A History of Christianity - S1.E1 ∙ The First Christianity
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00:00When I was a small boy, my parents used to drive me around historic churches, searching
00:09out whatever looked interesting or odd.
00:14But soon they realized that they'd created a monster.
00:18The history of the Christian church became my life's work.
00:24For me, no other subject can rival its scale and drama.
00:34For 2,000 years, Christianity has been one of the great players in world history, inspiring
00:41faith but also squalid politics.
00:48It is an epic story, starring a cast of extraordinary people, from Jesus himself and the first apostles
00:56to empresses, kings and popes, from reformers and champions of human conscience to crusaders
01:07and sadists.
01:09Religious belief can transform us for good or ill.
01:14It has brought human beings to acts of criminal folly, as well as the highest achievements
01:19of goodness and creativity.
01:25I will tell the story of both extremes.
01:32Christianity has survived persecution, splits, wars of religion, mockery, hatred.
01:41Today there are 2 billion Christians, a third of humanity, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox,
01:50Pentecostal and many more.
01:56Deep down, the Christian faith boasts a shared core, but what is it?
02:03In modern Europe, Christianity seems threatened by the apathy of a secular society.
02:12Will it survive?
02:16Can it?
02:20I'm chasing the story of Christianity across the globe, coming face to face with people
02:24who got their own take on this 2,000 year old adventure.
02:28And where better to start than in the city which first knew Jesus the Christ, Jerusalem?
02:58I'm in Jerusalem for a very good reason, but it's probably not what you think.
03:14We've all heard something of the Christian story.
03:18Jesus, the wandering Jewish teacher crucified by the Romans.
03:25Paul, who had hunted down Christians until on the road to Damascus he experienced a blinding
03:32vision of Jesus Christ, resurrected from the dead.
03:38Paul's newfound zeal focused on people beyond the Jews, Gentiles.
03:42It took him far from Jerusalem to Rome and it reshaped not just the faith of Christ,
03:47but in the end, all Western civilisation.
03:52That's the familiar story of the origins of Christianity.
03:56But I'm here in Jerusalem because I want to look for something else.
04:05You can find clues here in the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
04:12The church is said to have been built where Jesus was crucified and buried.
04:23At its heart is what's believed to be his tomb.
04:31Somehow the followers of Jesus became convinced that he rose from here to new life.
04:42The belief that Jesus can overcome death is the most difficult and troubling affirmation
04:46of the Christian faith.
04:49Over 20 centuries it's made Christians act in heroic, joyful, beautiful, terrible ways.
04:55It's made this one of the holiest sites on earth.
05:02You see, at heart Christianity is a personality cult.
05:07At its core is the unprecedented idea that God became human, not in a pharaoh, a king
05:12or even an emperor, but in a humble peasant from Galilee.
05:19And the conviction that you can meet Jesus, the son of God, and transform your life is
05:25a compelling message.
05:27It's what drove Christianity's relentless expansion.
05:34But the church built around the tomb of Jesus is also the starting point for a forgotten
05:39story, a story that may overturn your preconceptions about early Christianity.
05:48Pride of place in this building goes to two churches.
05:53This chapel belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church.
05:56Orthodoxy's a large part of the Christian story.
06:02The other church with a strong presence here is actually the biggest in the modern world,
06:07Catholicism.
06:14Orthodoxy and Catholicism dominated Christianity in Europe, in the West, for its first 1,500
06:19years.
06:20But as you walk around the edges of the church, you can't fail to notice other curious little
06:27chapels.
06:28They're not Western or European.
06:31They're Middle Eastern or African, and they tell a very different story about the origins
06:36of Christianity.
06:41Around the back of Christ's tomb is Egypt's Coptic church.
06:46There are plenty of other churches represented here, but you need to know where to look.
06:53Now this is the chapel of the Syriac Orthodox Church, which the Greek Orthodox, of course,
06:57would call unorthodox.
07:06Back outside and through a side door leading up to the roof, you'll find the Ethiopian
07:11Orthodox Church.
07:15Many versions of Christian history would make this unorthodox, too.
07:20And yet it's far older than better-known versions of Christianity, like Protestantism.
07:28It's easy for tourists to dismiss these ancient churches as quaint, irrelevant even, but that
07:34would be a big mistake.
07:37These chapels contain vital clues to the story I want to tell, because the origins of the
07:43Christian faith are not in the West, but here, in these ancient churches of the East.
07:54For centuries, Christianity flourished in the East, and indeed at one point it was poised
07:59to triumph in Asia, maybe even in China.
08:02The headquarters of Christianity might well have been Baghdad rather than Rome, and if
08:06that had happened, Western Christianity would have been very different.
