saved from all the dangers in the sea they are grateful to the lord and they're grateful to be in this holy place so i mean there's no question and only christians could have done it for tida this graffiti is more evidence that helena came to the right spot and it is yards from here that helena herself a pilgrim is said to have discovered the crosses when the pious lady hastened to the spot pointed out to her by a heavenly sign she tore down all that was profane and polluted there deep beneath the rubble she found three crosses lying in disorder the legends describe helena discovering the three crosses in a quarry or well there was a difficulty deciding which was the true cross this was settled by placing the crosses in turn next to a sick person who was miraculously healed by the true cross [Music] for tida there may be some truth in this legend because here at the place where helena is said to have excavated a resistance and the quarry this is an ancient place it's an ancient quarry underneath the church of the holy sepulchre it was here a long time before christianity appeared on the scene verticalis was discovered with the cross or the three crosses in a system looking almost like this place here in the humidity in the wetlands which is of course an ideal condition for the preservation of wood so all the details come together in this one place and tell us that this is a site of history and not of myth-making but there is a question to be answered could the titulars have survived at all without rotting away tida first observed these wooden writing tablets from the same time as the titulars in a museum their roman letters and notes written in ink they were found in 1973 still perfectly legible in damp conditions in northern britain so tita sees no reason why the titulars should not have survived here under the rock of golgotha helena's discovery is remembered at first sight it seems unlikely that the titularis could have come to rest here but tida believes that the events of the crucifixion offer the explanation and they took jesus and led him away and he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull which is called in the hebrew golgotha the crucifixion of jesus was by the prevailing standards quite brief but nonetheless agonizing victims were first scourged and the nails research reveals were driven through the wrists and the heels to support the body during its slow asphyxiation there were many different ways to crucify i mean there was there were different crosses there were different ways to crucify i think the sadistic ingenuity of the crucifixion team probably depended upon how one was put on the cross josiah is a jerusalem-based physical anthropologist who's made a study of burial techniques and ancient tombs it's difficult to tell whether jesus was crucified with three nails four nails uh the reason that most christian depictions show three nails it fits in well with theology which is the father that's on the holy ghost the holy trinity scholars have claimed that the crucified were denied a jewish funeral fatida's theory to be plausible he needed to show that the romans would have allowed the body and the titulus to be removed from the cross there is dramatic evidence that crucified jews were indeed taken away for burial the remains of a jewish crucifixion were discovered in this ossuary bearing the name yeho hanan in 1968 there was an archaeological find here in jerusalem outside of jerusalem where they found a jewish tomb jewish ossuaries from around the time of jesus what we found here we found this is what's called the calcaneum this is the right heel bone and we can see clearly here we can see the nail which is running laterally into the heel if you look closely here we can see it there's a plaque of wood there's still evidence here after 2000 years here in jerusalem that we found evidence for the wood the wood acted as a washer it then went into the heel what probably happened now was it when into the tree it probably struck a hard knot or something it fish hooked and then they took the individual down from the cross it was impossible to remove the nail so they buried him with his nail in his foot this man went on to pilot and begged the body of jesus and he took it down and wrapped it in linen and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone wherein never man before was laid [Music] historians now believe that joseph of arimathea's tomb was just below the hill of execution within what is now the church of the holy sepulchre joseph of arimathea asked pontius pilate explicitly to be allowed to take the man from the cross and bury him and therefore he would have been the person to to have taken and preserve the uh the inscription and passed it on to members of the family of jesus like mary who was actually also there but the gospels also report that jesus rose from the dead and the tomb was found empty the stone rolled away tida cannot be certain but he believes that the cross and titulars were preserved by early christians beneath the hill of golgotha which was a well-known burial site finally they were buried as the legends suggest underneath the roman temple to be found by helena in 326 a.d helena is believed to have divided her fines into three sections for distribution around the empire she's said to have left one part including a section of the titulus in jerusalem where it soon became a major attraction just about 20 years later it is absolutely clear that there is something which was regarded as a relic of the true cross there and in the 380s the pilgrim eugeria saw it igeria saw it and indeed she saw something she calls a titulus beside it as well another part went to constantinople which constantine had made capital of his empire in 330 a.d he rode his horse in the hippodrome using a nail from the crew cross as part of the bridle to demonstrate the reality of christianity this part of the crew cross was lost in battle probably in the 8th century helena herself returned to her palace in rome with a part of the cross and part of the titulars there she died mission complete two years later but her legacy was immense the cross had become roman property temples became churches and the pagan gods were replaced after helena nothing would ever be the same again helena's finding of the cross was of great excitement not only to constantine but to to many people in the roman empire who saw the