1
00:00:02,860 --> 00:00:04,980
80 years ago,
my mother was a little girl

2
00:00:04,980 --> 00:00:07,620
in the Staffordshire Potteries.

3
00:00:07,620 --> 00:00:10,300
One day she was out walking
with my grandfather,

4
00:00:10,300 --> 00:00:13,260
devout pillar of his local
Anglican parish church,

5
00:00:13,260 --> 00:00:16,780
when they passed a church that
she thought she'd like to look into

6
00:00:16,780 --> 00:00:21,340
because it was Roman Catholic and
she had a girl's curiosity about it.

7
00:00:21,340 --> 00:00:26,300
Her father made it quite clear
that he would be highly displeased

8
00:00:26,300 --> 00:00:30,340
if she even went inside a Roman
Catholic church to look round.

9
00:00:30,340 --> 00:00:33,260
For him, Rome was an alien world,

10
00:00:33,260 --> 00:00:37,660
liable to pollute
the English way of life.

11
00:00:37,660 --> 00:00:40,380
That seems a world away now.

12
00:00:40,380 --> 00:00:45,220
And my grandfather
isn't around to stop me exploring.

13
00:00:47,620 --> 00:00:50,700
So my second journey
into Christianity

14
00:00:50,700 --> 00:00:54,380
takes me into the history of the
Church which calls itself Catholic.

15
00:01:01,100 --> 00:01:05,140
Its headquarters
is the Vatican in Rome -

16
00:01:05,140 --> 00:01:10,020
an independent sovereign state
with influence all over the world.

17
00:01:10,020 --> 00:01:13,460
Over one billion Christians
look to Rome.

18
00:01:13,460 --> 00:01:16,500
That's more than half
of all Christians on the planet.

19
00:01:18,900 --> 00:01:22,300
But there's a huge paradox here.

20
00:01:22,300 --> 00:01:26,940
How did a small Jewish sect
from first-century Palestine,

21
00:01:26,940 --> 00:01:31,340
which preached humility
and the virtue of poverty,

22
00:01:31,340 --> 00:01:35,420
become the established religion
of Western Europe, powerful, wealthy,

23
00:01:35,420 --> 00:01:38,940
and expecting unfailing obedience
from the faithful?

24
00:01:38,940 --> 00:01:44,700
It's a story of what can be achieved
when you have friends in high places.

25
00:01:50,860 --> 00:01:53,460
APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

26
00:02:03,860 --> 00:02:07,700
The centre of the Western
Latin Church is the city of Rome,

27
00:02:07,700 --> 00:02:12,180
and the spiritual head of that Church
is the Bishop of Rome - the Pope.

28
00:02:12,180 --> 00:02:14,700
And that's very odd
when you think about it

29
00:02:14,700 --> 00:02:18,060
because Rome is the centre of
the Empire which killed Christ.

30
00:02:18,060 --> 00:02:20,780
And the Empire went on
killing members of the Church

31
00:02:20,780 --> 00:02:22,900
for another 300 years, on and off.

32
00:02:24,300 --> 00:02:27,500
# Hallelujah... #

33
00:02:27,500 --> 00:02:31,660
So what happened to give Rome
a Christian destiny?

34
00:02:37,580 --> 00:02:41,380
The obvious focus for the newly
emerging Church was Jerusalem.

35
00:02:41,380 --> 00:02:43,660
It's where Jesus was crucified.

36
00:02:43,660 --> 00:02:47,700
But in 70AD
the Romans destroyed the city.

37
00:02:47,700 --> 00:02:51,980
Christianity
gradually spread south and east.

38
00:02:51,980 --> 00:02:56,060
But one missionary, the Apostle Paul,
looked in a different direction -

39
00:02:56,060 --> 00:03:00,140
to Asia Minor, now modern Turkey,
and Greece.

40
00:03:00,140 --> 00:03:04,580
His letters in the New Testament
trace his journey

41
00:03:04,580 --> 00:03:09,220
through the trading routes of
the Empire whose capital was Rome.

42
00:03:09,220 --> 00:03:13,900
And eventually, as a prisoner of
the Emperor, Paul came to Rome.

43
00:03:13,900 --> 00:03:17,340
It's said that he was met by his
friends here on the Appian Way

44
00:03:17,340 --> 00:03:19,820
just outside the city,
that he then spent years

45
00:03:19,820 --> 00:03:23,300
under house arrest before
the Roman authorities killed him.

46
00:03:26,820 --> 00:03:28,940
With the perversity of history,

47
00:03:28,940 --> 00:03:33,060
Rome's brutality would put the city
centre-stage for Christianity.

48
00:03:33,060 --> 00:03:38,660
Like Jerusalem, Rome could now claim
a piece of the Christian story.

49
00:03:41,260 --> 00:03:44,860
From very early on,
Christians were drawn here,

50
00:03:44,860 --> 00:03:47,820
to the underground catacombs
of San Sebastiano,

51
00:03:47,820 --> 00:03:50,780
where Paul's body
was hidden from the authorities.

52
00:03:53,540 --> 00:03:57,420
But they were also drawn
to another martyr's grave -

53
00:03:57,420 --> 00:04:01,780
Simon Peter, one of the 12
original disciples of Jesus.

54
00:04:04,140 --> 00:04:07,700
Peter and Paul are equally venerated

55
00:04:07,700 --> 00:04:11,060
in these graffiti
from the 3rd century.

56
00:04:11,060 --> 00:04:14,060
At that stage, there was no hint

57
00:04:14,060 --> 00:04:18,020
that one of them would become the
sole spiritual leader of the Church,

58
00:04:18,020 --> 00:04:22,020
nor that the Roman Empire
would become Christian,

59
00:04:22,020 --> 00:04:27,260
or Rome the centre of
a worldwide Christian Church.

60
00:04:27,260 --> 00:04:31,140
So what on earth -
or what in heaven - happened?

61
00:04:37,180 --> 00:04:42,500
This is the first glimpse that
many early Christians had of Rome.

62
00:04:42,500 --> 00:04:48,020
It's the port of Ostia, about
12 miles southwest of the city.

63
00:04:48,020 --> 00:04:51,780
The first Christians in the West
were Greek speakers,

64
00:04:51,780 --> 00:04:54,140
travelling merchants or slaves

65
00:04:54,140 --> 00:04:57,460
who sailed here from trading ports
all round the Mediterranean.

66
00:04:58,540 --> 00:05:01,780
These Christians
met together in secret

67
00:05:01,780 --> 00:05:06,660
to share an idea which has seized
millions across 2,000 years.

68
00:05:06,660 --> 00:05:11,140
Eternal salvation is open to
anyone who believes in Jesus Christ

69
00:05:11,140 --> 00:05:13,740
as the Son of God.

70
00:05:13,740 --> 00:05:15,780
And at the heart of their new faith

71
00:05:15,780 --> 00:05:22,100
was a ritual symbolising
selfless love - sharing a meal.

72
00:05:23,700 --> 00:05:25,980
Christian people
went on breaking bread

73
00:05:25,980 --> 00:05:28,820
and drinking wine in thanksgiving
for Jesus Christ,

74
00:05:28,820 --> 00:05:32,060
and they probably did so here
in this family home -

75
00:05:32,060 --> 00:05:34,500
and the clue to that
is in the mosaic.

76
00:05:34,500 --> 00:05:38,940
It's got fish in it, and fish
are a secret Christian symbol,

77
00:05:38,940 --> 00:05:41,860
because the first letters in Greek
for fish

78
00:05:41,860 --> 00:05:46,020
are the same as the first letters
in Greek for Jesus Christ.

79
00:05:48,620 --> 00:05:54,140
Christianity began creeping in
from the fringes of Roman society.

80
00:05:55,340 --> 00:05:59,420
Church buildings
started openly appearing.

81
00:05:59,420 --> 00:06:03,580
This is just one of at least two
in the port of Ostia.

82
00:06:06,300 --> 00:06:11,060
By the year 251, the Church in Rome
had on its books

83
00:06:11,060 --> 00:06:18,300
46 priests, seven deacons and 52
exorcists, readers and doorkeepers.

84
00:06:22,180 --> 00:06:27,500
If you were a traditional-minded
Roman, you'd notice all this.

85
00:06:27,500 --> 00:06:32,060
You'd notice crosses
appearing on floors and walls,

86
00:06:32,060 --> 00:06:33,940
and you wouldn't like it.

87
00:06:33,940 --> 00:06:36,500
The gods would be offended.

88
00:06:38,340 --> 00:06:41,180
Stories spread that Christians
actually drank blood

89
00:06:41,180 --> 00:06:44,740
during their ceremonies - after all,
that's what they said they did.

90
00:06:44,740 --> 00:06:45,940
But the rumours grew -

91
00:06:45,940 --> 00:06:49,220
Christian love feasts
were said to be incestuous orgies.

92
00:06:49,220 --> 00:06:52,100
And although Christians
were a non-violent sect,

93
00:06:52,100 --> 00:06:55,380
their refusal to sacrifice
to the emperor looked like treason.

94
00:06:57,700 --> 00:07:01,300
WHISPERING

95
00:07:01,300 --> 00:07:03,100
Christians became scapegoats

96
00:07:03,100 --> 00:07:07,540
for a whole heap of new threats
to the Roman Empire.

97
00:07:07,540 --> 00:07:09,620
Economic crisis...

98
00:07:11,860 --> 00:07:14,300
Social breakdown...

