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'I'm David Suchet | 0:00:13 | 0:00:14 | |
'and I'm on a journey around the Mediterranean | 0:00:14 | 0:00:17 | |
'following in the footsteps of a man who, 2,000 years ago, | 0:00:17 | 0:00:21 | |
'travelled more than 10,000 miles around the Roman world | 0:00:21 | 0:00:25 | |
'on foot, and many, many more by sea.' | 0:00:25 | 0:00:28 | |
This is extraordinary. We must appear that size from up there. | 0:00:31 | 0:00:35 | |
'For the last 25 years, I've been fascinated by Saint Paul. | 0:00:37 | 0:00:41 | |
'He was a hugely controversial figure in his own time. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
'He still is today. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:47 | |
'To some, he's the man who did more than anyone else to transform | 0:00:47 | 0:00:50 | |
'Christianity from a small Jewish sect | 0:00:50 | 0:00:53 | |
'into the most powerful religion on earth. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:55 | |
'To others, he's a preacher of prejudices that have | 0:00:57 | 0:01:00 | |
'echoed down throughout history.' | 0:01:00 | 0:01:03 | |
And they must have thought, the arrogance... | 0:01:03 | 0:01:05 | |
-Absolutely. -..of the man, here he is on the basis of one vision, | 0:01:05 | 0:01:09 | |
so he says. He's telling everybody what to do. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
Changing all the rules. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:13 | |
'A man of contrasts and confusions. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
'But if ever there was an historical character I've longed to play | 0:01:17 | 0:01:21 | |
'it is Paul. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:22 | |
'So for me, this is a very personal quest.' | 0:01:22 | 0:01:25 | |
I could look like that. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:27 | |
-What do you think? -A little bit. | 0:01:27 | 0:01:29 | |
A little bit. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:31 | |
'I'll be seeking out clues in the places he visited, | 0:01:31 | 0:01:34 | |
'deciphering new evidence from the latest archaeological research | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
'and meeting expert witnesses from around the region to help me uncover | 0:01:37 | 0:01:42 | |
'this remarkable man hidden within the pages of the New Testament.' | 0:01:42 | 0:01:47 | |
'Every year, millions of visitors, from all over the world, | 0:02:13 | 0:02:17 | |
'make pilgrimages here, | 0:02:17 | 0:02:19 | |
'to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to what they believe | 0:02:19 | 0:02:23 | |
'is the site of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:26 | |
'But the reason they remember this crucified carpenter | 0:02:33 | 0:02:35 | |
is down to just one extraordinary man. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:39 | |
'We know him as Saint Paul.' | 0:02:39 | 0:02:41 | |
More than any other individual, | 0:02:43 | 0:02:45 | |
Paul was responsible for transforming | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
a fledgling Jesus Movement from a minor sect of Judaism | 0:02:48 | 0:02:52 | |
into a new religion that would one day become known as Christianity. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:55 | |
'Without him, the new faith could have died out 2,000 years ago. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:03 | |
'Paul was Christianity's first international ambassador | 0:03:06 | 0:03:10 | |
'taking the story of Jesus out to the pagan world. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:13 | |
'Sowing the seeds of a new idea that would sweep through | 0:03:15 | 0:03:19 | |
'the Roman Empire and change the course of Western civilisation. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
'Paul's story is told in the New Testament Book of Acts | 0:03:25 | 0:03:29 | |
'and preserved in a remarkable series of his own letters, | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
'written to small communities of believers | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
'scattered around the Roman world.' | 0:03:35 | 0:03:37 | |
It was one of these letters that I read | 0:03:40 | 0:03:42 | |
when I was filming in America about 25 years ago now, | 0:03:42 | 0:03:45 | |
I read it in a hotel room. It was addressed simply "To the Romans." | 0:03:45 | 0:03:50 | |
Even after 2,000 years, | 0:03:50 | 0:03:52 | |
the extraordinary passion of Paul's words leap from the page. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:57 | |
'Paul's letter, to the small Christian community in Rome, | 0:04:11 | 0:04:15 | |
'inspired and fashioned my own faith.' | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
I became fascinated by him. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
As an actor, I actually felt I would like to play him. | 0:04:19 | 0:04:24 | |
What sort of man was he? What gave him this power? | 0:04:24 | 0:04:27 | |
How did he actually change Western thought? | 0:04:27 | 0:04:30 | |
'To understand this man, I need to get a sense of his world. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:37 | |
'My journey of discovery starts here in Jerusalem, | 0:04:38 | 0:04:43 | |
'the spiritual home of the Jewish people.' | 0:04:43 | 0:04:45 | |
It's so good to be up here | 0:04:51 | 0:04:52 | |
and to look down on this extraordinary city. | 0:04:52 | 0:04:55 | |
'Today, Jerusalem is home to three of the world's major religions. | 0:04:58 | 0:05:02 | |
'For Jews, Christians and Muslims | 0:05:04 | 0:05:07 | |
'it's one of the most holy places on earth.' | 0:05:07 | 0:05:10 | |
I don't think you can ever forget when you're up here that this | 0:05:12 | 0:05:16 | |
is possibly... | 0:05:16 | 0:05:17 | |
..the most religious city in the world. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:21 | |
'But two millennia ago, Judaism and the strict requirements of | 0:05:24 | 0:05:28 | |
'Jewish law dominated this city and every aspect of Paul's early life. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:33 | |
'Today, Jewish boys enter the world of adulthood at age 13. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:45 | |
'From this point, | 0:05:45 | 0:05:46 | |
'they're considered responsible for their own actions | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
'under Jewish law. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:51 | |
'The dream of every boy and his parents is to have the Bar Mitzvah - | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
'his coming of age ceremony - here at the Western Wall, | 0:05:54 | 0:05:58 | |
'a remnant of the massive Jewish Temple | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
'which stood here in Paul's time.' | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
To all intents and purposes, it could be a wedding. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:10 | |
SINGING | 0:06:10 | 0:06:14 | |
This is Paul's early life. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:17 | |
This is what he longed for as a young boy. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:20 | |
The rights of passage into the Jewish faith - | 0:06:20 | 0:06:24 | |
very important moment. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:26 | |
And here comes their...their law. With all the sweets being thrown. | 0:06:26 | 0:06:31 | |
You touch it. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:34 | |
You see, they don't mind who touches it, I touched it. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:38 | |
I'm being pushed out of the way now. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:40 | |
'The Western - or Wailing - Wall is a reminder that in Paul's day | 0:06:46 | 0:06:49 | |
'the temple was the very heart and soul of the Jewish religion. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:53 | |
'To reach back to his time, | 0:06:56 | 0:06:57 | |
'I need to look beneath the surface of the modern city.' | 0:06:57 | 0:07:01 | |
Now we are going down underground to a tunnel. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:10 | |
And that tunnel was built under the main street of Jerusalem. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:15 | |
You see how deep you go down. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:17 | |
'Jerusalem is one of the world's richest archaeological sites | 0:07:18 | 0:07:22 | |
'and recent excavations offer tantalising glimpses | 0:07:22 | 0:07:25 | |
'of the city Paul would have known. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:28 | |
'Archaeologist Eli Shukron took me beneath the streets | 0:07:28 | 0:07:32 | |
'to a recently discovered drainage channel, | 0:07:32 | 0:07:34 | |
'filled with historical clues.' | 0:07:34 | 0:07:37 | |
This is really narrow. | 0:07:37 | 0:07:39 | |
You are in a tunnel. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:40 | |
I'm in a tunnel, all right. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:42 | |
-This is the experience. -I'm in a 2,000-year-old tunnel. -Yeah. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:46 | |
-You saw that stone? -Yeah. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:48 | |
This is the foundation of the Wailing Wall. Let's see it closely. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:52 | |