08:14I will trace that huge voyage from Jerusalem to Syria, through Central Asia, to the far
08:26reaches of the Asian continent.
08:30In my journey, I'll discover how the Christian faith survived worlds away from Jerusalem.
08:42I'm not giving you a history of Christian theology, though I won't be afraid to plunge
08:47you into many ancient arguments about Christian faith.
08:53The main character here is not Jesus or the Gospels, it is in fact the Church, the institution
09:01of Christian faith that has fought its way through history.
09:08It all started here in Jerusalem, when the first followers of Jesus formed a Jewish Christian
09:13church.
09:16It was led by James, whom the Gospels call the brother of Jesus.
09:24Here in the old city is the Armenian cathedral of St. James.
09:29His tomb is said to lie below the high altar.
09:36The Jerusalem church probably would have remained the headquarters of a single unified Christianity.
09:44But in the year 70, disaster struck.
09:53A rebellion of Jews against the Romans ended in a siege of Jerusalem.
10:02As troops finally broke into the city, the temple went up in flames.
10:19Today its western wall is all that remains.
10:24Christians quit the city before the siege.
10:28Now the fledgling faith would have to survive outside its Jewish homeland.
10:35But could it adapt?
10:37That's the big test facing any world religion.
10:43With Jerusalem gone, where would Gentile Christians look now?
10:46Well, you might think obviously west towards Rome, because that's where Paul had gone.
10:51But at the time, it would not have seemed obvious at all.
10:54Paul had been killed in Rome, so had the apostle Peter.
10:57What if you take the other road out of Jerusalem, east?
11:14Today this is Urfa in southeast Turkey.
11:19In the first century, it was called Edessa, capital of a small kingdom, and wealthy because
11:25it controlled part of the main trade route east.
11:30Edessa is special because its ruler, King Abgar, set an important precedent here.
11:38He chose to show his personal devotion to Jesus by adopting Christianity as the kingdom's
11:43official state religion, at least a hundred years before the Romans did.
11:51For the last 17 centuries, Christianity has been repeatedly linked with the state.
11:55So in the United Kingdom, the monarch is still supreme governor of the Church of England.
12:00And this is where it all started, in the ancient eastern Christian kingdom of Edessa.
12:15And Edessa pioneered something else that has become inseparable from Christianity.
12:26Church music.
12:37Christian Edessa has long since disappeared.
12:41After the First World War, it became a community in exile over the border in neighboring Syria.
12:49This is the only surviving descendant of that ancient church.
13:03But its liturgical chant is still based on the distinctive tradition of Edessa.
13:19These hymns are derived from the poetry of the great 4th century Syrian theologian, St.
13:25Ephraim.
13:26And he was building on an even earlier tradition from these lands, echoing the music of the
13:31Roman Empire.
13:32I find that service very touching, because what we were hearing was the ghost of the
13:40music of the streets and marketplaces seized by the church, turned into psalms and hymns,
13:46taken across the western Mediterranean, turned into the music of the whole church.
13:50Latin Gregorian chant, Johann Sebastian Bach, even the tambourines and guitars of the Pentecostals,
13:57all come from here.
14:03But at the start of the 4th century, hymn singing would have been the last thing on
14:07the minds of Christians in the western half of the Roman Empire.
14:13In the West, most Christians wouldn't be singing the public praises of God because it was too
14:17dangerous.
14:18Successive Roman emperors from Nero onwards persecuted Christianity, they hated it, and
14:22I expect that most Romans would have agreed with them.
14:25In the early 4th century, a betting man might have put his money on Christianity becoming
14:30a major religion here in the East, but then something completely unexpected happened in
14:35the West.
14:36A new Roman emperor, Constantine, made Christianity his own.
14:45Out went the old gods and goddesses of pagan Rome.
14:48In came the one God of the Christians.
14:52It was a turning point in the history of the Christian faith.
14:57It was more than a hundred years after the king of Edessa had made Christianity his official
15:02religion.
15:03But to be the state religion of a whole empire was something else altogether.
15:11The ability to reinvent itself would become a hallmark of Christianity.
15:16But this was the greatest reinvention of them all.
15:21It meant an end to persecution.
15:24It brought power and wealth.
15:26It gave the Christian faith the chance of becoming a universal religion.
15:35From this moment, a church of the Roman Empire emerged.
15:41In theory, it embraced Christians in the Eastern Empire as well as the West.
15:45But in the East, many Christians were unimpressed by the new alliance, even hostile.
16:00At stake were fundamental disagreements about the direction the faith should take.