99
00:07:14,300 --> 00:07:16,820
Civil war...

100
00:07:18,100 --> 00:07:23,540
It culminated in a savage attack on
Christians right across the Empire.

101
00:07:26,860 --> 00:07:30,140
In the Great Persecution
at the end of the 3rd century,

102
00:07:30,140 --> 00:07:32,660
church buildings were destroyed

103
00:07:32,660 --> 00:07:37,540
and all Christians were required
to sacrifice to the pagan gods.

104
00:07:42,620 --> 00:07:44,780
Some of those who refused

105
00:07:44,780 --> 00:07:48,780
are said to have been slaughtered
here in the theatre at Ostia.

106
00:07:52,140 --> 00:07:54,580
It had never been this bad.

107
00:08:00,540 --> 00:08:04,660
The Roman Empire
was now gleefully killing Christians

108
00:08:04,660 --> 00:08:09,060
just as it had killed Christ
two and a half centuries before.

109
00:08:11,100 --> 00:08:13,740
You'd have been mad to think that

110
00:08:13,740 --> 00:08:16,740
Rome could be the centre of
worldwide Christianity.

111
00:08:20,060 --> 00:08:24,940
But Christian fortunes
were about to change dramatically.

112
00:08:29,780 --> 00:08:34,580
One Emperor did a reverse turn which
took Christianity from a religion

113
00:08:34,580 --> 00:08:40,300
of the poor and dispossessed into
a religion of the rich and powerful.

114
00:08:49,380 --> 00:08:51,300
In the early 4th century,

115
00:08:51,300 --> 00:08:56,580
the Roman Empire was torn apart by
rival claims to the imperial throne.

116
00:08:56,580 --> 00:09:00,460
During the struggle for power,
one general and ruthless politician

117
00:09:00,460 --> 00:09:05,860
made a decision which changed
the course of Christian history.

118
00:09:05,860 --> 00:09:11,220
Because of that, Christians have
called him Constantine the Great.

119
00:09:15,100 --> 00:09:17,860
He made the decision
to become a Christian.

120
00:09:17,860 --> 00:09:21,780
For reasons which lie buried forever
in his mind, he became convinced

121
00:09:21,780 --> 00:09:25,060
that the Christian God
had helped him hack his way to power.

122
00:09:25,060 --> 00:09:28,980
This was the God whose followers were
still being persecuted by his rivals,

123
00:09:28,980 --> 00:09:31,700
and that might have had
something to do with it.

124
00:09:36,620 --> 00:09:40,980
When Constantine had secured supreme
power in all Roman territories

125
00:09:40,980 --> 00:09:46,300
in the east and west, he set about
making the Empire Christian.

126
00:09:47,860 --> 00:09:52,300
To secure the Eastern half, he moved
his capital to a small Greek city

127
00:09:52,300 --> 00:09:57,500
overlooking the Bosphorus, which he
named after himself - Constantinople.

128
00:10:00,580 --> 00:10:04,020
But he had plans for Rome, too,

129
00:10:04,020 --> 00:10:06,940
rooting out Rome's pagan past

130
00:10:06,940 --> 00:10:10,700
and remodelling Christianity
into a state religion.

131
00:10:14,420 --> 00:10:18,420
Constantine was a generous
benefactor of this church -

132
00:10:18,420 --> 00:10:20,660
St Martin on the Mount.

133
00:10:21,740 --> 00:10:24,140
It's rather off the tourist map,

134
00:10:24,140 --> 00:10:26,740
but in here
there's something very special.

135
00:10:28,100 --> 00:10:30,340
A glimpse of the true scale

136
00:10:30,340 --> 00:10:33,260
of Constantine's vision
for a Christian Rome,

137
00:10:33,260 --> 00:10:36,380
a new Jerusalem
with churches to outshine

138
00:10:36,380 --> 00:10:41,020
the ancient imperial buildings
of the Roman past.

139
00:10:41,020 --> 00:10:44,020
And here it is - a church
which became one of the most famous

140
00:10:44,020 --> 00:10:47,820
in Christian history -
the Basilica of St Peter.

141
00:10:47,820 --> 00:10:50,380
And it's one of the few
decent views

142
00:10:50,380 --> 00:10:53,020
of what old St Peter's
looked like inside.

143
00:10:53,020 --> 00:10:55,380
In a word - huge.

144
00:11:01,940 --> 00:11:05,780
All this architectural fuss
about St Peter

145
00:11:05,780 --> 00:11:08,580
raises an historical mystery
about Catholic Rome

146
00:11:08,580 --> 00:11:10,660
which has never been fully resolved.

147
00:11:13,300 --> 00:11:17,380
Why has Paul
not been given equal reverence?

148
00:11:22,260 --> 00:11:27,780
One answer lies within
St Peter's Basilica itself,

149
00:11:31,780 --> 00:11:35,940
built over the shrine and probably
the final resting place

150
00:11:35,940 --> 00:11:40,100
of Jesus' right-hand man,
Simon Peter.

151
00:11:40,100 --> 00:11:43,020
It was Jesus
who gave him the nickname

152
00:11:43,020 --> 00:11:46,740
which, in Greek, means rock -
Petrus.

153
00:11:46,740 --> 00:11:49,540
In three of the Gospels, Jesus says

154
00:11:49,540 --> 00:11:52,900
that on this rock
he will build his Church.

155
00:11:52,900 --> 00:11:57,220
And so Constantine may well have
focused on a church to St Peter

156
00:11:57,220 --> 00:11:59,740
because of that key line.

157
00:11:59,740 --> 00:12:04,140
The power of Christian Rome
founded on a Greek pun.

158
00:12:04,140 --> 00:12:07,300
TANNOY: Attention, please.
This is a sacred place.

159
00:12:07,300 --> 00:12:10,540
Please observe silence
and reflection.

160
00:12:10,540 --> 00:12:14,220
Constantine had given promotion
to the cult of Peter.

161
00:12:14,220 --> 00:12:17,460
While curiously,
and surely significantly,

162
00:12:17,460 --> 00:12:21,660
he seems to have made no effort
to provide St Paul

163
00:12:21,660 --> 00:12:24,540
with anything nearly so grand.

164
00:12:35,220 --> 00:12:39,660
Paul's body lies in the Church
of St Paul's Outside the Walls -

165
00:12:39,660 --> 00:12:42,300
the name says it all.

166
00:12:45,380 --> 00:12:49,340
Here we are in what was once
a malaria-infested plain,

167
00:12:49,340 --> 00:12:52,220
two miles beyond the city walls
of Rome.

168
00:12:52,220 --> 00:12:55,380
Your average tourist might be
forgiven for not noticing

169
00:12:55,380 --> 00:13:00,140
that Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles
had anything to do with the city.

170
00:13:02,540 --> 00:13:05,100
It was Paul
who pursued the radical idea

171
00:13:05,100 --> 00:13:07,820
of taking Christianity to non-Jews,

172
00:13:07,820 --> 00:13:13,420
something the conservative Peter
had been very sceptical about.

173
00:13:13,420 --> 00:13:18,100
Surely the Catholic Church
owes its existence more to Paul?

174
00:13:19,420 --> 00:13:22,340
And there's no better person
to reflect on this mystery

175
00:13:22,340 --> 00:13:24,980
than the Abbot of St Paul's himself.

176
00:13:24,980 --> 00:13:26,780
Well, how about a 'what if'?

177
00:13:26,780 --> 00:13:31,620
If the situation had been reversed,
what would the church look like now?

178
00:13:31,620 --> 00:13:33,620
If Paul had been the centre...

179
00:13:33,620 --> 00:13:37,300
Even that image, Paul the centre,
doesn't make sense. Right.

180
00:13:37,300 --> 00:13:41,820
Paul by nature represented
this movement on the fringe.

181
00:13:41,820 --> 00:13:45,340
And it's clear to me how Peter
took the dominant position

182
00:13:45,340 --> 00:13:49,420
because Peter represented
the stability at the core.

183
00:13:49,420 --> 00:13:53,900
The basic... The rock. So I mean
I think it would have been

184
00:13:53,900 --> 00:13:57,740
a much less centralised church,
probably.

185
00:13:57,740 --> 00:14:00,860
Risky question -
good thing or bad thing?

186
00:14:00,860 --> 00:14:03,260
So you're asking
a solid Roman Catholic

187
00:14:03,260 --> 00:14:05,940
whether it's good
to have the strong centre or not?

188
00:14:05,940 --> 00:14:09,660
Well, of course it's important
to have a strong centre.

189
00:14:09,660 --> 00:14:12,700
But what's going on around it
is equally important.

190
00:14:12,700 --> 00:14:14,260
It's a pity, in a way...

191
00:14:14,260 --> 00:14:19,140
I'd like to see the Pope declaring
his Pauline ministry as well,

192
00:14:19,140 --> 00:14:24,740
which would then kind of bring the
two a bit more into, into equality.

193
00:14:35,420 --> 00:14:39,500
I was grateful to the Abbot
for his gentle frankness.

194
00:14:39,500 --> 00:14:41,740
There's one thing that
the modern papacy

195
00:14:41,740 --> 00:14:46,220
really pushes at the faithful -
"Rome knows best".

196
00:14:46,220 --> 00:14:49,540
The centre is what matters.

197
00:14:49,540 --> 00:14:51,740
But it took the Church a long time

198
00:14:51,740 --> 00:14:55,180
to make this
the big theme in Catholicism.

199
00:14:55,180 --> 00:14:59,020
And there is no guarantee
that it will always be like that.