cross as now the sign of spiritual victory the sign also which constantine himself had been inspired by and had conquered under when he won his victories and brought toleration and the end of persecution to christians throughout the empire so it was a very important symbol the cross in a sense came out of the closet it came out from underground the cross was now proclaimed there were no facsimiles of the cross allowed to be made and to be used in religious services and liturgy so that was something which had not happened before it's interesting that the crucifix at the same time however was outlawed by constantine because he saw that as a shameful thing for him the cross was a sign of victory not a sign of defeat christianity had been impelled to prominence by constantine and his mother the cross was to become the most powerful and recognizable symbol the world had ever seen the expression of christianity's triumph its logo constantine continued his slow personal progress towards christianity he banned crucifixion in 337 a.d and was himself baptized finally just before his death a coin shows him ascending into heaven in a chariot which is suspiciously pagan in appearance he was ambivalent to the last in the centuries after their finding the true cross relics were to suffer many reversals of fortune for seven centuries that part of the true cross and the titulars left by helena in the holy land were on display during a long history of capture and recapture of the holy places when the first crusaders took jerusalem in the 11th century they paraded the cross in battle but the true cross on their side defeat was inconceivable all along the jordan valley they established a network of castles in their efforts to keep the holy land safe for christianity against the muslim forces this castle is called belvoir castle it's one of the most important of all crusader castles in the holy land and they took the fragments of the true cross and the titulars of the cross that helena had left behind in jerusalem with them into battle from such a castle and paraded them in battle against the opposing forces they did this for some 200 years finally they lost it all in the decisive last battle in the horns of the horns of hatum here right behind us and it was lost for good here beneath the horns of hattin a terrible battle was fought in 1187 a saladin the muslim general defeated the crusader army under bishop acre who rode into battle bearing the relic cavalry charged in wave after wave among the floating mists of the mirage and the torments of thirst with the fire in the wind and anxiety in their hearts these dogs hung out their parched tongues and howled under the blows they hoped to reach the water but before them was hell with its flames and intolerable heat over cable the true cross was burnt believed to have been lost forever christendom's most precious possession was reduced to ashes but if tida is correct a piece of the true cross survived brought here to her palace in rome by helena as her personal relic it remained hidden until it was rediscovered in 1492 behind a fresco in a chapel said to be helena's own reliquary it was placed in a casket concealed by this stone the rediscovery of the titulus caused immense interest michelangelo himself made his only wooden crucifix which records the mysterious mirror writing and el greco too painted the languages of the headboard and this is that same piece of wood which cast in tida traces back to golgotha the place of crucifixion we can still make out clearly the greek and latin lines and the remains of the hebrew and there are traces of what could be the white and red pigments the romans used to colour these headboards the wood itself has been identified as walnut common in roman times and found all over the mediterranean it was this piece of wood that tida believes pontius pilate ordered to be placed on the cross of jesus two thousand years ago mocking him for claiming to be the king of the jews and it is the pilot that carston tida returns by a strange twist for his final evidence on this stone which is the only inscription ever found that refers to pilate tita observed that the style of the letters is identical to that on the titulus it is a style which died out in the first century so tida believes it cannot have been written later than the century of christ's crucifixion i am completely convinced that particulars is the authentic inscription headboard on the cross of jesus needless to say it's not a mathematical equation we can't prove it like two a plus two is four we can't do that we can't do that with so many things from antiquity we don't know whether alexander the great ever cut the god you're not or caesar ever crossed the rubicon but up to that degree of certainty on or uncertainty i am convinced that the titular is indeed what was above the head of jesus on the cross we may never know the truth of the origins of this piece of wood inscribed with some of the most powerful words in the gospels but professor carsten tieder has obliged us to look at it anew and ask important questions about it but it's indisputably true that constantine and his mother changed forever the course of history for it was they who spread the symbol of the cross around the known world and it was they who made a routine execution in an obscure part of the roman empire the central image of christian redemption and when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also he said unto them whosoever will come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me for whosoever shall save his life shall lose it and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospels the same shall save it [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary - History

Views: 46,870

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full Documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), History, History Documentaries, Free Documentary History, Jesus, Roman Empire, Crucifix, crucifiction, crucifiction of christ, INRI, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Documentary, Quest for the True Cross, True Cross, Christianity, Son of God, Jesus is Lord, Passion of the Christ, God, jahwe, Rome, Pope, Christian Relics, The Greatest Story Ever Told, pontius pilatus, judas iscariot, King of the Jews

Id: zgzFb-UJ9ek

Length: 48min 36sec (2916 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 24 2021