16:06Jesus had told people to abandon wealth, not to ally with the rich and powerful.
16:10So his joke about a rich man wanting to enter the kingdom of heaven was like a camel trying
16:14to get through the eye of a needle.
16:16Well, some Christians actually listened to what Jesus had said.
16:25It was Eastern Christians here in Syria who led the way, showing Western Christianity
16:33a pattern for spiritual life.
16:37They called this pattern monasticism, a way of life involving isolation from the world,
16:45austerity and suffering.
17:03In the north of Syria, there is one of the oddest souvenirs of the new religious movement
17:08in Eastern Christianity.
17:13For almost 40 years, a holy man called St. Simeon lived on top of a stone column.
17:20He's now known as a pillar saint, or stylite.
17:26I am actually really excited to be here because I first saw a picture of this when I was eight,
17:30and I never thought I'd come here, and now I am.
17:33And there it is, the stump of his pillar.
17:38Among all the other pillars you can see, it's the thing which looks shapeless.
17:43You've got to imagine this stump 30 foot high, or whatever it was.
17:53Very strange sight indeed.
17:55It's still pretty strange.
17:59Crowds came to see St. Simeon sitting on his pillar.
18:03The church was built around it after his death, and it's pilgrims who made the pillar look
18:07so strange.
18:09In their search for healing souvenirs, they whittled it down until it looks like a well-sucked
18:15holy lollipop.
18:16St. Simeon is the most famous of many Syrian hermits who tried to come closer to God by
18:23punishing their bodies.
18:27For them, suffering was the road to salvation, and they tried to inspire others to follow.
18:33According to the Syrian enthusiast for St. Simeon's church I met, this approach set Eastern
18:38Christians apart from the West.
18:40St. Simeon here, he was on the crossing of two main roads between Aleppo and Antioch,
18:46between Apamea and Sirius.
18:49So that was a crossing where many people used to pass with their caravan or whatever.
18:55Interesting, because the stereotype in Europe of the hermit is someone who goes away from
18:58the world.
18:59Yet this man is right in the middle of things, isn't he?
19:02Yeah, this is therefore, as you said, when you see the man as a starlight, vertical connection,
19:09he's between the land and God.
19:11He's like a lighthouse.
19:13Exactly.
19:14Here is a man who's suffered more than most people in his life.
19:18What is it that makes him want to suffer?
19:21Christians, at the beginning of Christianity here, they were thinking we are passing by
19:26in this life.
19:27We should suffer.
19:28This is the valley of the tears.
19:31Our day will be in the next life, where we will see God, we will be in heaven, in paradise.
19:38We should suffer here to deserve the other one.
19:42A clear divide was growing between East and West.
19:49Even as the Roman Emperor was making Christianity powerful and wealthy, here on its eastern
19:54borders many preferred a faith which denied the temptations of the world.
20:00Some started to gather in communities where they could follow God in purity and simplicity.
20:07They created the very first monasteries.
20:12The new institution of monastic life eventually reshaped Christianity when the Western Roman
20:17Empire fell apart.
20:18This turned their holiness into power, and power is always a problem for the church.
20:23People want it and they'll fight to get it, and their fight gets mixed up with what they
20:27believe about God.
20:30Constantine may well have thought that Christianity would reunite his vast empire.
20:34In fact, the opposite happened.
20:36It deepened existing divisions.
20:45It presided over four rival centers of Christian authority.
20:51Antioch, in modern day Turkey, was the main focus in the East.
20:56Further south was Alexandria in Egypt.
21:01The Bishop of Rome was the Pope honored in the West, a successor to the Apostle Peter.
21:08And trying to mediate between these rival centers was Constantine's new capital, Constantinople,
21:15present day Istanbul.
21:24From the beginning, Christians had argued over passionately held beliefs.
21:30But from here, in his new capital, the emperor watched in horror as the unity of the faith
21:35was tested to its limits.
21:42Christians came to a head over a question at the heart of the Christian faith.
21:48Who exactly was Jesus, and what was his relationship to God?
21:57Christians believe that God is all-powerful, the creator of the universe, and Jesus is
22:01the son of God, but he's also a flesh and blood man who died on the cross.
22:06Now, a man who died on a cross surely can't be the same as the creator of the universe.
22:11So then, are they both the one God?
22:18According to a thoughtful but maverick Egyptian priest, Jesus was not the same as God.
22:24The priest's name was Arius.
22:26He claimed that it was impossible for God, who is perfect and indivisible, to have created
22:31the human being Jesus out of himself.
22:36But hang on.
22:37If Jesus Christ is not fully God, then is his death on the cross enough to save you
22:41from your sins and get you to heaven?