200
00:15:05,460 --> 00:15:08,300
The crucial steps
towards centralised power

201
00:15:08,300 --> 00:15:12,340
were taken 30 years
after Constantine's death.

202
00:15:13,380 --> 00:15:17,780
The decision to promote Peter
over Paul was exploited to the full.

203
00:15:23,300 --> 00:15:27,860
That laid foundations
for the later papacy.

204
00:15:32,700 --> 00:15:35,900
It was during the time of
Pope Damasus I

205
00:15:35,900 --> 00:15:38,380
that the Bishop of Rome
was established

206
00:15:38,380 --> 00:15:41,460
as bishop in unbroken succession
from St Peter.

207
00:15:43,620 --> 00:15:45,460
Well, I'll stick my neck out

208
00:15:45,460 --> 00:15:49,900
and say that I don't believe
that Peter was Bishop in Rome.

209
00:15:49,900 --> 00:15:53,740
You'd be hard put to find anyone
before the time of Pope Damasus

210
00:15:53,740 --> 00:15:55,980
who made that claim.

211
00:15:57,260 --> 00:16:02,740
The list of the Bishops of Rome
up to about 180 is just that -

212
00:16:02,740 --> 00:16:08,180
a list, linking Damasus back to
the disciple who knew Jesus, Peter.

213
00:16:08,180 --> 00:16:13,300
You might say that Paul
was now surplus to requirements.

214
00:16:16,820 --> 00:16:22,860
As successor of Peter, the Bishop
of Rome became the Holy Father, Pope,

215
00:16:22,860 --> 00:16:25,060
of all Christians in the West.

216
00:16:25,060 --> 00:16:28,900
Now Damasus set out
to give Christianity the glory

217
00:16:28,900 --> 00:16:31,900
which an imperial religion demanded.

218
00:16:33,580 --> 00:16:37,700
He brought the Good News, not to
the poor and the downtrodden,

219
00:16:37,700 --> 00:16:40,180
to whom Jesus had preached,

220
00:16:40,180 --> 00:16:42,700
but to the Roman nobility.

221
00:16:45,260 --> 00:16:49,300
There's a monumental room just
above the catacombs of San Sebastiano

222
00:16:49,300 --> 00:16:52,900
which shows precisely how.

223
00:16:52,900 --> 00:16:56,020
Well, this chamber
may not be much to look at now,

224
00:16:56,020 --> 00:16:57,820
but it's something very precious -

225
00:16:57,820 --> 00:17:01,380
it's a building actually commissioned
by Bishop Damasus himself,

226
00:17:01,380 --> 00:17:04,500
and what it is,
is a luxury mausoleum

227
00:17:04,500 --> 00:17:08,060
for the aristocratic members
of his congregation in Rome.

228
00:17:14,820 --> 00:17:19,740
Pope Damasus also personally composed
Latin inscriptions

229
00:17:19,740 --> 00:17:23,380
glorifying the suffering
of the Christian martyrs.

230
00:17:23,380 --> 00:17:28,300
There's rather more elegance
than evidence in what he wrote.

231
00:17:29,380 --> 00:17:33,100
This is actually one of
Damasus' inscriptions.

232
00:17:33,100 --> 00:17:36,460
It's about a very obscure saint
called Eutychius.

233
00:17:36,460 --> 00:17:39,940
"Eutychius martyr crudelia iussa
tyranni. Carnificumque vias..."

234
00:17:39,940 --> 00:17:42,260
"Eutychius the martyr
showed that he could

235
00:17:42,260 --> 00:17:47,020
"conquer the evil commands of the
tyrant and the ways of the world".

236
00:17:47,020 --> 00:17:49,780
But what's nice about it as well
is the lettering.

237
00:17:49,780 --> 00:17:53,300
It's the best, most expensive
imperial lettering you could get,

238
00:17:53,300 --> 00:17:55,540
like on an imperial
Roman inscription.

239
00:17:55,540 --> 00:17:57,780
It's a symbol that the Church
is no longer

240
00:17:57,780 --> 00:18:00,140
the Church of a few Greek-speaking
traders,

241
00:18:00,140 --> 00:18:04,180
it's the Church
of all Roman society at all levels.

242
00:18:09,260 --> 00:18:13,100
The Catholic Church
was no longer an upstart.

243
00:18:13,100 --> 00:18:16,100
It had friends in high places.

244
00:18:16,100 --> 00:18:19,740
Now a religion fit for gentlemen.

245
00:18:22,380 --> 00:18:24,900
But I don't want to
leave the impression

246
00:18:24,900 --> 00:18:28,300
that the Catholic story
is just about power politics.

247
00:18:32,100 --> 00:18:35,420
If you're in any sense
a Western Christian,

248
00:18:35,420 --> 00:18:39,020
you live with one legacy in
particular from this period,

249
00:18:39,020 --> 00:18:40,980
even if you fight against it.

250
00:18:40,980 --> 00:18:48,420
The idea that Adam and Eve have
left us totally corrupted by sin.

251
00:18:48,420 --> 00:18:53,300
That was the conclusion of Augustine,
Bishop of Hippo in North Africa,

252
00:18:53,300 --> 00:18:56,900
the father of Western theology.

253
00:19:00,300 --> 00:19:05,380
As a young man, Augustine
lived the life of a playboy.

254
00:19:06,660 --> 00:19:11,180
He was also a scholar
with a brilliant career ahead of him.

255
00:19:11,180 --> 00:19:14,260
But it all turned sour.

256
00:19:14,260 --> 00:19:16,460
Then, in a garden in Milan,

257
00:19:16,460 --> 00:19:20,780
came a moment when he began to see
a purpose in his life.

258
00:19:20,780 --> 00:19:24,780
He heard a child chanting
"tolle lege" -

259
00:19:24,780 --> 00:19:27,060
"take up and read".

260
00:19:29,500 --> 00:19:34,340
Augustine opened Paul's Epistle
To The Romans at random.

261
00:19:35,540 --> 00:19:38,460
Paul confronted him with his own sin

262
00:19:38,460 --> 00:19:44,380
and told him that the only way to
salvation was through purity of life.

263
00:19:44,380 --> 00:19:47,900
Augustine became obsessed
with the source of sin

264
00:19:47,900 --> 00:19:51,020
in Adam and Eve's
disobedience to God,

265
00:19:51,020 --> 00:19:55,260
and his answer bequeathed
the Western Latin Church

266
00:19:55,260 --> 00:20:01,220
an idea which not every Christian has
found in the Bible - original sin.

267
00:20:01,220 --> 00:20:04,020
Augustine came to believe
that all humans

268
00:20:04,020 --> 00:20:06,660
inherit sin
from the sin of Adam and Eve,

269
00:20:06,660 --> 00:20:10,740
and that sexual desire is an appetite
of the baser physical body

270
00:20:10,740 --> 00:20:13,380
rather than the soul,
and that the sexual act

271
00:20:13,380 --> 00:20:16,780
is the way that sin is transmitted
from one generation to the next.

272
00:20:18,420 --> 00:20:21,580
It means that you and I
are so corrupted by sin

273
00:20:21,580 --> 00:20:24,460
there's nothing we can do
to save ourselves from Hell.

274
00:20:24,460 --> 00:20:26,580
Only God can do that, by his grace.

275
00:20:26,580 --> 00:20:30,060
And there is no reason why
he shouldn't make random decisions

276
00:20:30,060 --> 00:20:32,660
as to who to send to Heaven
and who to leave in Hell.

277
00:20:32,660 --> 00:20:37,420
We have no say in the matter,
because we're nothing but corruption.

278
00:20:39,700 --> 00:20:45,580
That idea of predestination still
hangs around Western Christianity,

279
00:20:45,580 --> 00:20:47,740
Catholic and Protestant.

280
00:20:49,620 --> 00:20:52,940
As does Augustine's dark view of sex.

281
00:20:54,980 --> 00:20:57,500
And maybe the modern West

282
00:20:57,500 --> 00:21:01,100
is so obsessed with good sex as
the symbol of a fulfilled life

283
00:21:01,100 --> 00:21:03,700
precisely because
the Western Latin Church

284
00:21:03,700 --> 00:21:09,380
has been so long obsessed with
bad sex as the root of human sin.

285
00:21:14,580 --> 00:21:20,380
The Christian Church's humble
beginnings were now a distant memory.

286
00:21:21,860 --> 00:21:24,780
A golden age seemed to beckon.

287
00:21:24,780 --> 00:21:27,500
But this turned out to be a mirage.

288
00:21:30,780 --> 00:21:33,780
In the 5th century,
Barbarian invaders

289
00:21:33,780 --> 00:21:36,260
overran the Western half
of the empire.

290
00:21:37,820 --> 00:21:41,740
And in 410m they took Rome itself.

291
00:21:41,740 --> 00:21:46,820
At that moment, the Latin Church
could easily have crumbled

292
00:21:46,820 --> 00:21:50,260
and become a footnote
in European history.

293
00:21:57,780 --> 00:22:02,140
To see what happened, I've come to
North Italy and the city of Ravenna.

294
00:22:05,900 --> 00:22:09,820
The centuries while the Church
stood alone after the fall of Rome

295
00:22:09,820 --> 00:22:14,860
are often called the Dark Ages,
as if civilised life collapsed.

296
00:22:14,860 --> 00:22:19,300
Actually that's not true. The Church
was not about to die with the Empire,

297
00:22:19,300 --> 00:22:21,700
but it was at a crossroads.