This is the original? | 0:07:54 | 0:07:55 | |
Original stone, original foundation of the Western Wall, | 0:07:55 | 0:08:01 | |
-the Wailing Wall. -The Wailing Wall, so we are right underground. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
We are right underground on the bedrock. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:06 | |
You see, this is the bedrock | 0:08:06 | 0:08:08 | |
and this is the first stone of the Western Wall. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:12 | |
How old? | 0:08:12 | 0:08:13 | |
-2,000. -2,000 years? -Yes. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
That is mind-boggling, actually, absolutely. | 0:08:19 | 0:08:22 | |
Look at the size of them. | 0:08:22 | 0:08:24 | |
What am I going to do now? I'm going to... Am I going to dig? | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
Yes, of course, you're going to dig. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:28 | |
Going to dig in our excavation. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:30 | |
I'm going to uncover | 0:08:30 | 0:08:32 | |
a bit of the Western Wall for the first time in 2,000 years. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:38 | |
Wow. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:39 | |
And then what you need to do, just to take the dirt here | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
and clean the stone of the Western Wall, OK? | 0:08:44 | 0:08:47 | |
-And here we have a piece of pottery. -Oh! | 0:08:47 | 0:08:49 | |
A piece of jar, the rim of the jar. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:52 | |
-2,000 years old. -There is dirt on it. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:55 | |
And this is the rim you can see, the rim of the jar. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:58 | |
There it is, look. And I'm uncovering the Western Wall now, | 0:09:02 | 0:09:06 | |
now I've got the Western wall for the first time. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:09 | |
You never know, with every move I make of this what will be uncovered. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:15 | |
I'd like to spend a longer time here. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:17 | |
Change of career, perhaps? | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
You love your job now, David? | 0:09:23 | 0:09:24 | |
I love my job. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
'Scraping away at the foundations of the Western Wall | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
'had literally put me in touch with Paul's time. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:34 | |
'But darker clues to Paul's world had survived in these tunnels. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
'Jerusalem may have been Jewish, | 0:09:38 | 0:09:40 | |
'but it was also occupied by a brutal foreign invader.' | 0:09:40 | 0:09:43 | |
Eli's just told me, this stone is the main street. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:48 | |
-Above us. -Above us. -This is the main street. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
So that's the main street and we are in the main drain. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
'The tunnel had been built to drain rainwater from Temple Mount, | 0:09:56 | 0:10:00 | |
'the site of the Jewish Temple, | 0:10:00 | 0:10:02 | |
'but it was to become a secret escape route for rebel Jews. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:06 | |
'In the year 6AD, around the time of Paul's birth, | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
'Jerusalem fell under direct rule of the Roman Empire. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:13 | |
'The Jews never accepted Roman occupation. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:17 | |
'Their very presence defiled the Holy City, | 0:10:17 | 0:10:21 | |
'but any protest was mercilessly put down. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:24 | |
'The Roman army maintained its iron grip on Jerusalem | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
'throughout Paul's life. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:31 | |
'In 70AD, a few years after his death, | 0:10:31 | 0:10:34 | |
'they would lay waste to the city, destroy the Jewish Temple | 0:10:34 | 0:10:38 | |
'and, on discovering these tunnels, they massacred everyone they found.' | 0:10:38 | 0:10:43 | |
Did you find any Roman artefacts in here? | 0:10:43 | 0:10:45 | |
-Yeah, we found a sword. -A Roman sword? | 0:10:45 | 0:10:47 | |
A Roman sword, yes. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:49 | |
God, I wouldn't have liked to have escaped in this tunnel. | 0:10:50 | 0:10:53 | |
It's very... And with no light. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:55 | |
Yeah, there's no light. You know, it's very, very, very, very... | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
-People frightened. -Yeah, people frightened | 0:10:58 | 0:11:01 | |
and the Romans above you on the street walking. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:04 | |
Gosh. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:07 | |
'Paul spent his whole life under the dark shadow of Roman rule. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:21 | |
'I was keen to discover how that influenced the man and his beliefs. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:26 | |
'Since antiquity, Jews have sought to be buried here | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
'on the Mount of Olives | 0:11:31 | 0:11:32 | |
'where they believe their long-awaited Messiah, | 0:11:32 | 0:11:35 | |
'God's chosen leader, will first appear to usher in the End of Days. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:40 | |
'A new era free of war and strife. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:44 | |
'By being buried here, they hope to be among the first to be | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
'resurrected from the dead. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:49 | |
'It was a good place to meet Jewish historian Danny Schwartz.' | 0:11:49 | 0:11:53 | |
But on the side, members of the family added | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
the names of the members of the family who were killed in Auschwitz. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:02 | |
Oh, my goodness. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:03 | |
Including the son of the person who was buried here, | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
and the grandson, and the wife of the grandson. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:09 | |
'Jews like Paul believed themselves to be a chosen people, | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
'their history and destiny controlled by God. | 0:12:15 | 0:12:19 | |
'But now Rome, not God, appeared to be in charge. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:23 | |
'For many, the End of Days, | 0:12:25 | 0:12:26 | |
'when God would send his Messiah to liberate them, | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
'could not come soon enough.' | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
Did they ever think it might be the beginning of the end times? | 0:12:33 | 0:12:36 | |
They probably did. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:37 | |
The Roman occupation pushed people into something | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
of an apocalyptic mood that the time is going to have come very soon ... | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
-Very soon. -..when this will be worked out. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:45 | |
God can't sit back idly and let everything like this be trampled. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:48 | |
'Jerusalem was in political and religious turmoil. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:54 | |
'How should Jews respond to the Roman occupation? | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
'Competing groups fought for control of Jewish hearts and minds. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:02 | |
'Some preached armed resistance, | 0:13:02 | 0:13:04 | |
'others that only God could decide when Roman rule should end. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:08 | |
'Paul, at that time still known by his Jewish name, Saul, | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
'chose to join the Pharisees, | 0:13:14 | 0:13:17 | |
'a strictly Jewish sect who believed that the End of Days could be | 0:13:17 | 0:13:20 | |
'brought forward in time by rigid observance of the Jewish law. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:24 | |
'Paul was Jewish, but we're told also that he held Roman citizenship, | 0:13:28 | 0:13:34 | |
'and that he'd spent his childhood not in Jerusalem but in Tarsus. | 0:13:34 | 0:13:38 | |
'That's in modern-day Turkey. | 0:13:38 | 0:13:40 | |
'Could a confused sense of belonging help explain Paul's personality?' | 0:13:40 | 0:13:44 | |
DOOR BUZZER | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
'One of the world's leading authorities on Paul is | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