22:43If you care about the afterlife, and they did, that's the biggest question you can ask.
22:51The power of Christian belief lay in its claim to wipe away all the misery that humans feel
22:56about sin and death, our guilt and shame.
23:02Christ died to give us the chance to have an infinitely better life.
23:08Arius' view could be seen to undermine all this, and so he was condemned.
23:16Yet the fact was, many Christians had said the same over the previous three centuries,
23:21here on the shores of the Bosphorus as much as anywhere else.
23:25But Constantine couldn't allow this divisive idea to split the church, and in the process,
23:31his empire.
23:33He had to put a stop to it.
23:58Just a few hours out of Istanbul is one of the most important sites in Christianity's
24:03turbulent history.
24:07Bishops from across the empire were sent to solve the crisis in an imperial palace now
24:11thought to be submerged beneath this lake.
24:15Today, the town here is called Iznik.
24:19Back in the fourth century, it was the city of Nicaea, the setting for the famous Council
24:24of Nicaea.
24:25There had been church councils before, but this was the first held in the presence of
24:30an emperor, and it was Constantine who proposed the vital statement which he hoped would send
24:35everyone home satisfied.
24:37The phrase was that Jesus was of one substance with the Father.
24:42In Greek, that's homoousios.
24:51After many more arguments over the next half century, this phrase stayed at the heart of
24:56one of the most important Christian texts of all time.
25:05We call it the Nicene Creed, and it's still recited in everyday worship throughout the
25:10Christian world.
25:18It states that God is equally the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
25:24They are three in one, the Trinity.
25:37The emperor must have breathed a sigh of relief.
25:41Emperors longed for unity.
25:46And conveniently for them, Christians repeatedly valued truth rather more.
26:03A hundred years later, in 428, a clever but tactless scholar was appointed the new bishop
26:08of Constantinople, Nestorius.
26:13But Nestorius wasted little time in plunging the church into a fresh quarrel about the
26:19nature of Jesus.
26:22It would end the unity of the church once and for all, and in the process, consolidate
26:27Eastern Christianity as a distinct and formidable force.
26:36Now I'll try to get to the heart of what might seem a very technical argument.
26:41In Nicaea, we know that Jesus Christ is of one substance with the Father, so he's divine.
26:46But he's also a man, so he's human.
26:49He has two natures, but he's one person.
26:53How does that actually work?
26:58Nestorius understood the two natures in Christ as being like oil and water contained in a
27:03glass.
27:04Although they are in the same container, they remain quite separate.
27:08So in Christ, there are two separate natures, human and divine.
27:17It seemed a neat and satisfying formula, especially for Christians seeking salvation.
27:24If Jesus was fully human, people could identify with him.
27:28And if he was fully divine, he could grant the gift of eternal life.
27:34But many thought it too neat.
27:38The Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt, called Cyril, was appalled.
27:43Separating out the two natures of Jesus tore Christ in two.
27:49Imagine a glass containing water and wine.
27:52They mix indivisibly.
27:54So, Cyril argued, it is with Christ.
27:56His human and divine natures come together as one.
28:02Cyril's followers squared up to Nestorius.
28:05This really was a fight to the death, because understanding exactly how Jesus was God explained
28:11how he was powerful enough to save you from hell.
28:20At first, Cyril seemed to have the upper hand.
28:24He had Nestorius hounded out of Constantinople and banished to a remote Egyptian prison.
28:35And Nestorius' supporters remained.
28:38And so, once again, a Roman emperor was left fearing that his state would fracture.
28:45He had to call yet more councils.
28:49Eventually, in 451, the bishops of the empire gathered just across the straits from Constantinople
28:55for another landmark council in church history.
29:00The Council of Chalcedon met to define the future of Christian faith.
29:07The council met just over there.
29:09It tried to do what all emperors want, to sign up everyone to a middle-of-the-road settlement.
29:14When you do that, it always helps to have a few troops around.
29:18So, the council decreed a compromise.
29:26In essence, it backed Nestorius' oil-and-water emphasis, that whilst here on earth, Christ,
29:33the divine and human being, was, quote, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without
29:40change.
29:43But in a nod to Cyril's followers, it straightaway added, without division, without separation,
29:50end quote.
29:54That compromise is how the churches which descend from the emperor's Christianity, the
29:59Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, have understood the mystery of Jesus ever since.
30:06But frankly, it was a fairly shabby deal that left plenty of people unhappy.
30:12Cyril's supporters were naturally angry.
30:16The followers of Nestorius felt marginalized and insulted too.
30:22Nestorius had died a heretic in exile.