298
00:22:23,260 --> 00:22:26,420
A choice of routes lay ahead.

299
00:22:28,020 --> 00:22:30,620
This is the Church of San Vitale.

300
00:22:32,220 --> 00:22:35,100
It marks one possible future -

301
00:22:35,100 --> 00:22:38,500
to look east to Byzantium,

302
00:22:38,500 --> 00:22:41,100
the surviving half
of the Roman Empire

303
00:22:41,100 --> 00:22:44,060
and one half of the imperial Church.

304
00:22:46,140 --> 00:22:50,380
San Vitale was built by an Emperor
of the East, Justinian,

305
00:22:50,380 --> 00:22:52,380
whose ambition was to win back

306
00:22:52,380 --> 00:22:55,220
the whole territory
of the old Roman Empire.

307
00:22:57,260 --> 00:23:00,340
Ravenna was one of his conquests,

308
00:23:00,340 --> 00:23:04,300
the Church of San Vitale
one of his legacies.

309
00:23:05,500 --> 00:23:10,420
Eventually his branch of imperial
Christianity would become Orthodoxy,

310
00:23:10,420 --> 00:23:13,020
and flourish
in the Balkans and Russia.

311
00:23:14,780 --> 00:23:20,060
But there was another option for the
Western Church, even more radical.

312
00:23:22,260 --> 00:23:28,980
It could choose to do some sort of
deal with the new barbarian rulers.

313
00:23:28,980 --> 00:23:34,420
With the invading Franks in Gaul,
Visigoths in Spain,

314
00:23:34,420 --> 00:23:39,900
Vandals in the African provinces,
Ostrogoths in north Italy.

315
00:23:39,900 --> 00:23:44,500
Contrary to the image of barbarians,
these people were not savages.

316
00:23:44,500 --> 00:23:50,100
Most of them were already Christians,
just not Catholic Christians.

317
00:23:50,100 --> 00:23:55,180
I've come to the Church of Sant'
Apollinare Nuovo, also in Ravenna.

318
00:23:55,180 --> 00:23:59,260
It was built for Theodoric,
King of the Ostrogoths.

319
00:23:59,260 --> 00:24:02,060
The trouble was,
in the eyes of the Catholic Church,

320
00:24:02,060 --> 00:24:04,660
everything about his Christianity
was heretical.

321
00:24:04,660 --> 00:24:08,980
He was a follower of Arius,
who believed that Jesus Christ

322
00:24:08,980 --> 00:24:13,660
was not fully eternal and divine
in the way that God the Father was.

323
00:24:13,660 --> 00:24:16,420
Now what's so precious about
this place

324
00:24:16,420 --> 00:24:18,980
is that it's not just
an Arian Church building.

325
00:24:18,980 --> 00:24:22,580
We've got Arian pictures, mosaics.
We've got the life of Christ,

326
00:24:22,580 --> 00:24:26,420
miracles, we've got the miraculous
draught of fishes, for instance.

327
00:24:26,420 --> 00:24:29,020
On this wall he's a young Christ.

328
00:24:29,020 --> 00:24:31,300
He's got no beard.

329
00:24:31,300 --> 00:24:34,980
When we go round to this side,
later scenes in the life of Christ

330
00:24:34,980 --> 00:24:38,460
like his betrayal in the Garden
of Gethsemane, he's got a beard!

331
00:24:38,460 --> 00:24:42,300
So, the Arian Christ - like us,

332
00:24:42,300 --> 00:24:45,060
he grows older. He's human.

333
00:24:47,580 --> 00:24:51,620
Faced with the choice of an alliance
with the east or with the Arians,

334
00:24:51,620 --> 00:24:54,580
what would the Latin Church do?

335
00:24:54,580 --> 00:25:00,300
Its decision
forever shaped western Christendom.

336
00:25:00,300 --> 00:25:05,980
It decided to go it alone,
and look to the Pope to guide it.

337
00:25:05,980 --> 00:25:10,220
And in the end, it was the
Latin Church which survived intact

338
00:25:10,220 --> 00:25:14,620
and it was Arian Christianity
which was wiped from the record.

339
00:25:16,820 --> 00:25:21,100
Well, we've got an intriguing case
of Catholics censoring mosaics here.

340
00:25:21,100 --> 00:25:23,620
Because this is a picture
of a palace -

341
00:25:23,620 --> 00:25:26,180
it's helpfully labelled "palatium".

342
00:25:26,180 --> 00:25:29,380
And it's the palace
of the Arian King, Theodoric.

343
00:25:29,380 --> 00:25:31,540
But he's missing!

344
00:25:31,540 --> 00:25:36,540
He would be where that great area
of gold mosaic is, but he's gone.

345
00:25:36,540 --> 00:25:39,140
And either side of him
would be his courtiers.

346
00:25:39,140 --> 00:25:42,820
But instead of the courtiers, you've
got these rather boring curtains.

347
00:25:42,820 --> 00:25:46,300
But they haven't done it very well
because, you see,

348
00:25:46,300 --> 00:25:48,380
they've left hands on the columns.

349
00:25:48,380 --> 00:25:50,620
Hand, hand, fingers!

350
00:25:50,620 --> 00:25:54,300
There, they've gone.
They just don't exist any more.

351
00:25:57,820 --> 00:26:01,420
So how did the Latin Church
survive on its own?

352
00:26:01,420 --> 00:26:06,940
Well, the decisions made by
that wily politician Pope Damasus

353
00:26:06,940 --> 00:26:09,420
began to pay off.

354
00:26:09,420 --> 00:26:13,620
The Church
still had influential friends.

355
00:26:15,620 --> 00:26:19,180
The Latin Church survived
because of a great choice

356
00:26:20,220 --> 00:26:23,340
made by people clinging to
shreds of imperial power -

357
00:26:23,340 --> 00:26:26,180
the Roman aristocracy.
Once they'd ruled the empire,

358
00:26:26,180 --> 00:26:29,180
now they decided to rule the Church.

359
00:26:29,180 --> 00:26:34,900
Roman noblemen became bishops
to preserve the world they loved.

360
00:26:34,900 --> 00:26:39,020
And when the Empire collapsed, the
Church stepped into the power vacuum.

361
00:26:47,220 --> 00:26:50,860
The Western Church had survived.

362
00:26:50,860 --> 00:26:53,580
It had adapted.

363
00:26:53,580 --> 00:26:59,180
400 years earlier, Christianity
was against the establishment.

364
00:26:59,180 --> 00:27:02,100
Now, it was the establishment.

365
00:27:04,820 --> 00:27:10,100
Not surprisingly, the Bishops of Rome
were in an expansive mood.

366
00:27:12,380 --> 00:27:15,100
Rome would play a new role

367
00:27:15,100 --> 00:27:19,660
as the capital of a Western
Christian Empire of the mind,

368
00:27:19,660 --> 00:27:24,540
greater than any Empire
created by the Roman army.

369
00:27:24,540 --> 00:27:28,420
The Arian peoples had brought
their own Christianity westwards

370
00:27:28,420 --> 00:27:30,540
as far as Spain.

371
00:27:32,500 --> 00:27:36,100
Now, Rome would outflank them.

372
00:27:36,100 --> 00:27:39,620
The Pope sent a mission
reaching beyond the Arians,

373
00:27:39,620 --> 00:27:42,420
to the former Roman colony
of Britannia.

374
00:27:51,620 --> 00:27:58,180
In 597, a party of 40 Roman monks
and priests landed in Kent.

375
00:27:58,180 --> 00:28:02,620
They had been sent by Pope Gregory I,
himself a monk

376
00:28:02,620 --> 00:28:06,180
and one of those Roman aristocrats
who had taken over the Church.

377
00:28:06,180 --> 00:28:08,980
It's said that his mother, Silvia,

378
00:28:08,980 --> 00:28:13,340
sent his monastery
daily meals on a silver dish.

379
00:28:13,340 --> 00:28:15,260
Gregory couldn't have been less like

380
00:28:15,260 --> 00:28:17,620
an upper-class twit
playing at being a monk.

381
00:28:17,620 --> 00:28:20,460
He was the first Pope
to take an initiative in mission

382
00:28:20,460 --> 00:28:22,660
to the boundaries of the lost Empire.

383
00:28:25,500 --> 00:28:28,780
It was led by a monk
from his own monastery in Rome -

384
00:28:28,780 --> 00:28:30,380
a priest called Augustine.

385
00:28:30,380 --> 00:28:32,580
Augustine's often been celebrated

386
00:28:32,580 --> 00:28:35,220
as the man who brought Christianity
to England.

387
00:28:35,220 --> 00:28:37,820
Actually, it wasn't quite like that.

388
00:28:41,380 --> 00:28:45,820
Britannia already had some Christians
from its days as a Roman province.

389
00:28:46,860 --> 00:28:51,140
But for two centuries it had been
in the power of non-Christians -

390
00:28:51,140 --> 00:28:53,500
Anglo-Saxon warriors
from mainland Europe.

391
00:28:59,580 --> 00:29:03,180
In the mere eight years of life
left to him,

392
00:29:03,180 --> 00:29:07,380
Augustine laid a solid foundation
for an Anglo-Saxon Church

393
00:29:07,380 --> 00:29:12,740
which was quite exceptional in Europe
in its devotion to Rome.