'Father Jerome Murphy O'Connor. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:52 | |
'He had a surprising theory | 0:13:52 | 0:13:54 | |
'about how Paul came by his Roman citizenship | 0:13:54 | 0:13:58 | |
'and how it had affected him.' | 0:13:58 | 0:13:59 | |
He was, I believe, the son of slaves. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:03 | |
I think he became a Roman citizen when his parents were set free. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:08 | |
No-one kept a slave into his 40s. It was non-productive, economically. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:14 | |
And the children of slaves of a Roman citizen automatically | 0:14:14 | 0:14:21 | |
became a Roman citizen on being set free. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
'The Book of Acts claims Paul left Tarsus for Jerusalem.' | 0:14:24 | 0:14:28 | |
Paul came to Jerusalem, I believe, about the age of 20. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:33 | |
He was a Jew looking for his roots. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:37 | |
When he came to Jerusalem and became a Pharisee, | 0:14:38 | 0:14:41 | |
the law became the focal point of his life. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:44 | |
'Perhaps becoming a Pharisee | 0:14:45 | 0:14:47 | |
'answered some need in Paul to belong. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
'And he threw himself into a zealous defence of the Jewish law. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:54 | |
'But then, around 32AD, a radical new Jewish sect appeared | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
'on the scene, inspired by the recent execution | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
'of a rabbi from Galilee. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:06 | |
'The Jesus Movement threatened everything Paul held most dear.' | 0:15:06 | 0:15:10 | |
I'm walking up the Via Dolorosa, which is the way | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
they say Jesus walked to his crucifixion, carrying his cross. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:19 | |
It's an extraordinary feeling to be part of a group like this. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
You're almost caught up in it, you can't help it. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
'Today, Christianity is the world's largest religion. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:38 | |
'It's easy to forget that 2,000 years ago it was just a minor sect of Judaism. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:43 | |
'The Jesus Movement could easily have withered | 0:15:45 | 0:15:47 | |
'and died with the death of its leader. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:49 | |
'But soon after the crucifixion, Jesus' followers became | 0:15:49 | 0:15:53 | |
'convinced that God had raised him from the dead, | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
'that he WAS the Jewish Messiah. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:58 | |
'And that claim sparked a violent response from Paul | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
'and his fellow Pharisees.' | 0:16:02 | 0:16:04 | |
What was the trouble? What was going on with this sect | 0:16:05 | 0:16:08 | |
that would have made Paul so angry? | 0:16:08 | 0:16:11 | |
So, Paul is, at that stage, showing his zeal for the law, | 0:16:11 | 0:16:16 | |
that these misguided Christians believe Jesus is the messiah. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:21 | |
But if Jesus was the messiah, | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
then the law no longer had any place, | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
and the law was what made Paul's life at that stage as a Pharisee. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:32 | |
And I think that's why he persecuted Christians - | 0:16:32 | 0:16:35 | |
they wanted to have it both ways. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:37 | |
To be Christians AND practising Jews. Paul says, "No. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:41 | |
"It's either or." | 0:16:41 | 0:16:42 | |
'Observance of the law was everything to Paul. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
'How dare these Jewish heretics claim that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah? | 0:16:47 | 0:16:52 | |
'If so, then a new age had begun and the law was no longer important. | 0:16:52 | 0:16:57 | |
'In Paul's eyes they should be wiped from the face of the Earth.' | 0:16:57 | 0:17:01 | |
'According to the Book of Acts, Paul focused his anger on one | 0:17:17 | 0:17:20 | |
'of the leading lights of the Jesus Movement. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:23 | |
'A young man called Stephen who had been successfully convincing | 0:17:23 | 0:17:27 | |
'Jews like Paul to convert. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:28 | |
'Stephen was dragged outside the city gates | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
'and viciously stoned to death. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
'We're told Paul stood watching, | 0:17:37 | 0:17:39 | |
'apparently minding the coats of the executioners.' | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
In those cases where you hear of people being stoned in Jewish | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
antiquity, I think, generally, it's a mob action. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
-Why stoning? -Stoning is a kind of popular thing to do. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:53 | |
Anybody can do it, you don't need special equipment. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:56 | |
-You mean it's all around you, you just pick it up? -You just pick them up and do that. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:59 | |
It's the type of things mobs can do. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:01 | |
It must have been a pretty ugly thing, then, | 0:18:02 | 0:18:05 | |
to be stoned by mob rule - terrible. | 0:18:05 | 0:18:07 | |
I'm sure that being stoned, was a very ugly thing. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
It doesn't leave much of the body | 0:18:10 | 0:18:12 | |
when so many stones have been thrown. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:13 | |
So, being a Pharisee, that would be a sort of normal reaction to that? | 0:18:14 | 0:18:19 | |
Certainly to oppose people who are preaching | 0:18:20 | 0:18:24 | |
the abrogation of Jewish law would be normal. | 0:18:24 | 0:18:26 | |
How far you go with that, | 0:18:26 | 0:18:27 | |
does it take you to stoning, is another issue. | 0:18:27 | 0:18:29 | |
'Paul seemed consumed with hatred for the Jesus movement. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:35 | |
'Yet there was something about this man I just didn't understand.' | 0:18:35 | 0:18:39 | |
"Love is patient, love is kind. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:47 | |
"It does not envy, it does not boast. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
"It is not proud, it is not rude. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 | |
"It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered," | 0:18:55 | 0:19:00 | |
"it keeps no record of wrongs. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:03 | |
"Love does not delight in evil." | 0:19:03 | 0:19:06 | |
It seems strange to me that someone who can stand by, witness | 0:19:08 | 0:19:13 | |
and even condone such an atrocity of | 0:19:13 | 0:19:17 | |
stoning another human being to death is also capable of writing | 0:19:17 | 0:19:21 | |
some of the most beautiful words ever written, and they're used | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
in wedding ceremonies around the world even to this very day. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:28 | |
'What transformed this zealous | 0:19:29 | 0:19:31 | |
'persecutor of the Jesus Movement into its greatest ambassador? | 0:19:31 | 0:19:36 | |
'According to the Bible, the answer lies on the road to Damascus, | 0:19:37 | 0:19:41 | |
'in one of the most fantastic and dramatic stories ever told. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
'Paul is on his way to root out more followers of Jesus | 0:19:52 | 0:19:55 | |
'when suddenly his whole world is turned around.' | 0:19:55 | 0:19:59 | |
According to Acts, | 0:20:03 | 0:20:05 | |
on his way to Damascus, he had a conversion experience. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:08 | |
He saw a blinding light that literally blinded him physically. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:14 | |
He heard the voice of Jesus saying "Saul", | 0:20:14 | 0:20:17 | |
using his Jewish name, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" | 0:20:17 | 0:20:21 | |
And he was given his commission to evangelise the Gentiles. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:25 | |
It was a changing moment in Paul's life and we often refer to it now | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
as the blinding light experience of conversion. | 0:20:28 | 0:20:31 | |
But I would like to find out what really happened. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