30:25And even though Chalcedon used some of his theological language, it did nothing to restore
30:31his reputation.
30:37The losers at the council of Chalcedon refused to fall into line.
30:41It was a watershed.
30:43Imperial and non-imperial Christianity would never be reconciled.
30:47Instead, something new happened.
30:54The church split for the first time, something that would happen many more times in its history.
31:02The imperial church now found itself focused solely on the Mediterranean.
31:07It had no choice.
31:09Eastern Christians were not going to be pushed around by the emperor.
31:16But unlike their Western cousins, Christians in the East would now have to survive in the
31:20midst of hostile and alien religions, without the backing of an emperor.
31:28You might think it would be the end of them.
31:32But in any religion, apparent misfortune can be a spur, even stimulate expansion.
31:42For Eastern Christians, this was the start of a great adventure, to take what they believed
31:48was the true and first Christianity to the far ends of Asia.
32:07In the 6th century, on the eastern fringes of the Roman Empire, Syria was emerging as
32:13an alternative Christian centre of gravity to the West.
32:30Priests sympathetic to Cyril of Alexandria's mixed water and wine view of Christ were secretly
32:36consecrated as bishops.
32:40A new Eastern church was born.
32:44It's now called the Syriac Orthodox Church.
32:49Today its priests are trained at its headquarters just outside Damascus.
32:55The seminary offers a glimpse of what imperial Western Christianity might have looked like
32:59if Chalcedon had chosen in favour of Cyril.
33:07Instead of the rational, tidy Christianity of the West, this is a faith which glories
33:12in mystery.
33:16It pays meticulous attention to ritual.
33:23In particular, to the quality of the performance.
33:37One of the tutors at the seminary, Father Fadi, suggested to me Eastern Christianity
33:41is more in touch with its origins than the West.
33:45What do you think is lacking in the Western church tradition?
33:49Well, you find the liturgy in the East to be so much rich in symbolism.
33:54The way people communicate is not only through words, but through gestures, through the way,
34:00you know, the person is expressing himself through his body or voice, tone, or whatever.
34:07Now this is very different from how Western spirituality has developed, which was always
34:12through philosophy.
34:13So you always have theologians who are philosophers, but in the East you always have theologians
34:18who are either poets or maybe icon drawers or whatever.
34:33All Christian worship is drama, full of sign and symbol.
34:38But what Father Fadi is claiming is that Eastern Christianity has made a priority of passing
34:44down gestures which take you right back to the beginnings of the church.
34:55When the priest lifts the communion bread, for example, it symbolises Jesus rising from
35:00the dead.
35:05You could say that the most important assertion of the Syriac Orthodox Church is its claim
35:10to authenticity.
35:18Key sections of this service are in the ancient language called Syriac.
35:21It's a dialect of Aramaic, the actual language which Jesus spoke.
35:40What makes me so enthusiastic about my church is that the church itself speaks the language
35:47of Christ.
35:48So if you want to read the history of the church or the spirituality of the church,
35:52you really need Syriac in order to access all the manuscripts and, you know, the writings
35:57of the early church.
36:05Here, on the fringes of the Roman Empire, was a Christianity now fully in charge of
36:10its own destiny.
36:11These Syrian Christians honoured the memory of Cyril and other Christians felt the same
36:15way.
36:17Go to the ancient church of Egypt, the Copts, or the ancient church of Ethiopia, and you'll
36:21find that they've not yet forgiven the Roman Emperor for the Council of Chalcedon.
36:35But just as confidence was growing among Eastern Christians, in the 7th century, the whole
36:48of Christianity, East and West, found itself in danger.
36:53It had to face up to a rival, a new militant faith, Islam.
37:05Followers of the prophet Muhammad began their push out from the Arabian Peninsula in 632,
37:12conquering much of the known world with astonishing speed.
37:18Islam brought huge damage to Imperial Christianity.
37:23As it travelled West, it wiped out much of the southern provinces of the old Roman Empire.
37:31It reached across North Africa, into Spain, and into Sicily and Italy.
37:39It even threatened mighty Constantinople.
37:45That fight between Imperial Christianity and Islam for the soul of Europe lasted centuries.
37:53But the conflict also had an Eastern front.
38:06This is one of the world's oldest mosques, the Great Umayyad Mosque.
38:12It was built at the heart of a new Muslim Empire, ruled by the Umayyad dynasty from
38:17here in Damascus.
38:20Prude modern versions of history see the coming of Islam as a clash of civilisations,
38:26in which Islam quickly wiped out Eastern Christianity.
38:30But the truth is rather different.
38:33Here there was more of an encounter of civilisations.