394
00:29:12,740 --> 00:29:15,180
His seat of power,
Canterbury Cathedral,

395
00:29:15,180 --> 00:29:17,580
was given the dedication
Christ Church

396
00:29:17,580 --> 00:29:21,900
because it was then the dedication
of the Pope's Cathedral in Rome.

397
00:29:21,900 --> 00:29:24,700
It was the Pope
who appointed Augustine

398
00:29:24,700 --> 00:29:26,660
the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

399
00:29:26,660 --> 00:29:29,260
And in fact,
Pope Gregory gave Augustine

400
00:29:29,260 --> 00:29:32,060
a special liturgical garment,
the pallium,

401
00:29:32,060 --> 00:29:35,940
and this was a symbol that the power
of the Archbishops of Canterbury

402
00:29:35,940 --> 00:29:37,660
came from Rome.

403
00:29:38,980 --> 00:29:42,300
It's easy to forget
that the English Church

404
00:29:42,300 --> 00:29:45,260
was under Roman obedience
for 900 years -

405
00:29:45,260 --> 00:29:48,700
far longer than it's been Protestant.

406
00:29:48,700 --> 00:29:50,580
Eventually, the Church of England

407
00:29:50,580 --> 00:29:55,460
turned its back on the Church of Rome
in the 16th-century Reformation.

408
00:29:55,460 --> 00:29:58,580
But it forgot one little thing.

409
00:29:58,580 --> 00:30:02,260
Bizarrely, the coat of arms of
the Archbishop of Canterbury

410
00:30:02,260 --> 00:30:05,780
still incorporates
the Y shape of the pallium.

411
00:30:05,780 --> 00:30:10,300
It's a little piece of heraldry which
the Protestant Reformation in England

412
00:30:10,300 --> 00:30:13,700
either failed to notice,
or decided to ignore.

413
00:30:17,460 --> 00:30:21,740
When Augustine died there were around
a dozen monasteries in England.

414
00:30:21,740 --> 00:30:26,380
A century later,
there were at least 200.

415
00:30:26,380 --> 00:30:29,580
MONKS SING

416
00:30:29,580 --> 00:30:34,380
But these distant isles made
their own special contribution.

417
00:30:34,380 --> 00:30:37,340
They gave shape to one of
the distinctive practices

418
00:30:37,340 --> 00:30:40,580
of the Catholic Church - Confession.

419
00:30:52,380 --> 00:30:55,580
I've come as far west in Europe
as you can get,

420
00:30:55,580 --> 00:30:58,380
to where monks lived a life
as intense and austere

421
00:30:58,380 --> 00:31:00,300
as anything in Church history.

422
00:31:00,300 --> 00:31:03,780
I'm heading for Skellig Michael
off the Kerry coast in Ireland.

423
00:31:10,260 --> 00:31:14,980
These monks were not Anglo-Saxon,
but Celtic Christians.

424
00:31:14,980 --> 00:31:18,340
They came to settle out here
in the Atlantic Ocean

425
00:31:18,340 --> 00:31:21,180
as far back as the 6th century.

426
00:31:21,180 --> 00:31:25,180
It's easy to see them as isolated
from the Church in Rome.

427
00:31:27,540 --> 00:31:30,220
But for them,
the sea was not a barrier,

428
00:31:30,220 --> 00:31:34,540
but a series of pathways
to their neighbours and beyond.

429
00:31:34,540 --> 00:31:39,300
They shared books with other monks
right across the Mediterranean,

430
00:31:39,300 --> 00:31:44,220
and Latin was the language of
their liturgy and their literature.

431
00:31:44,220 --> 00:31:46,780
These are man-made steps,
600 of them,

432
00:31:46,780 --> 00:31:49,420
designed by the monks
to take me up to the monastery.

433
00:32:02,660 --> 00:32:06,180
I have to confess that I started up
these stairs cheerfully enough,

434
00:32:06,180 --> 00:32:09,460
but vertigo has taken over
and I simply can't go on.

435
00:32:09,460 --> 00:32:12,900
So I will never see the monastery
on Skellig Michael.

436
00:32:12,900 --> 00:32:16,060
I cannot understand
why the monks lived here.

437
00:32:16,060 --> 00:32:18,460
It feels like the edge of the world.

438
00:32:21,140 --> 00:32:25,140
It seems absurd to me that,
living here,

439
00:32:25,140 --> 00:32:29,420
Irish monks could have
an upbeat view of human nature.

440
00:32:29,420 --> 00:32:32,140
But they did.

441
00:32:32,140 --> 00:32:36,860
Such a contrast with the pessimism
of Augustine of Hippo.

442
00:32:36,860 --> 00:32:41,060
And out of this optimism
came a new practice

443
00:32:41,060 --> 00:32:45,300
designed to cope with that sense
of guilt and falling short

444
00:32:45,300 --> 00:32:47,740
that Christians call sin.

445
00:32:47,740 --> 00:32:50,900
They came up with "tariff books" -

446
00:32:50,900 --> 00:32:53,460
guidebooks to dealing with sin.

447
00:32:53,460 --> 00:32:59,140
The principle is you can find out or
decide what sort of penalty, penance,

448
00:32:59,140 --> 00:33:01,060
deals with what sort of sin.

449
00:33:01,060 --> 00:33:04,420
And you can list them, and there
they are for priests to deal with.

450
00:33:04,420 --> 00:33:08,860
Who wouldn't jump at the chance of
having a forgiveness-of-sin tariff?

451
00:33:08,860 --> 00:33:12,940
And this is the beginning of
individual confession to a priest.

452
00:33:14,580 --> 00:33:19,380
It's a very powerful thing to do,
to offer someone forgiveness.

453
00:33:20,980 --> 00:33:24,660
Confessions remain very precious
for Catholics, but it's also been

454
00:33:24,660 --> 00:33:28,340
an enormous source of conflict
and anger in the Western Church.

455
00:33:28,340 --> 00:33:31,340
That's because forgiveness
is very personal.

456
00:33:31,340 --> 00:33:35,860
So is a priest getting in the way or
is he helping you reach out to God?

457
00:33:37,980 --> 00:33:40,380
That idea doesn't sit very well

458
00:33:40,380 --> 00:33:45,220
with Augustine of Hippo's views
about total human corruption.

459
00:33:45,220 --> 00:33:48,420
And aren't you rather
manipulating God

460
00:33:48,420 --> 00:33:50,820
by setting up measurements
for forgiveness?

461
00:33:51,900 --> 00:33:54,100
The clash between those two thoughts

462
00:33:54,100 --> 00:33:57,900
went on lurking
in the life of Latin Christians.

463
00:33:57,900 --> 00:34:00,140
In the 16th-century Reformation

464
00:34:00,140 --> 00:34:03,860
it was the central issue
to split the Western Church.

465
00:34:12,340 --> 00:34:16,100
It's an impressive witness
to the energy of Celtic Christians

466
00:34:16,100 --> 00:34:18,180
that this remote corner of Europe

467
00:34:18,180 --> 00:34:21,660
had such a profound influence
on the whole Church.

468
00:34:24,740 --> 00:34:30,340
Western Latin Catholicism had not
faded during the so-called Dark Ages.

469
00:34:30,340 --> 00:34:32,940
It had survived, and more than that,

470
00:34:32,940 --> 00:34:38,020
it had spread its Christian message
to a world beyond Rome.

471
00:34:44,020 --> 00:34:46,420
But it was still vulnerable.

472
00:34:47,780 --> 00:34:52,060
With the Emperor gone, it was
at the mercy of kings and noblemen

473
00:34:52,060 --> 00:34:54,580
who were often
little better than bandits.

474
00:34:58,540 --> 00:35:04,380
And a new religious rival
had risen in the East - Islam.

475
00:35:07,820 --> 00:35:12,420
At the end of the 8th century, with
Islam relentlessly pressing westward,

476
00:35:12,420 --> 00:35:17,260
Pope Leo III
turned the clock back 400 years

477
00:35:17,260 --> 00:35:21,580
and made Western Christianity
an imperial power once more.

478
00:35:23,900 --> 00:35:26,180
Just like Constantine I,

479
00:35:26,180 --> 00:35:30,580
the new Emperor, Charles,
would be nick named "the Great".

480
00:35:30,580 --> 00:35:32,660
Charlemagne.

481
00:35:46,300 --> 00:35:50,620
The ancient spa town of Aachen
in south-west Germany

482
00:35:50,620 --> 00:35:52,980
was once home to Charlemagne,

483
00:35:52,980 --> 00:35:57,220
the most powerful man
in 8th-century Western Europe.

484
00:35:57,220 --> 00:36:00,300
But also a man with
a fetish for history.

485
00:36:02,220 --> 00:36:05,580
Charlemagne loved to wallow
in the hot pools of Aachen,

486
00:36:05,580 --> 00:36:07,900
pretending to be a Roman
at the baths.

487
00:36:07,900 --> 00:36:11,220
But he was actually descended
from barbarians, the Franks.

488
00:36:11,220 --> 00:36:14,340
They were one of the peoples
who'd swept into Western Europe

489
00:36:14,340 --> 00:36:17,380
and smashed the central structures
of the Roman Empire.

490
00:36:17,380 --> 00:36:20,380
But the Franks were different
from the other barbarians.

491
00:36:20,380 --> 00:36:23,500
They'd taken up Catholic
rather than Arian Christianity.

492
00:36:30,860 --> 00:36:33,900
Charlemagne's Empire
extended from beyond the Pyrenees

493
00:36:33,900 --> 00:36:36,860
into the heart of modern Germany.