'In the Bible, deserts lend themselves to life-changing moments. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
'Both Jesus and Moses had spent time in the wilderness. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:51 | |
'To help me make sense of Paul's conversion, | 0:20:53 | 0:20:56 | |
I met psychologist Shmuel Erlich.' | 0:20:56 | 0:20:58 | |
I'm searching for Paul the character. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
I can't ignore that central conversion experience. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:05 | |
How do I make that change? | 0:21:05 | 0:21:07 | |
I would suggest that you look very carefully and deeply into his past. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:13 | |
You look into what happened before, into his persecution, | 0:21:13 | 0:21:17 | |
into his aggression, | 0:21:17 | 0:21:19 | |
into his need to kill Christians, | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
which I think speaks of some... | 0:21:22 | 0:21:25 | |
some kind I think of, I think, an inner turmoil. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:30 | |
What you see... | 0:21:30 | 0:21:31 | |
..especially in people who are struggling with their identity | 0:21:32 | 0:21:37 | |
and if the struggle is very deep, you...you see that, um... | 0:21:37 | 0:21:42 | |
they can sometimes turn round, almost, if you will, 180 degrees | 0:21:42 | 0:21:47 | |
and from one, what you would consider to be one identity, | 0:21:47 | 0:21:52 | |
-suddenly become the opposite of it. -Right. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
I think this is what happened to St Paul. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:58 | |
He persecuted the Christians before and then, suddenly, | 0:21:58 | 0:22:03 | |
he shifted completely and became their spokesman | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
and their guardian, in a way, | 0:22:06 | 0:22:08 | |
their promoter and their leader, really. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:11 | |
'Whatever really happened on the road to Damascus, it's clear | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
'that from that moment on, Paul's beliefs changed for ever. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:20 | |
'He was now convinced he had met Jesus face-to-face | 0:22:20 | 0:22:25 | |
'that God had brought him back from the dead | 0:22:25 | 0:22:28 | |
'and that, therefore, he must be the Messiah. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:30 | |
'And that the End of Days was coming very, very soon.' | 0:22:30 | 0:22:34 | |
'Paul is said to have returned to Jerusalem to try | 0:22:43 | 0:22:46 | |
'and convince the leadership of the Jesus Movement that, | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
'whatever his crimes against them in the past, he was now on their side. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:54 | |
'That God had chosen him to be an apostle, | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
'on a par with the disciples who had actually known Jesus. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:01 | |
'It must have been a difficult sell. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:03 | |
'Perhaps unsurprisingly, the leadership suggested | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
'that their former persecutor would be of most use to them | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
'away from Jerusalem, back in his home city of Tarsus, | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
'in modern-day Turkey.' | 0:23:15 | 0:23:17 | |
-Now, Tarsus. -Yes, here we are. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:21 | |
-Where Paul was born. -Yes. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:24 | |
'How had Paul's childhood home influenced his life? | 0:23:25 | 0:23:29 | |
'My guide, Menir, grew up in Tarsus and agreed to show me around.' | 0:23:30 | 0:23:34 | |
Are there many sites that one can go to that we'll see where Paul | 0:23:38 | 0:23:44 | |
went in the city, is he very famous here? | 0:23:44 | 0:23:46 | |
Very famous. We have St Paul's Well, | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
St Paul's House, St Paul's Church, many St Paul Cafes. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:54 | |
And is he a popular character? Do people like him? | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
They love him, it's their famous son. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:05 | |
'Tarsus is a Muslim city and has been for centuries. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:10 | |
'So I was intrigued by how today's population regarded Paul. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:14 | |
'After Friday prayers, Menir took me to the Grand Mosque | 0:24:14 | 0:24:18 | |
'to meet some of the locals.' | 0:24:18 | 0:24:20 | |
Could you ask our friend what he might know about St Paul? | 0:24:21 | 0:24:26 | |
SPEAKS TURKISH | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
We know him as a Christian saint who... | 0:24:32 | 0:24:38 | |
had this incredible energy. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
-Yes. -He walked for miles. -Yes. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:43 | |
He got, probably... had a donkey and he went... | 0:24:43 | 0:24:47 | |
..he went from one village to another | 0:24:48 | 0:24:51 | |
and explained all about Jesus, what Jesus was saying. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:56 | |
How has much has Tarsus changed since you were a child? | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
The essence of Tarsus is the same. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
In other words, it's retained its values. It's about... | 0:25:03 | 0:25:09 | |
I think, the most important value Tarsus has is | 0:25:09 | 0:25:13 | |
tolerance for each other. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
This area is liberal, Tarsus is liberal. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
Probably this is the influence of St Paul. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:22 | |
-Yeah. Do you think it's liberal because of St Paul? -It has to be. What else? | 0:25:22 | 0:25:25 | |
-Because of St Paul? -Yes, what else? | 0:25:25 | 0:25:27 | |
'It was fascinating that here in Muslim Tarsus, | 0:25:28 | 0:25:31 | |
'Paul was remembered as a liberal influence. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:35 | |
'Menir had given me a great introduction to the modern city | 0:25:46 | 0:25:50 | |
'but I was keen to find out | 0:25:50 | 0:25:51 | |
'what Tarsus would have been like in Paul's day.' | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
-Thank you very much. -Which way do I go? | 0:25:54 | 0:25:57 | |
-You go this way. -All right. -I go this way. | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
'How had it shaped him as a boy and what had he learnt here that | 0:25:59 | 0:26:03 | |
'would help him on his new mission to win converts to Jesus?' | 0:26:03 | 0:26:06 | |
'At one of the city's few remaining Roman sites, | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
'I met archaeologist Serra Durogonul.' | 0:26:12 | 0:26:15 | |
This is the only known archaeological remain | 0:26:15 | 0:26:19 | |
we have from the time period Paul has lived here in this city. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:24 | |
This is a Roman road? | 0:26:24 | 0:26:26 | |
This is a Roman road. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:27 | |
It is dated to the first century BC, or AD, we are not yet sure. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:33 | |
But there is a very similar example for this road, in Pompeii... | 0:26:33 | 0:26:39 | |
-Aha! -..which is dated to the first century BC. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:44 | |
Would Paul have actually walked along this road, do you think? | 0:26:44 | 0:26:47 | |
We think so. We can imagine that he walked through, | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
because it's just a time period he has lived here. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
So he must have walked here. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:55 | |
Was this is a busy, busy city? | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
Yes, it was a very important city | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
because it was a philosophical city. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:03 | |
-Many philosophers passed by from this city... -Did they? | 0:27:03 | 0:27:06 | |
..and we know that there was a school for philosophy in this town, | 0:27:06 | 0:27:10 | |
so along this shows that it was an important city. | 0:27:10 | 0:27:14 | |
And is that possibly why Paul would have said, "I'm a citizen | 0:27:14 | 0:27:18 | |
"of no ordinary city"? | 0:27:18 | 0:27:19 | |
Yes, that can be a good explanation for this sentence. | 0:27:19 | 0:27:24 | |
-So he was very proud of this city. -Yes. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:26 | |
And he's also very proud of his dual, if you like, | 0:27:26 | 0:27:30 | |
dual citizenship and nationality. He says, "I'm a Jew, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
"and I'm a Roman." | 0:27:33 | 0:27:35 | |