38:39Much like the destruction of Jerusalem in the 1st century, the arrival of Islam was
38:43indeed a crisis point for Christians.
38:46Christianity proved it could meet this new challenge to its survival.
38:55The Umayyads didn't have the resources or the inclination to force conversion on Christians.
38:59In fact, they did deals with local leaders.
39:02Christians did become second-class citizens, and later rulers even forced Christians to
39:07wear distinctive yellow clothing.
39:10Much later, European Christians would do that to Jews.
39:14Despite all that, there's evidence that Christianity did influence Islam.
39:23Christianity played a part in shaping Muslim worship.
39:27It even affected its doctrine.
39:32The Umayyad Mosque stands on the site of a Christian church, and still contains a shrine
39:38said to be the tomb of John the Baptist.
39:41This Christian saint is honoured as a prophet in Islam.
39:47But perhaps most remarkable is the likelihood that the act of prostration during Muslim
39:51prayer was originally inspired by Eastern Christian tradition.
39:56I discussed all this with Islamic scholar and Syrian politician, Mohammad Habash.
40:04According to our faith in Islam, we believe all prophets as prophet of God and as messengers
40:12of God. But Jesus Christ has more. In our faith, we believe him as a spirit of God,
40:19and we believe he's coming back exactly in this white minaret.
40:23Oh, this white minaret.
40:25This white minaret, it's named Jesus Minaret. Because Prophet Muhammad, he said, by God,
40:31Jesus Christ is coming back to you exactly in white minaret in Damascus.
40:39And here we are in this great courtyard, and we feel it quite natural to take our shoes
40:43off. But I've also seen the same thing in the sanctuary of a Christian church during
40:47the Holy Eucharist. So, do you think it's possible that such customs are actually borrowed
40:52by Islam in its first days from Christianity?
40:56My colleague in Parliament, he mentioned this one, to leave off your shoes and how
41:02to pray. He said, in all the churches, in all Christian sects, you can find the same
41:08prayer in Islam five times every day. And you can find people who pray on the land,
41:15not on church. Believe me, there is more in common than you think between Islam and Christianity.
41:27As Christians here learned how to live side-by-side with Islam, one group of Eastern Christians
41:35was about to get an unexpected new lease of life. Remember Nestorius, the bishop who won
41:45the day at Chalcedon, but still came off the loser? Well, adapting to the challenge of
41:51Islam provided just the spur his followers needed to embark on their own great Christian
41:57venture in the East. Nestorius died in exile in Egypt, but his supporters helped build
42:06a church independent of both Imperial Christianity and the Syriac Orthodox Church. They based
42:14their headquarters further east, in modern Iraq. They called themselves, appropriately,
42:21the Church of the East. This is one of the church's Iraqi congregations. It's had a presence
42:29in what is now Iraq for over 1,500 years. Only recent wars have forced this congregation
42:41to worship in exile across the Syrian border. This is the church of the East, and it is
42:49naturally proud of its ancient lineage. But in fact, it has a much bigger significance
42:56in the history of Christianity. That's because these Eastern Christians persuaded their Muslim
43:05rulers that they had unique skills in the history of Christianity. In fact, they were
43:12the first to offer them. Skills gained during the time they spent arguing about the nature
43:19of Christ. They turned Greek theology, literature, and philosophy into their native Syriac to
43:34argue the case. They became the think-tank of the Middle East.
43:43So, when the new Muslim empire wanted to translate Greek science and philosophy into Arabic,
43:51it was to the ancestors of these Christians that it naturally turned. We in the West owe
44:00the Church of the East a huge debt. Much of what we know about Greek learning, from medicine
44:07to astronomy, and even the system of Arabic numerals in use today, all come to us, courtesy
44:13of those Christian translators. The value of the scholars to their Muslim rulers ensured
44:29that the church thrived.
44:36Within 200 years of the rise of Islam, Patriarch Timothy I of the Church of the East presided
44:43from the Abbasid capital of Baghdad over an area that extended from Jerusalem to Central
44:50Asia, even to India, which was home to a thriving church. Its descendants are still there. Everywhere
45:00in this vast area, Timothy was known by the ancient Syriac title of respect for a religious
45:05leader, Mar. Maybe a quarter of all Christians saw Mar Timothy as their spiritual leader,
45:14probably as many as the bishop who was Pope in Rome. So, here in Syria and Central Asia,
45:25Christianity had passed a crucial test. In contrast to the West, it was unable to rely
45:31on military strength, and so had learned to make the most of persuasion, negotiation.
45:38Christianity is at heart a missionary faith, and in the Abbasid Empire, conversion from
45:45Islam was forbidden. So the Eastern Church had to find other ways to expand.