494
00:36:36,860 --> 00:36:42,380
But his ambition was to reunite
the old Roman Empire, west and east -

495
00:36:42,380 --> 00:36:45,380
a Christian Roman Empire.

496
00:36:45,380 --> 00:36:48,100
His first priority was to become

497
00:36:48,100 --> 00:36:51,300
the protector and defender
of the Catholic Church.

498
00:36:54,180 --> 00:36:58,700
In return, Pope Leo III
crowned him as Emperor of the West

499
00:36:58,700 --> 00:37:02,500
on Christmas Day, 800,
in St Peter's Basilica in Rome.

500
00:37:06,500 --> 00:37:11,900
Charlemagne's successors called
themselves Holy Roman Emperors.

501
00:37:11,900 --> 00:37:15,460
And many of them
were crowned on this throne

502
00:37:15,460 --> 00:37:19,540
in Charlemagne's Cathedral in Aachen.

503
00:37:19,540 --> 00:37:22,380
No Pope before had crowned monarchs.

504
00:37:22,380 --> 00:37:25,620
Did this now mean that the Church
was mightier than the Empire?

505
00:37:25,620 --> 00:37:28,100
For the next few centuries,
Popes and Emperors

506
00:37:28,100 --> 00:37:30,900
quarrelled about who best represented
Christian Rome

507
00:37:30,900 --> 00:37:34,420
and which side had supreme authority
over the other.

508
00:37:37,100 --> 00:37:39,780
There never was a clear answer.

509
00:37:39,780 --> 00:37:43,780
But at least Emperor and Pope
shared a vision -

510
00:37:43,780 --> 00:37:47,100
an imperial Western Latin Church.

511
00:37:47,100 --> 00:37:51,580
And that gave Latin Christianity
a new self-assurance.

512
00:37:53,100 --> 00:37:56,100
200 years later, in 1054,

513
00:37:56,100 --> 00:37:59,620
the West would finally split
from the Church in Constantinople,

514
00:37:59,620 --> 00:38:03,900
creating distinct Catholic
and Orthodox Churches.

515
00:38:07,060 --> 00:38:11,540
Far from damaging the Western Latin
Church, the split became the platform

516
00:38:11,540 --> 00:38:17,420
for an ambitious new Pope, Gregory
VII, to revolutionise the Church.

517
00:38:17,420 --> 00:38:19,620
APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

518
00:38:21,940 --> 00:38:25,060
So much has happened
to the Roman Catholic Church

519
00:38:25,060 --> 00:38:26,980
in the centuries since then,

520
00:38:26,980 --> 00:38:30,780
but it's still indebted to Gregory's
reforms 1,000 years ago.

521
00:38:34,860 --> 00:38:38,700
The big theme of Catholicism
has come to be the centre.

522
00:38:38,700 --> 00:38:41,780
Central control is now what matters,

523
00:38:41,780 --> 00:38:45,580
and what marks it out
from other denominations.

524
00:38:45,580 --> 00:38:49,580
The Church expects obedience
from the faithful.

525
00:38:49,580 --> 00:38:53,140
But in the Middle Ages it couldn't
always take that for granted.

526
00:38:57,620 --> 00:39:00,500
In converting Europe,
monks and missionaries

527
00:39:00,500 --> 00:39:06,220
had chiefly targeted the nobility,
reasoning that the rest would follow.

528
00:39:06,220 --> 00:39:10,020
But the Church
now had a greater ambition.

529
00:39:10,020 --> 00:39:12,180
What Gregory now wanted to do

530
00:39:12,180 --> 00:39:17,340
was to micro-manage the fate
of every soul in Europe.

531
00:39:17,340 --> 00:39:22,700
And to drive through this change,
the Papacy first targeted the clergy.

532
00:39:25,860 --> 00:39:29,100
Gregory made a change which
was to redefine the popular image

533
00:39:29,100 --> 00:39:30,460
of the Catholic cleric.

534
00:39:30,460 --> 00:39:33,980
Before that, most clergy who were
not monks would expect to marry.

535
00:39:33,980 --> 00:39:38,380
Gregory started a campaign to make
all clergy automatically celibate.

536
00:39:38,380 --> 00:39:41,500
That was because he wanted
the best, the most disciplined

537
00:39:41,500 --> 00:39:43,740
and the most loyal clergy possible.

538
00:39:45,020 --> 00:39:48,220
He deeply distrusted married clergy.

539
00:39:48,220 --> 00:39:51,860
They might found dynasties
and might make Church lands

540
00:39:51,860 --> 00:39:55,260
their own hereditary family property.

541
00:39:55,260 --> 00:40:00,020
With its foot soldiers in place,
the Church now had a presence

542
00:40:00,020 --> 00:40:02,780
in every village and town,
every parish,

543
00:40:02,780 --> 00:40:08,420
doing its best to control
every aspect of people's lives.

544
00:40:08,420 --> 00:40:12,380
What emerged was a single Western
Latin Catholic society

545
00:40:12,380 --> 00:40:14,060
unified by the Latin language

546
00:40:14,060 --> 00:40:17,100
and underpinned by a complex
religious bureaucracy.

547
00:40:17,100 --> 00:40:21,940
It reflected the lost Roman Empire,
it outshone the Roman Empire.

548
00:40:21,940 --> 00:40:27,140
And what was it all for? Nothing
less than making all society holy.

549
00:40:27,140 --> 00:40:29,980
APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

550
00:40:32,060 --> 00:40:35,300
But far and away
the most centralising step

551
00:40:35,300 --> 00:40:38,740
was taken by the Pope himself
when he told the world

552
00:40:38,740 --> 00:40:42,420
what he thought he was,
or what he'd like to be -

553
00:40:42,420 --> 00:40:47,100
a universal monarch reigning over
all the rulers of the earth.

554
00:40:47,100 --> 00:40:51,380
A set of so called "Dictates"
spelled it out -

555
00:40:51,380 --> 00:40:54,500
27 very blunt statements of power.

556
00:40:54,500 --> 00:40:59,100
No Pope before
had said it quite like this.

557
00:41:02,540 --> 00:41:05,420
It didn't actually use the word
"infallibility" -

558
00:41:05,420 --> 00:41:07,820
that wouldn't happen
until the 19th century -

559
00:41:07,820 --> 00:41:09,860
but it did say that every Pope

560
00:41:09,860 --> 00:41:13,060
is undoubtedly made a saint
by the merits of St Peter.

561
00:41:13,060 --> 00:41:15,140
Well, excuse me!

562
00:41:17,180 --> 00:41:20,740
Frankly, I don't see every Pope
as a living saint,

563
00:41:20,740 --> 00:41:24,220
and neither have countless Catholics
over the centuries.

564
00:41:24,220 --> 00:41:26,500
And in fact the Popes after Gregory

565
00:41:26,500 --> 00:41:29,700
have been pretty wary
about his statement.

566
00:41:29,700 --> 00:41:34,660
But neither have they said
that he was wrong.

567
00:41:34,660 --> 00:41:37,700
This absolutism
would give later Protestants

568
00:41:37,700 --> 00:41:41,740
yet another reason to break away
from the Western Latin Church.

569
00:41:44,140 --> 00:41:49,060
But this was not just
a greedy Church grabbing power.

570
00:41:49,060 --> 00:41:52,940
It was also intended to
offer something to the faithful.

571
00:41:52,940 --> 00:41:56,420
Not just any old something -
salvation.

572
00:42:01,180 --> 00:42:06,380
For 1,000 years the Christian picture
of the afterlife had been stark.

573
00:42:06,380 --> 00:42:11,660
After death,
you either went to Heaven or Hell.

574
00:42:11,660 --> 00:42:16,860
But now the Latin Church picked up
an old idea from early centuries.

575
00:42:16,860 --> 00:42:20,020
Purgatory - a place for purging.

576
00:42:22,500 --> 00:42:26,340
Where the souls of the dead
burned in fire.

577
00:42:30,060 --> 00:42:33,860
The difference from Hell
was that Purgatory wasn't forever.

578
00:42:33,860 --> 00:42:37,900
And Purgatory had only one exit -
up to Heaven.

579
00:42:39,660 --> 00:42:43,500
It was tailor-made for those
who in this life feel ordinary -

580
00:42:43,500 --> 00:42:45,260
not very good, not very bad,

581
00:42:45,260 --> 00:42:48,820
but certainly not good enough
to go straight to Heaven.

582
00:42:48,820 --> 00:42:51,060
It was a very comforting doctrine.

583
00:42:51,060 --> 00:42:54,980
Crucially, it gave people a sense
that while still on this earth

584
00:42:54,980 --> 00:42:58,180
they could do something
about their salvation.

585
00:43:00,380 --> 00:43:03,460
They could pray
or they could do good works

586
00:43:03,460 --> 00:43:05,540
to shorten their time in Purgatory.

587
00:43:09,740 --> 00:43:12,820
The whole system became an industry
in the Western Church -

588
00:43:12,820 --> 00:43:15,340
the Purgatory industry,
a vast factory

589
00:43:15,340 --> 00:43:18,020
of prayer and ceremonial observance.

590
00:43:18,020 --> 00:43:21,460
It was one of the most successful
ideas in Christian history.

591
00:43:21,460 --> 00:43:24,460
It satisfied millions of people
for centuries on end.

592
00:43:26,540 --> 00:43:28,260
By the end of the 11th century,

593
00:43:28,260 --> 00:43:30,820
the Catholic Church
was European society's

594
00:43:30,820 --> 00:43:33,420
single most important institution.