Yes, both characters, and he knows perfect Greek. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:39 | |
He's educated in that language. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
He has the Roman citizenship and he's a Jew. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:46 | |
'Paul's early life had been very different from that of Jesus | 0:27:51 | 0:27:54 | |
'and the disciples. | 0:27:54 | 0:27:56 | |
'Paul had grown up in a city, was highly educated | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
'and well versed in Greek philosophy. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:01 | |
'But in one respect he was similar. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:05 | |
'We're told he had a craft and earned his living as a tentmaker. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:09 | |
'The countryside around Tarsus was famous for its flax, | 0:28:09 | 0:28:12 | |
'the plant used to make linen. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
'Perhaps Paul wove his tents.' | 0:28:15 | 0:28:17 | |
Oh, wow. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:31 | |
'My guide, Ali, took me to a traditional weaver's shop | 0:28:31 | 0:28:34 | |
'for a lesson with the irrepressible Hassain, | 0:28:34 | 0:28:38 | |
'who, even though he's now in his 70s, clearly still loves his work.' | 0:28:38 | 0:28:42 | |
I can have a go? | 0:28:45 | 0:28:46 | |
HASSAIN SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE | 0:28:49 | 0:28:50 | |
Well, I've done certain things in my life. | 0:28:50 | 0:28:53 | |
This is a first. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:54 | |
Oh, my goodness me. What am I doing? | 0:28:57 | 0:28:59 | |
HASSAIN SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE | 0:28:59 | 0:29:00 | |
Push it back. | 0:29:00 | 0:29:02 | |
Right feet. | 0:29:03 | 0:29:05 | |
Left feet. | 0:29:05 | 0:29:06 | |
I'm working my feet. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:16 | |
'Paul was certainly proud of the fact he worked for a living | 0:29:16 | 0:29:19 | |
'and didn't rely on anyone for hand-outs.' | 0:29:19 | 0:29:22 | |
We were doing well. We WERE doing well. | 0:29:47 | 0:29:50 | |
It, um... | 0:29:50 | 0:29:52 | |
That's... I'm afraid that's all that's left of the shuttle. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
I don't think I'm going to pass this particular exam. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:01 | |
Paul had earned his living as a tentmaker, | 0:30:05 | 0:30:07 | |
was highly educated and held dual citizenship, | 0:30:07 | 0:30:11 | |
but first-century Tarsus had influenced his life in another way. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:15 | |
Most of Paul's fellow citizens would have been non-Jews or Gentiles - | 0:30:16 | 0:30:20 | |
believers in pagan Gods. | 0:30:20 | 0:30:22 | |
Serra asked me to meet her again, in the mountains above the city, | 0:30:28 | 0:30:32 | |
where she had recently made an incredible discovery. | 0:30:32 | 0:30:36 | |
Gosh, she's so clear. | 0:30:36 | 0:30:38 | |
Wow, look at that! | 0:30:40 | 0:30:42 | |
This is the goddess Athena. | 0:30:42 | 0:30:44 | |
Athena? | 0:30:44 | 0:30:45 | |
Athena. Can you see what sort of a symbol | 0:30:45 | 0:30:50 | |
we have outside the pillar? | 0:30:50 | 0:30:54 | |
-Just here? -Exactly. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:56 | |
That looks like the candlestick, the Jewish symbol, the Menorah. | 0:30:56 | 0:30:59 | |
Exactly, it's the Menorah. | 0:30:59 | 0:31:02 | |
I can't believe that the Jewish symbol, really, | 0:31:02 | 0:31:07 | |
is so close to Athena, the pagan goddess. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:11 | |
Yes. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:12 | |
What does that say about the society here? | 0:31:12 | 0:31:16 | |
It says to us that the people here lived peacefully | 0:31:17 | 0:31:21 | |
together, even though they were other beliefs. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:26 | |
This is a shrine, it's not only a relief, it's a cultic place, | 0:31:26 | 0:31:30 | |
it's a shrine, so we can imagine that Jewish people came | 0:31:30 | 0:31:34 | |
together with the pagans and came to pray here... | 0:31:34 | 0:31:38 | |
At the same time? | 0:31:38 | 0:31:39 | |
..at the same time. | 0:31:39 | 0:31:41 | |
When was this carved into the rock? | 0:31:41 | 0:31:44 | |
It was carved at the end of the second century or | 0:31:44 | 0:31:47 | |
the beginning of the third century AD, the Roman period. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:52 | |
So Paul would never have seen this, he wouldn't have seen this. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
But the same thing may have been going on at the time that he | 0:31:55 | 0:31:59 | |
was around? | 0:31:59 | 0:32:00 | |
Yes. Why not? | 0:32:00 | 0:32:03 | |
The Jewish Menorah carved alongside the pagan goddess Athena | 0:32:04 | 0:32:08 | |
spoke of a culture of religious tolerance. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:11 | |
Tarsus appeared to be the sort of place where different peoples | 0:32:11 | 0:32:15 | |
and religions could learn from and influence each other. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:19 | |
Perhaps this sowed a seed in Paul - | 0:32:19 | 0:32:22 | |
because, he more than any other, would be the person who would | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
bridge the gap between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
A process he probably began on his return to his home city. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:34 | |
I'm sure Paul must have had some success in Tarsus, | 0:32:42 | 0:32:46 | |
because he was then called to the huge cosmopolitan | 0:32:46 | 0:32:48 | |
city of Antioch to help build a new community of believers. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:52 | |
Wow! | 0:32:54 | 0:32:55 | |
What a breath-taking view of the city. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:58 | |
Today, the biblical city of Antioch is known as Antakya. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:15 | |
On the outskirts of the city, I passed the magnificent iron gate, | 0:33:15 | 0:33:18 | |
one of the few survivors from ancient times, and a little | 0:33:18 | 0:33:23 | |
further down the valley, carved into the mountainside, was a site that | 0:33:23 | 0:33:27 | |
tradition says played an important role in early Christianity. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:32 | |
It's here that I met New Testament scholar Helen Bond. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:35 | |
It is quite pretty, actually. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:40 | |
It is, isn't it? | 0:33:40 | 0:33:42 | |
This is St Peter's Church, where, according to church tradition, | 0:33:42 | 0:33:46 | |
the church at Antioch met. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:48 | |
Saint Paul is even supposed to have preached here on occasion. | 0:33:48 | 0:33:51 | |
-Really? -Yes. | 0:33:51 | 0:33:53 | |
Who was he preaching to then? | 0:33:53 | 0:33:55 | |
Well, it's really interesting, | 0:33:55 | 0:33:56 | |
because this is a mixed community of people. | 0:33:56 | 0:33:59 | |
And people from Antioch, some of them are Jews, | 0:33:59 | 0:34:02 | |
some of them are non-Jews, | 0:34:02 | 0:34:03 | |
all kinds of people that have heard | 0:34:03 | 0:34:06 | |
about the new faith and have been anxious to join. | 0:34:06 | 0:34:09 | |
A lot of people in the ancient world | 0:34:09 | 0:34:10 | |
were quite interested in Jewish ideas. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:13 | |
The idea of monotheism, one god. | 0:34:13 | 0:34:16 | |
The Jewish ethics, and so Christianity was a little | 0:34:16 | 0:34:20 | |
bit like that. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:21 | |
-Clearly it was coming from a Jewish background. -Yes. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:24 | |
I think also at this time, there was an interest in people towards | 0:34:24 | 0:34:28 | |
a sort of more personal kind of religion. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:30 | |
Perhaps something more than the gods of Rome were offering. | 0:34:30 | 0:34:34 | |
He's also talking about something he believes, you know, | 0:34:34 | 0:34:38 | |
the end of the world is going to come soon. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:40 | |
You've got to prepare yourself - get ready. | 0:34:40 | 0:34:42 | |
I think, you know, in this kind of place, a big thriving | 0:34:42 | 0:34:46 | |
city like this, that might have been quite attractive to a lot of people. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:50 | |
And Paul was an urban man, wasn't he? | 0:34:50 | 0:34:53 | |
He was a city man and he would have worked here, | 0:34:53 | 0:34:56 | |
and would he have been comfortable? | 0:34:56 | 0:34:58 | |
I think he would have been entirely at home in a place like Antioch. | 0:34:58 | 0:35:01 | |
It was very similar in many ways to Tarsus, where he was from, | 0:35:01 | 0:35:05 | |
and very different, I think, to the kind of places that Jesus | 0:35:05 | 0:35:09 | |
and the disciples were used to, you know, they were much more rural men. | 0:35:09 | 0:35:13 | |
For Paul, you know, he is part of this establishment. | 0:35:13 | 0:35:16 | |
You know, he can talk to anybody in this city, | 0:35:16 | 0:35:19 | |
He's perfectly at home here, | 0:35:19 | 0:35:20 | |
whereas I think it would have been much more difficult | 0:35:20 | 0:35:23 | |
for the first followers of Jesus. | 0:35:23 | 0:35:25 | |
In Antioch, the Jesus movement was building a bridge | 0:35:27 | 0:35:30 | |
between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds and Paul's skills in talking | 0:35:30 | 0:35:34 | |
and preaching to non-Jews made him the ultimate bridge builder. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:38 | |
Coming into a cafe like this, into a social situation, | 0:35:51 | 0:35:55 | |
Paul would have been used to this sort of thing, sitting | 0:35:55 | 0:35:58 | |
amongst men while they were playing games. | 0:35:58 | 0:36:00 | |
I don't think much would have changed in 2,000 years, | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
and he might have taken advantage of the situation | 0:36:05 | 0:36:07 | |
and started chatting about his beliefs. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
Something about Paul's message clearly rang true in Antioch. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:16 | |
I wondered if Helen was right, that maybe he was offering a more | 0:36:16 | 0:36:20 | |
caring alternative to the brutal norms of Roman society. | 0:36:20 | 0:36:24 | |
It was in Antioch that the followers of Jesus were first called | 0:36:44 | 0:36:47 | |
Christians, but their numbers were small, | 0:36:47 | 0:36:50 | |
too small for a dedicated church. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:52 | |
Paul is said to have preached, instead, in private homes. | 0:36:53 | 0:36:56 | |
It was a tactic that was to serve him well. | 0:36:58 | 0:37:01 | |
Holding meetings in a house not only afforded a venue, | 0:37:01 | 0:37:05 | |
but also gave him access to a wider network of family | 0:37:05 | 0:37:08 | |
and friends who could help spread the word. | 0:37:08 | 0:37:12 | |
When the Roman Catholics came here, they took their lead from Paul. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:16 | |
Father Dominic. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:19 | |
Oh, you're welcome. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:22 | |
Hello. | 0:37:22 | 0:37:23 | |
You can see where is today there is a Catholic church, it is | 0:37:23 | 0:37:28 | |
not a church at that time, it was a private house, | 0:37:28 | 0:37:31 | |
but we know that the first Christians | 0:37:31 | 0:37:34 | |
had their meetings in private houses they called house church. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:39 | |
So after 2,000 years we are in the same situation. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:43 | |
-So, you have a house church? -We have a house church. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:45 | |
Is that why there's not an official, big Catholic church? | 0:37:45 | 0:37:48 | |
No, no, it was a private house that we have managed to use as a church. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:53 | |
Living and working closely with these non-Jewish communities, | 0:37:57 | 0:38:00 | |
Paul came to understand that some requirements of the new | 0:38:00 | 0:38:03 | |
faith could be a barrier to conversion. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:06 | |
He adapted his message... | 0:38:06 | 0:38:08 | |
..but back in Jerusalem, that was seen | 0:38:11 | 0:38:13 | |
as a threat to the purity of Judaism. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:16 | |
High above the city, in the sixth- century ruins of Saint Simeon's | 0:38:17 | 0:38:21 | |
monastery, I met Helen again. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:23 | |
So what was Paul teaching that was so new? | 0:38:24 | 0:38:26 | |
Paul was saying to the gentiles that you can become | 0:38:26 | 0:38:29 | |
part of the Jesus Movement without first becoming a Jew, | 0:38:29 | 0:38:33 | |
so you didn't have to be circumcised, you didn't have to keep | 0:38:33 | 0:38:36 | |
the Jewish law, all you need to be part of the Jesus Movement is to | 0:38:36 | 0:38:41 | |
believe in what God has done through Jesus, the cross and resurrection - | 0:38:41 | 0:38:46 | |
that's the central thing, and faith in that is going to save you. | 0:38:46 | 0:38:50 | |
Nothing else really matters and that was really radical, | 0:38:50 | 0:38:54 | |
because this is the first time, really, that Gentiles had been | 0:38:54 | 0:38:58 | |
coming into the movement without first becoming Jews. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
In Jerusalem, converts to the new religion were already Jewish. | 0:39:02 | 0:39:07 | |
They kept Jewish Law and the males had been circumcised. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:11 | |
In Antioch, Paul was converting Gentiles who liked | 0:39:11 | 0:39:14 | |
the idea of worshipping the Jewish god | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
but weren't willing to undergo a rigorous conversion to Judaism. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:21 | |
For Paul, though, he gradually sees that | 0:39:21 | 0:39:24 | |
if it doesn't matter any more, for your salvation, that you have | 0:39:24 | 0:39:28 | |
to keep the law, then why do you have to become a Jew? | 0:39:28 | 0:39:31 | |
You know, you can become a follower of Christ and stay a Gentile. | 0:39:31 | 0:39:35 | |
Being very radical, then? | 0:39:35 | 0:39:38 | |
Extremely radical, and also in the face of people who'd known | 0:39:38 | 0:39:41 | |
Jesus, I mean, I think that's the amazing thing about him, | 0:39:41 | 0:39:44 | |
-and they must have thought, "The arrogance of the man!" -Absolutely. | 0:39:44 | 0:39:47 | |
Here he is, on the basis of "One vision," so he says on the road | 0:39:47 | 0:39:52 | |
to Damascus, and he's telling everybody what to do. | 0:39:52 | 0:39:54 | |
Changing all the rules! | 0:39:54 | 0:39:56 | |
Paul had come to realise that the only way | 0:39:58 | 0:40:01 | |
he was going to convert large numbers of Gentiles to Jesus | 0:40:01 | 0:40:05 | |
was by dropping the need to become a Jew first. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:08 | |
He was typically bullish about that mission and was prepared to | 0:40:08 | 0:40:11 | |
use any means necessary to bring non-Jews to his new faith. | 0:40:11 | 0:40:16 | |
Even if that meant they no longer needed to observe the Jewish law. | 0:40:16 | 0:40:20 | |
Paul had now set himself on a collision course with | 0:40:40 | 0:40:42 | |
the leadership of the Jesus Movement in Jerusalem. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:45 | |
They summoned Paul back to Jerusalem to | 0:40:48 | 0:40:50 | |
account for his methods in converting the Gentiles. | 0:40:50 | 0:40:54 | |
Paul was certainly heading for trouble, | 0:40:54 | 0:40:56 | |
but it wouldn't be for the first time - or indeed the last. | 0:40:56 | 0:40:59 | |
I'm off to meet the Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III. | 0:41:07 | 0:41:12 | |
The Patriarchate traces its line of succession all the way back | 0:41:12 | 0:41:16 | |
to James, the brother of Jesus, | 0:41:16 | 0:41:18 | |
and the leader of the movement after Jesus' death. | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
It was to James and his Jerusalem Council that Paul came to | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
argue his case that Gentile converts to Christianity did not first | 0:41:27 | 0:41:32 | |
have to convert to Judaism. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:34 | |
-Good morning, your Beatitude, very nice to meet you. -Me too. | 0:41:37 | 0:41:40 | |
Thank you very much for letting me... | 0:41:40 | 0:41:42 | |
If he lost the argument, Paul risked both his mission to | 0:41:42 | 0:41:46 | |
the Gentiles coming to a grinding halt and personal humiliation. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:50 | |
Yes, please. | 0:41:54 | 0:41:56 | |
Could you tell me what the outcome was from the Jerusalem Council? | 0:41:56 | 0:42:01 | |
We must understand... | 0:42:01 | 0:42:04 | |
if we put ourselves in his position, right? | 0:42:04 | 0:42:08 | |
He was lonely. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:09 | |
He was the only one that took, undertook, this mission to go | 0:42:09 | 0:42:16 | |
and preach to Gentiles. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:19 | |
So again he broke the closed circle. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:23 | |
It was difficult. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:25 | |
Paul, of course, defended his case. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:28 | |
Paul was a wise man, don't forget that, | 0:42:28 | 0:42:31 | |
he was well versed in Greek | 0:42:31 | 0:42:35 | |
philosophy and literature, right, | 0:42:35 | 0:42:38 | |
so he had developed a very open mind. | 0:42:38 | 0:42:42 | |
Saint James was a very wise elder and... | 0:42:42 | 0:42:46 | |
..he did not reject Paul's argument, | 0:42:49 | 0:42:54 | |
right? | 0:42:54 | 0:42:56 | |
-This has been really kind of you. -Thank you. | 0:42:56 | 0:42:59 | |
-Thank you very much indeed. -You're welcome. -Thank you. | 0:42:59 | 0:43:02 | |