45:52The solution was as radical as the later expansion of Western Christianity in the Americas. The
45:59Church of the Middle East decided to spread to the Far East.
46:30Christianity is now so identified with the West that we've forgotten that long ago, the belief that God became man in Jesus
46:38found fertile ground in the Far East. But that's exactly what happened in 7th century China.
46:50And we're beginning to understand how Christianity may have managed to survive in such an alien
46:58culture. I met Martin Palmer, a writer on early Chinese Christianity who believes he's
47:10found the smoking gun, the missing evidence from the Christian presence in China in the
47:177th century. That's around the same time as Christianity was beginning to convert Anglo-Saxons
47:24to Christianity. Martin came across a map of modern-day Shaanxi province, where there was thought to be a long-lost
47:347th century Christian monastery called Daqin. But to find it, he needed to pinpoint an identifiable
47:43traditional Chinese landmark. This map was a very faded pencil map, so I got out a huge magnifying glass, put a whopping
47:51great light on it, looked at this, read the characters, and then suddenly realised I knew exactly where it was. Because the
47:57next temple up on this map was Luoguandai. And that's the temple over there. OK. Right on that hill, that wooded hill over there.
48:13Luoguandai was the most important Taoist temple in Tang Dynasty China.
48:21And now, on a hillside just across from that temple, Martin was looking for evidence of a Christian monastery.
48:33The monastery seemed to have a tall, typically Chinese feature, a pagoda.
48:43And that's exactly what Martin found, only a mile away.
48:48It was in a terrible state then. Now the Chinese have given it a good deal of TLC, because it is such an extraordinary survival.
48:58We arrived to find a 115-year-old nun. I know this is beginning to sound like Indiana Jones.
49:04And she made tea for us, and I was desperately looking to see if I could find something with a cross on it.
49:10So I went up the hill just to look down on it, and that's when I realised this was a Christian site.
49:17So how?
49:20All Taoist, Buddhist and Confucianist temples face south. That's the geometric, the feng shui direction of Chinese temples.
49:27All historical Christian churches face east, as you know. Better than anybody else.
49:33This terrace, cut into the side of the hill, runs east-west.
49:38So I ran down the hill going, yes, yes, I know it's true, I know it's true.
49:43But the Buddhist nun kind of drew herself up to her full height of five feet and stared me in the kneecaps and went, what's going on?
49:49So I said, well, we think that this might, once upon a time, have been a very ancient Christian church.
49:55And she kind of drew herself up even more, and she went, well, of course it was.
49:59This was the most famous Christian church in China. Didn't you know that?
50:03There are moments, Demet, when you just think, thank you, God.
50:07Thank you, God.
50:12The Christian monastery seems to have adopted typical Chinese architecture.
50:18Inside the building, there are sculptures which Martin believes survived from the pagoda's Christian days.
50:25But when we tried to take a look, we hit a problem.
50:28Today, the ground floor of the pagoda is a Buddhist temple.
50:32And some locals have had enough of world interest in the building as an historical Christian site.
50:42In spite of lengthy negotiations, I was not going to get inside.
50:50I have a certain sympathy for the angry villagers.
50:54When my sort of Western Christian culture bludgeoned its way by force into China in the 19th century,
51:01it humiliated the Chinese, and they've not forgotten that.
51:08But when long before the Church of the East arrived on the scene, it was very different.
51:15And Martin was keen to show me more about the differences.
51:19An hour's drive away is the capital of the Tang dynasty, Chang'an, modern-day Xi'an.
51:27It's home to a remarkable museum of ancient stone-carved records known as stelae.
51:35The so-called Forest of Stelae is really an ancient library of ancient records.
51:40And there are other stelae gathered from around this imperial capital.
51:47Now, one of these great stones is quite breathtaking when you realise what it is.
51:52Nothing less than an ancient commemoration of the Church of the East.
51:57And it's not just the stelae.
52:00It's also the stelae of the Great Wall of China.
52:05And this is it. This is the Daqin stone.
52:09There's the words Daqin. Now, Daqin means a big empire in the West.
52:15The Chinese knew that there was a whopping great empire somewhere to the West.
52:20Now, whether they're referring to Rome, or the Byzantine Empire, or the Syrian Empire,
52:25the Chinese knew that there was a great empire somewhere to the West.
52:29Now, whether they're referring to Rome, or the Byzantine Empire, or the Syrian Empire,
52:34we're not quite sure. But what they're saying is, well, this is the Western Empire's religion of brightness.
52:40There's the word for religion, there's brightness.
52:43And that was the name that the Chinese Christians gave to their own religion.
52:47The religion of light.
52:49But can I just show you one other thing, which will link you back to Syria,
52:53where you've just been, with China.
52:55Because round here, on the walls here, can you see how we've got some Syriac text?
53:04Oh, yes.
53:05And then underneath, the Chinese names.
53:08And each one of the Chinese names starts with the same character.
53:12And that's the character for Ma, meaning...
53:15Oh, priest.
53:16Exactly, exactly.
53:18Now, what strikes me, standing on all these great stones,
53:21is that this Christian one is just like all the others.
53:25Exactly, exactly.
53:27So here we are, in the year 781, in the greatest empire,
53:32in the greatest period of Chinese civilisation that there has ever been.
53:36And we have Christianity coming, proud of its roots,
53:40but also able to mix and move amongst the Chinese, with great ease.
53:52Indeed, wherever they went,
53:54Eastern Christians seemed to find sympathy in societies very different from theirs.
54:00So the mystery is, what happened to the Church of the East?
54:08We know that in the 9th century,
54:10a new Chinese emperor turned against all foreign religion.
54:14The Church seemed to disappear.
54:17But Martin has an intriguing theory
54:20that rather than vanish, the Church may have gone underground.
54:25We have a record.
54:26Marco Polo, who comes in the late 13th century,
54:29loathed the Church of the East.
54:31He was a good Catholic.
54:32Hated them.
54:34He says that 700,000 hidden Christians re-emerged.
54:39Now, he probably underestimates, because he didn't like them.
54:42He's talking a huge number, that's the main thing.
54:45So if Chinese people are prepared to put that much effort into Christianity,
54:49what is it that has made Christianity Chinese?
54:52Well, I think, whereas the Church in the West,
54:55once it had conquered the Roman Empire,
54:57doesn't meet another literate culture,
55:00other than Islam, with which it has a few problems,
55:03until the 15th century,
55:05the Church of the East is engaging with the greatest intellectual centres
55:09the world has.
55:11And therefore, the kind of Christianity they developed
55:14was a Christianity of dialogue, not of conquest.
55:17They never, never was the Church of the East imperial.
55:21It was a church of merchants, not of the military.
55:25And that is a huge difference,
55:27because merchants like to arrive at a compromise.
55:39Eastern Christianity's ability to adapt and spread,
55:43without an army to back it,
55:45may have helped it survive in China,
55:48at least until the 9th century.
55:51By then, Western Christianity had only just begun
55:56to make inroads into Central and Northern Europe.
55:59That's a point that's often been missed.
56:02But the Church of the East,
56:04You might say, the Church of the East failed in China.
56:07It never gained permanent favour from emperors.
56:10It worshipped in a foreign language, Syriac.
56:12It seemed to fade away.
56:14But if Martin's right, it didn't completely.
56:17And maybe the Christianity we know
56:19needs to regain its ancient ability to listen.
56:22Today, Christianity is seen as a Western faith.
56:26Indeed, many in the Muslim world would see Western lifestyles
56:31as Christian lifestyles.
56:33But Christianity is not a Christian religion.
56:37It's a Christian religion of the West.
56:40It's a Christian religion of the East.
56:43And it's a Christian religion of the West.
56:46It's a Christian religion of the West.
56:49But Christianity is not, by origin, a Western religion.
56:54Its beginnings are in the Middle East,
56:57where there still exist churches which have been Eastern
57:00since the earliest Christian era.
57:05The story of the first Christianity
57:07tells us that the Christian faith is in fact hugely diverse,
57:11with many identities.
57:13And it shows us that far from being a clash of civilisations,
57:17in the East, the encounter between Islam and Christianity
57:21enriched both faiths.
57:26And yet, for all Christianity's ability to reinvent itself,
57:30it was ultimately eclipsed across most of Asia.
57:34It suffered too many misfortunes.
57:37Massacre, plague, persecution,
57:40Islam suffered them too.
57:43But Islam had enough powerful friends to survive.
57:55In the next episode of my History of Christianity,
57:59I will follow the Western road out of Jerusalem,
58:02to Rome and beyond.
58:05And there, I will discover the history of Christianity
58:09And there, we will see what happens to Christianity
58:12when it has powerful friends.
58:16Why not take part in the Open University's online survey,
58:20What does it mean to be a Christian today?
58:23at bbc.co.uk
58:26slash historyofchristianity
58:28and follow the links.
58:30On Tuesday, here on BBC HD,
58:33Horizon examines why we talk.
58:36That's here at 10.30.
58:38And next night, we're off to Oxford with the Culture Show.
58:59Thanks for watching.