595
00:43:34,740 --> 00:43:39,180
The best-organised monarchy
in Europe.

596
00:43:39,180 --> 00:43:44,020
It promised a structure to people's
life on earth and salvation in death.

597
00:43:44,020 --> 00:43:48,140
That's more than the old Roman
Emperors could ever have offered.

598
00:43:51,020 --> 00:43:56,140
But the reality was that half of
the world's professing Christians

599
00:43:56,140 --> 00:43:59,140
were now subject
to a different religion.

600
00:44:00,780 --> 00:44:05,740
Islam controlled the whole
of North Africa, Spain, Sicily,

601
00:44:05,740 --> 00:44:08,020
and much of Western Asia.

602
00:44:08,020 --> 00:44:12,460
It even occupied
the original holy city, Jerusalem.

603
00:44:16,660 --> 00:44:22,020
And so, in 1095,
in a great blaze of publicity,

604
00:44:22,020 --> 00:44:26,620
the Catholic Church mounted
an ambitious military campaign -

605
00:44:26,620 --> 00:44:29,220
the First Crusade.

606
00:44:34,020 --> 00:44:36,460
There'd been a time
when Christian leaders

607
00:44:36,460 --> 00:44:40,060
had tried to stop Christians
from becoming soldiers.

608
00:44:40,060 --> 00:44:43,540
Now, atrocities were committed
in the name of the God of Love.

609
00:44:45,060 --> 00:44:49,220
For the first time, the notion of
"holy war" entered Christianity.

610
00:44:55,660 --> 00:44:59,940
The Crusades are an embarrassment
for Christianity.

611
00:44:59,940 --> 00:45:04,940
In seeking to recapture the Holy Land
they caused misery and destruction.

612
00:45:06,500 --> 00:45:10,340
It was idealism,
but it was also Christian love

613
00:45:10,340 --> 00:45:13,620
turned to violence and arrogance.

614
00:45:13,620 --> 00:45:16,140
But I'm here in London,
at the Temple Church,

615
00:45:16,140 --> 00:45:20,540
to show that the Crusades
left a more complex legacy.

616
00:45:20,540 --> 00:45:25,060
Some say this is modelled on
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

617
00:45:25,060 --> 00:45:30,460
in Jerusalem, but I think
that's to hide an awkward truth.

618
00:45:30,460 --> 00:45:35,940
It's a copy of one of the most famous
Muslim buildings in the world.

619
00:45:37,980 --> 00:45:40,300
It was built by the Knights Templar,

620
00:45:40,300 --> 00:45:43,500
an order of soldier monks
founded during the Crusades

621
00:45:43,500 --> 00:45:45,820
to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land.

622
00:45:45,820 --> 00:45:48,180
They'd seized the Temple Mount
in Jerusalem

623
00:45:48,180 --> 00:45:51,260
and made it their headquarters,
hence the name Templars.

624
00:45:51,260 --> 00:45:54,220
All over Europe,
they built these circular churches

625
00:45:54,220 --> 00:45:57,700
to look like what they thought
was the Jerusalem Temple.

626
00:45:57,700 --> 00:46:02,340
It's a good thing they didn't realise
it was actually a Muslim building -

627
00:46:02,340 --> 00:46:04,940
the Dome of the Rock
on the Temple Mount.

628
00:46:12,620 --> 00:46:15,300
This was the Templars' English HQ.

629
00:46:16,540 --> 00:46:18,420
Burial here in the Round Church

630
00:46:18,420 --> 00:46:21,460
was almost as good as being buried
in Jerusalem.

631
00:46:25,740 --> 00:46:29,300
These knights are portrayed
in their early 30s,

632
00:46:29,300 --> 00:46:31,020
the age at which Christ died

633
00:46:31,020 --> 00:46:34,180
and the age at which the dead
will rise on his return.

634
00:46:36,220 --> 00:46:40,540
Men like these flocked
to join the enterprise.

635
00:46:40,540 --> 00:46:44,380
The Crusades became yet
another means of purging sin -

636
00:46:44,380 --> 00:46:48,780
like Purgatory, but this time
through action in this life.

637
00:46:48,780 --> 00:46:53,740
And that led to a further
new Western Catholic idea.

638
00:46:54,820 --> 00:46:58,580
The Crusades were sold to noblemen
and humble folk alike

639
00:46:58,580 --> 00:47:01,140
as another way of winning salvation.

640
00:47:01,140 --> 00:47:05,420
Whatever sins someone committed on
Crusade were more than cancelled out

641
00:47:05,420 --> 00:47:08,380
simply by being on Crusade.

642
00:47:08,380 --> 00:47:12,380
And this was the first specimen
of something which became

643
00:47:12,380 --> 00:47:17,100
big business in Western Europe
alongside Purgatory - the indulgence.

644
00:47:18,980 --> 00:47:23,940
An indulgence
granted you time off from Purgatory.

645
00:47:23,940 --> 00:47:26,500
Later, they became as routine

646
00:47:26,500 --> 00:47:30,060
as the modern lottery ticket
for a good cause.

647
00:47:32,100 --> 00:47:34,940
In the end, you simply bought them.

648
00:47:37,460 --> 00:47:40,940
Even now, the idea of Crusade
has its defenders.

649
00:47:40,940 --> 00:47:43,460
But I have to say that I find
the Crusading era

650
00:47:43,460 --> 00:47:46,740
one of the darkest chapters
in the history of Catholicism.

651
00:47:52,820 --> 00:47:55,100
There was at least one positive

652
00:47:55,100 --> 00:47:58,900
and hugely important
outcome of the Crusades,

653
00:47:58,900 --> 00:48:02,100
a legacy that's still with us now.

654
00:48:02,100 --> 00:48:06,260
I wouldn't be a professor without it,
so it must be good.

655
00:48:13,180 --> 00:48:17,780
Thanks to the Crusades,
Islam gave us universities.

656
00:48:17,780 --> 00:48:22,060
And my employer, Oxford University,
was one of the first.

657
00:48:25,140 --> 00:48:27,860
Academic robes, professorial chairs,

658
00:48:27,860 --> 00:48:33,660
lectures, the qualification of a
degree itself are not Western ideas.

659
00:48:34,740 --> 00:48:37,700
They are all copied
in remarkable detail

660
00:48:37,700 --> 00:48:42,220
from medieval Islamic schools
of higher education,

661
00:48:42,220 --> 00:48:44,900
and all to cope with
the flow of new information

662
00:48:44,900 --> 00:48:47,540
pouring in from the Middle East.

663
00:48:47,540 --> 00:48:51,700
And it was only really the death of
Edward VI which stopped him coming.

664
00:48:51,700 --> 00:48:54,580
He seems quietly to have
pocketed the travel expenses

665
00:48:54,580 --> 00:48:58,620
and not sent them back,
but he was very wise because...

666
00:49:01,820 --> 00:49:04,100
HE PRAYS IN LATIN

667
00:49:05,860 --> 00:49:09,660
In many ways, the Crusades
mark a watershed in the history of

668
00:49:09,660 --> 00:49:11,660
the Latin Church.

669
00:49:13,340 --> 00:49:17,180
In 1,000 years,
the small persecuted Jewish sect

670
00:49:17,180 --> 00:49:23,060
had risen to a peak of unprecedented
and, frankly, unexpected power.

671
00:49:23,060 --> 00:49:28,340
Certainly, no-one could have
expected the Roman Papacy.

672
00:49:28,340 --> 00:49:30,380
But what was much more predictable

673
00:49:30,380 --> 00:49:34,660
was rebellion against
the concept of papal monarchy.

674
00:49:34,660 --> 00:49:39,500
Dissent would now cast
a long shadow over the Church.

675
00:49:39,500 --> 00:49:43,180
It led to more innovations,
some of which are difficult

676
00:49:43,180 --> 00:49:48,500
for modern Christians
to comprehend or even to forgive.

677
00:50:04,380 --> 00:50:07,460
At a great Council
of the Church in 1215,

678
00:50:07,460 --> 00:50:10,820
Pope Innocent III tried to secure
the loyalty of the faithful

679
00:50:10,820 --> 00:50:14,300
by spelling out what it meant
to be a Catholic.

680
00:50:19,340 --> 00:50:23,780
Confession and communion
at least once a year.

681
00:50:25,340 --> 00:50:29,820
The Council also told people
what to believe about the Mass.

682
00:50:30,980 --> 00:50:37,180
Bread and wine miraculously become
the body and blood of Christ.

683
00:50:37,180 --> 00:50:40,660
And they helpfully recommended
a way in which philosophers

684
00:50:40,660 --> 00:50:45,660
could explain this miracle -
transubstantiation.

685
00:50:45,660 --> 00:50:51,340
That's a big word for ideas taken not
from the Bible, but from Aristotle,

686
00:50:51,340 --> 00:50:54,260
who lived long before Jesus Christ.

687
00:50:57,780 --> 00:51:03,460
Failure to accept that the Mass was a
miracle could land you into trouble.

688
00:51:03,460 --> 00:51:06,540
And there were plenty of other
forms of religious energy

689
00:51:06,540 --> 00:51:08,900
which unnerved the Pope,

690
00:51:08,900 --> 00:51:13,860
like the Cathars,
who rejected the Mass altogether.

691
00:51:13,860 --> 00:51:17,380
Of course, churchmen didn't mind
religious fervour in itself.