The conflict was resolved in Paul's favour. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:07 | |
Paul had won the day. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:25 | |
He was now free to convert Gentiles directly to the Jesus Movement, | 0:43:25 | 0:43:29 | |
without first taking them into Judaism. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:33 | |
It was to be a key moment in the evolution of Christianity, which was | 0:43:33 | 0:43:38 | |
now well on the way to becoming a new religion, separate from Judaism. | 0:43:38 | 0:43:43 | |
The whole Gentile world now lay before Paul. | 0:43:43 | 0:43:47 | |
It was time to hit the road. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:48 | |
By the middle of the first century AD, a grid of good paved roads | 0:43:51 | 0:43:55 | |
and clear shipping lanes criss-crossed the Roman Empire. | 0:43:55 | 0:43:59 | |
Travellers like Paul could now cover enormous distances swiftly | 0:43:59 | 0:44:03 | |
and in greater safety than ever before. | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
It's been calculated, that during his journeys, | 0:44:06 | 0:44:08 | |
Paul covered more than 10,000 miles on foot. | 0:44:08 | 0:44:12 | |
See, I had to find a walk for Poirot and once that was found it helped me | 0:44:13 | 0:44:18 | |
with the character so much and now this is helping me understand Paul. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:24 | |
How he walked, where he walked, the sort of road | 0:44:24 | 0:44:27 | |
he would have travelled on and the speed he would have walked. | 0:44:27 | 0:44:30 | |
It tells me a lot about that man. | 0:44:30 | 0:44:33 | |
I think he was a speedy man, very speedy. | 0:44:33 | 0:44:36 | |
The road would carry Paul to Ephesus, the greatest | 0:44:44 | 0:44:47 | |
city in the whole of Roman Asia, a pagan stronghold. | 0:44:47 | 0:44:51 | |
The city was absolutely devoted to the fertility goddess, Artemis. | 0:44:56 | 0:45:01 | |
Her cult drew worshippers from across the ancient world | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
and Ephesus had grown rich on the tourist trade. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:08 | |
Paul's message - that there was only one true god - | 0:45:08 | 0:45:11 | |
and it wasn't Artemis - was bound to cause trouble. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:14 | |
At the ancient entrance to the city, I met archaeologist Julian Bennett. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:22 | |
At the time St Paul was here this would have been | 0:45:23 | 0:45:25 | |
full of ships. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:27 | |
Probably a hundred or so ships. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:28 | |
-Right up to here? -Yes. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:30 | |
We're more or less on the harbour edge, we're | 0:45:30 | 0:45:32 | |
standing on the harbour gateway here. | 0:45:32 | 0:45:34 | |
When you look up into the distance you can see the hills going | 0:45:34 | 0:45:37 | |
round there. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:38 | |
The river came up to here and the sea came up to here as well. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:42 | |
What would Paul have found when he first arrived here as far | 0:45:43 | 0:45:49 | |
as religion was concerned, what would he have been faced with? | 0:45:49 | 0:45:52 | |
-Artemis, the goddess! -The goddess? | 0:45:52 | 0:45:54 | |
The main goddess of the city. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:56 | |
This is her birth place, this is where she belongs, | 0:45:56 | 0:46:00 | |
she has a wonderful temple just outside the city, | 0:46:00 | 0:46:03 | |
one of the seven wonders of the world. | 0:46:03 | 0:46:05 | |
It would have been standing, built of beautiful white marble, | 0:46:05 | 0:46:09 | |
I mean Paul would have seen this when he sailed into the harbour, he | 0:46:09 | 0:46:12 | |
would have known he was coming into a nest of paganism, if you like. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:16 | |
I've always read that Paul first of all went to synagogues to | 0:46:18 | 0:46:23 | |
preach, whenever he visited somewhere. | 0:46:23 | 0:46:25 | |
Was there a Jewish population here? | 0:46:25 | 0:46:27 | |
Yes, there was a very large one. | 0:46:27 | 0:46:28 | |
Certainly from 300 years before the time of Paul. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:32 | |
We don't know exactly how large, but possibly between five | 0:46:32 | 0:46:35 | |
and ten thousand. | 0:46:35 | 0:46:36 | |
The population stayed here even after Paul, | 0:46:36 | 0:46:39 | |
carried on being Jewish, as well. | 0:46:39 | 0:46:41 | |
We can see that quite clearly from the Menorah | 0:46:41 | 0:46:43 | |
carved into the library here. | 0:46:43 | 0:46:45 | |
Somebody sitting down one day, carving this away. | 0:46:45 | 0:46:48 | |
Carving on the steps of a library? | 0:46:48 | 0:46:50 | |
Yes. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:52 | |
Ephesus had no problem tolerating other gods. | 0:46:52 | 0:46:57 | |
Even the Jewish god was being worshipped here. | 0:46:57 | 0:47:00 | |
But Paul threatened the status quo. | 0:47:00 | 0:47:02 | |
His new way was exclusive and his message to Ephesus was blunt. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:07 | |
"The end of the world is coming. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:10 | |
"You waste your time with idols. | 0:47:10 | 0:47:12 | |
"Artemis is no god at all and cannot save you. | 0:47:12 | 0:47:16 | |
"You must follow Jesus" - | 0:47:16 | 0:47:18 | |
an obscure, crucified carpenter from Galilee. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:22 | |
One thing you have to say about Paul - | 0:47:23 | 0:47:25 | |
he certainly wasn't bothered by conflict. | 0:47:25 | 0:47:27 | |
This is a first-century statue of the goddess Artemis. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:32 | |
I wonder if this could have been the very one | 0:47:34 | 0:47:36 | |
that Paul may have looked at. | 0:47:36 | 0:47:38 | |
I'm trying to imagine what he would have felt | 0:47:42 | 0:47:45 | |
when he saw this image for the very first time. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:50 | |
He probably thought the very same things as actually came | 0:47:51 | 0:47:56 | |
out of his mouth. | 0:47:56 | 0:47:57 | |
"You're just made of stone. | 0:47:57 | 0:48:00 | |
"Push you over and you'll break into hundreds of pieces." | 0:48:00 | 0:48:04 | |
We know the cult of Artemis goes back a thousand years | 0:48:04 | 0:48:07 | |
before Paul even arrived. | 0:48:07 | 0:48:09 | |
And what sort of man must he have been to come to a city | 0:48:09 | 0:48:13 | |
like this, that had been worshipping the goddess Artemis for a | 0:48:13 | 0:48:16 | |
thousand years... | 0:48:16 | 0:48:19 | |
and believe that he could change their system of belief? | 0:48:19 | 0:48:23 | |
But Paul was not only taking on a long-established religion, | 0:48:29 | 0:48:34 | |
he was also threatening the very economy of Ephesus. | 0:48:34 | 0:48:37 | |
His message put people's livelihoods at risk. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 | |
Those who came to worship Artemis were unlikely to leave | 0:48:45 | 0:48:49 | |
without first buying a small copy of the goddess as a souvenir. | 0:48:49 | 0:48:52 | |
I'm going to be taught how to make an icon here. | 0:48:58 | 0:49:01 | |
I've never made an icon before. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:03 | |
Oh, this is going to, this is going to be fun, oh, thank you, | 0:49:04 | 0:49:07 | |
I'm glad I wore black. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:08 | |
For the city's idol-makers, | 0:49:10 | 0:49:12 | |
anyone converting pagans was bad for business. | 0:49:12 | 0:49:15 | |
I don't think St Paul would be too happy with me | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
doing this, considering I have now become an idol-maker. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:23 | |
Ephesus Theatre. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:24 | |
-Ephesus Theatre. -Yes. | 0:49:24 | 0:49:26 | |
-And here? -Yes. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:28 | |
I think he's got me working on the whole thing here. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:31 | |
I'm now building a theatre. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:33 | |
Oh, here she is - just out of the oven. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:39 | |
As I said, I'm glad I wore black. | 0:49:42 | 0:49:44 | |
Oh, my goodness me. | 0:49:46 | 0:49:48 | |
I have never, ever done this. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:50 | |
This is the back of her dress coming through... | 0:49:52 | 0:49:55 | |
and her head and her face. | 0:49:55 | 0:49:58 | |
There she is, that's what all the fuss was about. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
And that's what he came to change. | 0:50:03 | 0:50:05 | |
Artemis was perhaps Paul's greatest challenge. | 0:50:07 | 0:50:10 | |
He spent longer in Ephesus than anywhere on his travels. | 0:50:10 | 0:50:14 | |
But opposition to Paul's preaching was growing. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:16 | |
Eventually, we're told, craftsmen worried about both | 0:50:18 | 0:50:21 | |
their religion and their trade, led a riot against Paul. | 0:50:21 | 0:50:25 | |
They all gathered here in this theatre and Demetrius, who was | 0:50:25 | 0:50:30 | |
a silversmith who was making idols of Artemis, addressed the crowd. | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
"Men - you know we receive a good income from this business | 0:50:34 | 0:50:39 | |
"and you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced | 0:50:39 | 0:50:42 | |
"and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus | 0:50:42 | 0:50:46 | |
"and in practically the whole province of Asia. | 0:50:46 | 0:50:49 | |
"He says that man-made gods are no gods at all. | 0:50:49 | 0:50:52 | |
"There is a danger that not only our trade will lose its good name but | 0:50:54 | 0:50:57 | |
"also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited, | 0:50:57 | 0:51:01 | |
"and the goddess herself, who is worshipped throughout | 0:51:01 | 0:51:04 | |
"the province of Asia and the world, | 0:51:04 | 0:51:07 | |
"will be robbed of her divine majesty". | 0:51:07 | 0:51:10 | |
And he really did, he whipped up the crowd to a frenzy, | 0:51:10 | 0:51:14 | |
and they started shouting, | 0:51:14 | 0:51:15 | |
"Great is Artemis of the Ephesians, | 0:51:15 | 0:51:18 | |
"Great is Artemis of the Ephesians, | 0:51:18 | 0:51:20 | |
"Great is Artemis of the Ephesians". | 0:51:20 | 0:51:21 | |
You can hear it ringing around the theatre | 0:51:21 | 0:51:24 | |
and it was very soon after this that Paul probably realised that his life | 0:51:24 | 0:51:29 | |
was in danger, and, after two years, he decided it was time to leave. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:33 | |
Paul had been forced to leave the city, | 0:51:35 | 0:51:38 | |
but it appears his work here was not in vain. | 0:51:38 | 0:51:40 | |
Ephesus was one of the great hubs of the Empire | 0:51:40 | 0:51:44 | |
and visitors to the city eventually went home. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:47 | |
Some of them took Paul's message with them - | 0:51:47 | 0:51:50 | |
his words were spreading across Asia Minor. | 0:51:50 | 0:51:53 | |
Ephesus is still being excavated, but so far no churches dedicated to | 0:51:56 | 0:52:01 | |
Paul, or traces of his time here | 0:52:01 | 0:52:04 | |
have been discovered inside the city. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:07 | |
But high above Ephesus, in a mountainside cave, | 0:52:07 | 0:52:10 | |
I was told there was a reminder of him. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:12 | |
I'm here on a hillside above Ephesus and my guide, Sirkan, is going | 0:52:14 | 0:52:17 | |
to show me a cave which is associated with Saint Paul. | 0:52:17 | 0:52:20 | |
I'm looking forward to this very much indeed. | 0:52:20 | 0:52:23 | |
This is quite a climb but I think it's going to be worth it. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:35 | |
Nearly there. | 0:52:37 | 0:52:39 | |
Discovered in 1906, the Grotto of Saint Paul | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
is thought to have been | 0:52:44 | 0:52:46 | |
a sacred Christian site since the first or second century. | 0:52:46 | 0:52:49 | |
Got my torch. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:52 | |
Ha-ha! | 0:53:02 | 0:53:03 | |
Look there! | 0:53:03 | 0:53:05 | |
There he is, my goodness. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:07 | |
I've been hearing about him and talking about him so much. | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
That's extraordinary to see it, it's a bit scary actually, isn't it, | 0:53:10 | 0:53:13 | |
because if I grew a beard that wouldn't be too dissimilar to me. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:17 | |
-A little bit. -A little bit. | 0:53:17 | 0:53:19 | |
Wouldn't take too much though, would it? | 0:53:21 | 0:53:24 | |
Let's go down there. | 0:53:24 | 0:53:26 | |
What's down here? | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
Oh, there's some more. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:31 | |
Some more frescoes, oh, goodness, these look like saints... | 0:53:31 | 0:53:35 | |
..and there's a lot of them - | 0:53:36 | 0:53:38 | |
there's one, two, three, four, five, six. | 0:53:38 | 0:53:40 | |
The grotto was decorated with frescoes | 0:53:40 | 0:53:42 | |
and inscriptions over the course of many centuries. | 0:53:42 | 0:53:46 | |
The portrait of Paul was added in the 6th century, along with | 0:53:46 | 0:53:49 | |
that of Saint Thecla, | 0:53:49 | 0:53:51 | |
famous locally as a female follower of Paul. | 0:53:51 | 0:53:53 | |
Hey, he does look like me, doesn't he? | 0:53:53 | 0:53:55 | |
That's really weird. | 0:53:55 | 0:53:57 | |
Anyway, bye-bye. Thank you. | 0:53:57 | 0:53:59 | |
You're welcome. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:01 | |
Seeing the image of Paul | 0:54:14 | 0:54:15 | |
and Thecla in Paul's Grotto really inspired me to find out more about | 0:54:15 | 0:54:18 | |
their story and I was reading a book called Acts Of Paul And Thecla. | 0:54:18 | 0:54:22 | |
And there was, what I believe, to be the only physical | 0:54:24 | 0:54:27 | |
description of Paul ever written and I put it down in my notebook. | 0:54:27 | 0:54:31 | |
"He was a man of middling size and his hair was scanty | 0:54:31 | 0:54:35 | |
"and his legs were a little crooked | 0:54:35 | 0:54:37 | |
"and his knees were projecting | 0:54:37 | 0:54:39 | |
"and he had large eyes. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:41 | |
"His eyebrows met, his nose was somewhat long | 0:54:41 | 0:54:44 | |
"and he was full of grace and mercy. | 0:54:44 | 0:54:46 | |
"At one time he seemed like a man, | 0:54:46 | 0:54:48 | |
"and at another he seemed like an angel." | 0:54:48 | 0:54:52 | |
Now, apart from the physical description, I was... | 0:54:54 | 0:54:59 | |
also very interested because I think that also describes his personality. | 0:54:59 | 0:55:04 | |
At one time, he could seem very direct, very human, very earthy. | 0:55:04 | 0:55:09 | |
He certainly didn't suffer fools gladly... | 0:55:09 | 0:55:11 | |
..and at another time, he could be very fatherly... | 0:55:14 | 0:55:18 | |
and very gentle. | 0:55:18 | 0:55:21 | |
Paul's journeys through Asia Minor helped lay | 0:55:26 | 0:55:29 | |
the foundations of the faith that would one day become Christianity. | 0:55:29 | 0:55:33 | |
Even though Turkey is now a Muslim country, his influence lasts | 0:55:35 | 0:55:40 | |
to this day. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:41 | |
Something I've got no doubt about at all is that he was | 0:55:46 | 0:55:49 | |
a man of total extremes - there was no grey area about Paul, | 0:55:49 | 0:55:54 | |
it was either black or white. | 0:55:54 | 0:55:58 | |
Whatever happened to him on the road to Damascus was extreme | 0:55:58 | 0:56:02 | |
and it changed his world view for ever. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:05 | |
But what's really interesting for me | 0:56:18 | 0:56:19 | |
is that it didn't change his personality or character. | 0:56:19 | 0:56:23 | |
He was a man of total conviction and extremes of behaviour. | 0:56:23 | 0:56:27 | |
He could be very angry, imperious, proud, | 0:56:27 | 0:56:31 | |
he could be very boastful - | 0:56:31 | 0:56:33 | |
"My way, not yours." | 0:56:33 | 0:56:36 | |
He had also a fanatical drive and energy | 0:56:37 | 0:56:40 | |
because he genuinely believed that Jesus was going to come back soon | 0:56:40 | 0:56:45 | |
and for him the end of the world was really imminent. | 0:56:45 | 0:56:48 | |
So I've learned a great deal about this man | 0:56:49 | 0:56:53 | |
and I'm not sure at the moment whether I like him very much. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:57 | |
Would I have dinner with him? | 0:56:57 | 0:56:59 | |
Well, I don't know, perhaps just one course. | 0:56:59 | 0:57:02 | |
But I've only found out about him so far, there's | 0:57:02 | 0:57:06 | |
so much more that I need to know to have a fully-rounded character, | 0:57:06 | 0:57:11 | |
so much more that I need to discover about this extraordinary man. | 0:57:11 | 0:57:16 | |
After ten years or so of travel around what is now modern-day | 0:57:29 | 0:57:33 | |
Turkey, Paul managed to set up small Christian | 0:57:33 | 0:57:36 | |
communities in the major cities of Rome's Eastern Empire. | 0:57:36 | 0:57:40 | |
And these cities were always situated on either major | 0:57:40 | 0:57:44 | |
roads or in major seaports and it was from these cities that | 0:57:44 | 0:57:48 | |
the message was able to spread out to the surrounding countryside. | 0:57:48 | 0:57:52 | |
But in a letter to the Romans, Paul wrote "There is no more place for me | 0:57:52 | 0:57:56 | |
"to work in these regions", | 0:57:56 | 0:57:58 | |
and so in a sense, I suppose, Paul's work in | 0:57:58 | 0:58:01 | |
Asia Minor was done, and so he set his sights firmly towards the West. | 0:58:01 | 0:58:06 | |
He wrote again, "It's always been my ambition to preach the Gospel | 0:58:06 | 0:58:10 | |
"where Christ was not known". | 0:58:10 | 0:58:12 | |
And so his journey into Europe was about to begin, | 0:58:12 | 0:58:15 | |
and this set him on a collision course with the power of Rome. | 0:58:15 | 0:58:21 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:46 | 0:58:51 |