Ancient Roads from Christ to Constantine

Season 1

2015 · 6 episodes

Jonathan Phillips attempts to find the answer to the question: How did Christianity grow and develop from just a small, Jewish sect to the largest, and majority, dominant religion of the West?

1Birth of a FaithThe series begins in Bethlehem and travels throughout the Holy Land. With the Gospels as a guide, host Jonathan Phillips traces the life of Jesus from his birth, ministry, passion, and resurrection.
2The Great MissionaryMeet the man whose transformation is one of the most compelling in history, the Apostle Paul. Journey with Jonathan Phillips as he re-traces Paul's bold quest to bring the Christian message to Asia and Europe, a quest which would see him imprisoned, beaten and on the brink of death.
3Age of the ApostlesTravel with Jonathan Phillips on Paul's third and final missionary journey as the Apostolic Age comes to an end. Witness how the remaining apostles, except for John, are martyred for their unwavering beliefs. In Rome, Paul and the Apostle Peter will both meet their fate at the hands of one of the cruelest tyrants in history.
4From Apocalypse to HeresiesIn this episode, the city of Jerusalem is rocked by war. Host Jonathan Phillips travels to Patmos Island where John was exiled and visits the cave where John wrote the most enigmatic book of the New Testament, Revelation. Phillips traces the crucial battle where powerful heretics claiming special knowledge of Jesus threatened to distort, divide and even to destroy the Christian faith.
5Pagans and the Cult of MartyrsHost Jonathan Phillips treks to North Africa to tell the story of Perpetua, a young Christian martyr, whose extraordinary story still resonates today. Phillips visits places where Christians faced unimaginable violence because of their beliefs, where the Roman Empire threatened everything that Christians stood for with their pagan temples, emperor cult and vicious tortures.
6ConstantineIn the final episode, host Jonathan Phillips explains how Rome exerted its fullest effort to eradicate Christianity. The faith grew stronger as the empires and emperors weakened. It would be the conversion of one man - Constantine the Great - that would fully transform the fortunes of the Christian faith.

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