692
00:51:17,380 --> 00:51:20,460
It was when it got out of
their control they got worried.

693
00:51:20,460 --> 00:51:24,100
And then they were quick
to label it heresy and punish it.

694
00:51:26,140 --> 00:51:33,260
Pope Innocent III created structures
to deal with heresy - Inquisitions.

695
00:51:36,580 --> 00:51:39,300
The English didn't actually use them,

696
00:51:40,860 --> 00:51:42,940
but this medieval courtroom

697
00:51:42,940 --> 00:51:45,340
in the University Church of St Mary
in Oxford

698
00:51:45,340 --> 00:51:48,020
gives you a sense
of what it must have felt like

699
00:51:48,020 --> 00:51:50,500
to be in front of the Inquisition.

700
00:51:52,340 --> 00:51:57,660
It's still the official courtroom
of the Anglican Diocese of Oxford.

701
00:52:01,220 --> 00:52:03,500
It's difficult for modern Westerners

702
00:52:03,500 --> 00:52:05,860
to understand the mind
of an Inquisitor.

703
00:52:05,860 --> 00:52:08,500
But we need to remember
that they were clergy,

704
00:52:08,500 --> 00:52:10,260
and they saw what they were doing

705
00:52:10,260 --> 00:52:13,860
as an aspect of the pastoral role
of a priest to make society better.

706
00:52:15,500 --> 00:52:21,340
But there is a fine line in any
system between idealism and sadism.

707
00:52:26,620 --> 00:52:29,660
Inquisitions were no worse
than most medieval courts.

708
00:52:29,660 --> 00:52:32,700
Torture might
be used to extract confessions.

709
00:52:34,260 --> 00:52:37,500
Those on trial had no right
to defence counsel.

710
00:52:37,500 --> 00:52:40,820
Penalties ranged from
wearing a cross of penitence...

711
00:52:41,580 --> 00:52:43,140
to pilgrimage...

712
00:52:43,140 --> 00:52:47,420
to imprisonment...
to death by burning at the stake.

713
00:52:48,540 --> 00:52:51,220
That's one way
of dealing with heresy -

714
00:52:51,220 --> 00:52:53,380
smash heretics and punish them.

715
00:52:53,380 --> 00:52:56,700
The other way
is to reinvent the Church.

716
00:52:56,700 --> 00:53:03,260
To rediscover core ideas
like poverty, humility, compassion.

717
00:53:03,260 --> 00:53:05,740
The sort of things
which Jesus Christ preached.

718
00:53:11,740 --> 00:53:14,860
During the 12th century,
new religious movements

719
00:53:14,860 --> 00:53:19,420
and maverick holy men attacked
the wealth and power of the Church.

720
00:53:19,420 --> 00:53:23,020
Instead of handing all of
them over to the Inquisitions,

721
00:53:23,020 --> 00:53:25,740
Pope Innocent took a huge risk.

722
00:53:25,740 --> 00:53:27,380
He brought them into the fold.

723
00:53:27,380 --> 00:53:30,060
His hope was to regain something

724
00:53:30,060 --> 00:53:33,340
which the Western Church
had forgotten.

725
00:53:33,340 --> 00:53:38,540
The most famous of these holy men
was called Francis.

726
00:53:42,620 --> 00:53:45,260
It's difficult
not to have heard of Francis,

727
00:53:45,260 --> 00:53:48,300
and it's easy to be sentimental
about him -

728
00:53:48,300 --> 00:53:51,100
the loveable saint
immortalised in stories

729
00:53:51,100 --> 00:53:54,380
retold to generations of children.

730
00:53:54,380 --> 00:53:57,220
He talked to the animals!

731
00:53:58,940 --> 00:54:00,860
Actually, you might think he was mad.

732
00:54:00,860 --> 00:54:04,300
He chucked away his wealth,
he proclaimed the Christian message

733
00:54:04,300 --> 00:54:07,740
to birds in a graveyard,
and he threw the Church into turmoil

734
00:54:07,740 --> 00:54:11,020
by saying that Christ was
a down-and-out with no possessions.

735
00:54:13,420 --> 00:54:17,620
He might have been burned as
a heretic, as many others were.

736
00:54:17,620 --> 00:54:21,820
But luckily for him, alongside
his almost pathological nonconformity

737
00:54:21,820 --> 00:54:25,060
Francis was deeply loyal
to the Church.

738
00:54:27,420 --> 00:54:29,940
It was in a church, this church,

739
00:54:29,940 --> 00:54:33,180
where Francis
heard his first call to action.

740
00:54:33,180 --> 00:54:36,580
He wanted people
to see the ordinariness,

741
00:54:36,580 --> 00:54:38,220
the humanity of Christ,

742
00:54:38,220 --> 00:54:41,220
so that they could love
and worship him better as God.

743
00:54:41,220 --> 00:54:44,940
And that made the Catholic Church
more human and approachable, too.

744
00:54:49,660 --> 00:54:55,620
It was Francis who invented the idea
of a Christmas crib in church.

745
00:54:55,620 --> 00:55:01,020
The first time, he brought along
a real ox and a real ass.

746
00:55:01,020 --> 00:55:05,340
He wanted to remind us of the humble
origins of the Christian faith -

747
00:55:06,940 --> 00:55:11,780
God becoming human not in a palace
but in a stable.

748
00:55:13,620 --> 00:55:19,420
This was a new, more personal,
emotional view of Christ,

749
00:55:19,420 --> 00:55:23,580
With a mother, Mary,
who suffered like any mother

750
00:55:23,580 --> 00:55:27,900
when her son died horribly
and before his time.

751
00:55:27,900 --> 00:55:32,100
So, the Catholic Church
accepted Francis.

752
00:55:32,100 --> 00:55:37,700
It welcomed the new movements
of friars who lived his message.

753
00:55:37,700 --> 00:55:41,780
But it actually did nothing
to shed its own wealth and power.

754
00:55:50,580 --> 00:55:54,940
It's just as well Francis never
saw this grand and expensive church

755
00:55:54,940 --> 00:55:58,660
built over the humble Chapel
where his mission had begun.

756
00:56:11,300 --> 00:56:16,140
By the end of the 13th century,
the Western Latin Church had created

757
00:56:16,140 --> 00:56:20,060
nearly all the structures which
shaped it up to the Reformation era.

758
00:56:21,620 --> 00:56:25,460
Monks, nuns and friars
sent up their prayers to Heaven

759
00:56:25,460 --> 00:56:29,140
in an ever-spreading array
of religious houses.

760
00:56:31,100 --> 00:56:33,260
Thousands of parish churches

761
00:56:33,260 --> 00:56:38,140
made up a giant honeycomb of dioceses
and archdioceses across Europe.

762
00:56:38,140 --> 00:56:42,420
And millions of Catholics
owed their unfailing allegiance

763
00:56:42,420 --> 00:56:44,260
to the Pope in Rome.

764
00:56:47,420 --> 00:56:50,780
There would be setbacks, for sure,
but by the 15th century,

765
00:56:50,780 --> 00:56:56,020
the Papacy emerged largely unscathed,
powerful, wealthy and confident.

766
00:56:57,540 --> 00:57:00,220
So much so, it invested its energies

767
00:57:00,220 --> 00:57:03,420
in rebuilding
Constantine's St Peter's

768
00:57:03,420 --> 00:57:06,340
to make it the grandest building
in Christendom.

769
00:57:10,420 --> 00:57:12,780
But in the 120 years it took

770
00:57:12,780 --> 00:57:16,540
for a succession of popes
and architects to complete,

771
00:57:16,540 --> 00:57:18,340
the world had changed.

772
00:57:24,580 --> 00:57:28,700
By the time the new Basilica
was dedicated in 1626,

773
00:57:28,700 --> 00:57:33,260
Christianity had been convulsed
by a new movement of revolt

774
00:57:33,260 --> 00:57:36,220
which had almost
swept the Papacy away.

775
00:57:40,460 --> 00:57:42,500
In every age of Christian history,

776
00:57:42,500 --> 00:57:45,700
even when the church has been
vigorous and self-confident,

777
00:57:45,700 --> 00:57:47,780
there have been restless individuals

778
00:57:47,780 --> 00:57:49,940
liable to claim
that it could do better.

779
00:57:49,940 --> 00:57:53,860
It was that sort of questioning and
re-examination of Christian origins

780
00:57:53,860 --> 00:57:56,780
which led to
the 16th-century Reformation.

781
00:58:01,180 --> 00:58:04,620
The Reformation has proved
the greatest fault line yet

782
00:58:04,620 --> 00:58:06,860
in Western Latin Christianity.

783
00:58:08,220 --> 00:58:12,460
But first we need to visit
that earlier and greater fault line,

784
00:58:12,460 --> 00:58:15,780
when the Latin and Greek halves
of the Roman Empire

785
00:58:15,780 --> 00:58:17,780
went their separate ways.

786
00:58:17,780 --> 00:58:24,740
So next time I'm travelling east,
to meet the Orthodox Churches.

787
00:58:27,540 --> 00:58:31,060
Why not take part in the
Open University's online survey,

788
00:58:31,060 --> 00:58:34,340
"What does it mean to be a Christian
today?"

789
00:58:34,340 --> 00:58:39,020
at bbc.co.uk/HistoryOfChristianity

790
00:58:39,020 --> 00:58:41,700
and follow the links.

791
00:58:49,660 --> 00:58:53,580
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

792
00:58:53,580 --> 00:58:57,660
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk