Episode 2 David Suchet - In the Footsteps of St Peter

'I'm David Suchet,

'and I'm in search of one

'of the most puzzling characters in history -

'a simple first-century fisherman,

'who somehow became the founding father

'of the most powerful Christian church on earth.'

Wow! Look at these!

'We know him as Saint Peter,

'mentioned more times in the New Testament

'than anyone except Jesus.

'He was his right-hand man

'and a leader of the early Christian movement.

'In later traditions, he's martyred in Rome

and revered as the first Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.'

Peter's a real person - he's human, he's fallible.

You sense with Peter something that we can all identify with,

and that's doubt.

But our portrait of Peter is a mosaic,

constructed by different authors, each with their own stories to tell.

He's always depicted as this meek and timid individual,

but Peter's the courageous one.

Wow!

'Peter's character and what motivates him

'has always intrigued me.'

-Exciting, yeah?

-Yeah, for me!

'Flawed, headstrong, never fully understanding,

'a faithful friend, yet a denier in the hour of need.'

-"Is that man a friend of yours?" He says, "No."

-Yes.

-"No, no."

'Yet, somehow, Peter pulled the Jesus movement back together

'when all seemed lost.

'In this series,

'I'll be uncovering fragments of tradition

'and half-whispered traces of Peter's life,

'revealing surprising new discoveries and theories

'about the man who shaped a faith

'that came to dominate Western civilisation.'

I've followed Peter's story

from his early life as a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee

through three turbulent years with Jesus.

But the man Peter thought to be the Jewish Messiah,

whom he hoped would deliver the Jews from Roman rule,

has been put to death.

Now, all is confusion.

The Jesus movement is in complete disarray.

Its future seems dark.

But suddenly there's an empty tomb

and actual sightings of the resurrected Jesus.

What should Peter do next?

According to the Gospel Of John,

he seeks sanctuary in the life he once knew -

back fishing on the Sea of Galilee.

But then the story takes a dramatic turn.

Very early one morning,

when Peter and some of the Apostles were returning in their boat

from an all-night fishing trip, Jesus was seen on the seashore,

literally cooking breakfast over a fire.

And Peter, the compulsive, impetuous Peter,

leapt out of the boat and rushed towards him.

But what happened next, I think, changed Peter's life for ever.

Jesus suddenly asked him, "Do you love me more than these?"

The other disciples. What an extraordinary thing to ask Peter!

He didn't know how to answer. He almost avoided the question.

"Yes, of course I love you. Yes, of course I do."

But then what happened was even more surprising -

Jesus, as the shepherd of his sheep, handed over that baton to Peter.

"You...will be the shepherd."

But how to guide the Jesus movement

after it's lost such a charismatic leader?

In the New Testament Book Of Acts,

Peter heads first to Jerusalem, to reunite the remaining Apostles

and find a replacement for Judas,

who has committed suicide after betraying Jesus.

Shortly after, comes the Jewish harvest festival of Pentecost.

It's only 50 days since the execution of Jesus at Passover,

and, as Jerusalem fills with pilgrims once more,

Peter and the Apostles are gathered together somewhere in the city.

Modern-day pilgrims are often shown to this room on Mount Zion,

as a possible location for both the Last Supper

and the meeting at Pentecost.

Coming here can be an emotional experience.

LIVELY CHATTER

Around me, all around me, is a group from Brazil,

and they are very fired up,

and photographing themselves for the family back home.

'The excitement and enthusiasm of these modern Christians

'perhaps captures something of the mood of 2,000 years ago.'

I really don't think I've witnessed anything like this.

They're really very fired up indeed.

'According to Acts, Peter and the Apostles also felt themselves imbued

'by the power of God in the form of the Holy Spirit.

'In their excitement,

'the meeting spilt out into the streets.

'And when a crowd gathered to see what was going on,

'Peter began to preach,

'converting many new followers.

'Under his leadership,

'the movement was now growing in number and confidence.'

Stephen, we know that at Pentecost Peter came out

and started making this very long speech,

and we're told that hundreds of people were converted.

Where would that have taken place?

Well, some people talk about it being a small room

someplace off in the distance here,

but you needed a bigger setting for that.

Er, the setting was of a place where their group could meet,

and then it spilt out into a courtyard,

where there were people of all languages

-that were able to listen to one another.

-Yes.

The only place that we really have that depicts that type of setting

is right over here at the Temple Mount.

-We have the platform here.

-Yeah.

We don't have a temple to see, but it was over here in that area

in the porticos that surrounded the Temple Mount,

where they had synagogues,

and this is probably where that event took place.

So you'd say it was in... actually in the Temple Mount itself?

Yes. It was a very large area.

-The temple building itself was rather small...

-Yes.

..compared to the larger area that we're speaking of.

Now I'm always interested, as an actor,

what happens to the development of people's character.

You know, you start off as one person,

you grow into somebody else.

You hear of sudden conversion experiences,

when people are suddenly different after, you know,

after that experience.

It seems that because of Pentecost it was a sudden change of character.

-And within a very short period of time.

-Yeah.

You remember it was not long before

that they were sitting in a room together,

-worrying because their Messiah had died on the cross.

-Yeah.

Everything that they'd put aside,

from their jobs and families and everything else to follow him,

suddenly they look foolish,

and maybe these Romans are going to come after them, too.

They were no longer timid. They were bold.

And that's what the day of Pentecost meant to them.

The temple Peter would have known

was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70 during the Jewish revolt.

In the seventh century, the site was occupied by Muslims.

Today, it is the third holiest place in Islam.

Few places are as holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims

as this place.

Today, it is known as the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary.

And, by coming here, I'm following in the footsteps

of literally millions of pilgrims.

And dominating the site

is one of the most iconic buildings of the Middle East -

the magnificent Dome Of The Rock.

It's not actually a mosque at all,

but a Muslim shrine built over a sacred stone.

Ownership of this whole area

is still hotly contested by Jews and Muslims,

but inside the Dome Of The Rock,

all is peace and calm.

-WHISPERS:

-I'm now standing at the base of the sacred rock,

a rock that is sacred to both the Jews and the Muslims.

For the Jews, this is the rock

where they believed that Abraham went to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

And for the Muslims, this is the rock

from where Muhammad ascended into heaven.

It really is one of the most holy places in the whole of Jerusalem.

Today, the Haram al-Sharif is fairly empty,

but every Friday thousands of Muslims gather here

to say prayers on their holy day.

2,000 years ago, during the big Jewish festivals,

the space would have been filled with Jewish pilgrims.

I really am taken back by the vastness of this whole area,

and I'm trying to imagine what it would be like

with thousands upon thousands of worshippers here.

For the faithful, then as now,

this is far more than just a place of worship -

it's also somewhere to study and discuss belief.

-What are you doing here?

-We are learning Koran.

-You're learning it.

-We are learning...

-To understand it?

-Yes, we are. That's right, yes.

-And...

-This is our Koran for the whole Muslims.

-It's, like, a Koran study?

-Yes. Study.

-Study.

-Study. Teacher. We are...study.

-Students, we are.

-And when you read this, then your teacher explains...

-Yes.

-..what it means and...

-Yes.

-..and how it relates to your faith.

-Yes, yes, yes.

-It's very interesting.

As an observant Jew,

Peter would have spent time carefully studying his sacred book,

the Hebrew Bible,

perhaps searching for any text that pointed to Jesus as the Messiah -

something he could use to win new Jewish converts.

For modern Jews, the tradition of studying and debating

the finer points of Jewish scripture continues in religious schools,

known as yeshivas.

We're in a room of young men, and they're two people at a table.

-Yeah.

-What are they doing?

So basically they're learning.

They're learning together to understand.

So what do you do, debate it?

We're checking each other. OK, let's say you say that,

so I'm...I'm saying different. Let's see who's right.

-And can it get very animated?

-Yeah. Sometimes, there's screaming here,

-but love-scream, you know.

-Yes.

It's love and it's always like it's giving you energy -

like I want more, I want to understand what's going on.

-It's so... It's so beautiful.

-It becomes quite passionate.

Yeah, passionate. That's what's beautiful about the Gemara.

-He can be right.

-Yeah.

-There's nothing wrong.

You go to the rabbi, you ask him,

he's going to tell you something different, completely different! And he's right, as well.

Now tell me why you see lots of boys here, they're...

They're moving like this.

-OK, I tell you something, what I think, yeah?

-Yeah.

Basically, Jewish, all over the world, wherever you see them...

Yeah, yeah. All of the...

..they just... If they're not...

They can't stand, they can't sit down.

-They need to move always. They need to move.

-Yes.

-Yeah?

When you open the Gemara and you have the passion,

you have the passion, you can't just sit like that.

You're getting excited from something and you sit there and learn it like that.

-If you're excited, you need to show it, you need to move!

-Yeah.

-I'm excited!

I'm... I'm moving, you know. You get excited, you get happy.

Being here has really taught me one thing...

..and that is that this is nothing like a Bible study group

would be in England.

I've not seen anything like this.

I've never seen anything so passionate.

But we are talking about the Middle East,

and we're talking about this particular religion,

the Jewish religion, which is full of passion.

And it makes me think of Peter and the disciples

and even Jesus himself.

They were Jewish. They were Middle Eastern, debating the law,

and trying to work out... what was in it.

And you can see them arguing passionately,

not as we tend to sanitise it in the West.

And from what I'm learning about Peter,

who was impulsive and impetuous,

I'm also learning that

he was probably a very passionate man, as well.

But would that passion be enough to win over new converts?

In a world where many believed in miracles,

performing wondrous acts helped to convince onlookers

that Peter was filled with the power and authority of God.

How important were miracles to the Jesus movement?

I don't think you could have had the beginnings of Christianity

without very miraculous acts of power, acts of healing.

People really did expect the Messiah to do fantastic things -

of healing, of raising the dead.

Then, with Peter, I think Peter was very important

in continuing the momentum that was first established by Jesus.

He had the power of the Holy Spirit in him from Jesus,

and he was healing in the name of Jesus.

I mean, even to the extent that if his shadow passed them...

-Is that right?

-Absolutely.

So, Peter's shadow would pass by and people thought,

"Well, we could get healed by him because he is so powerful."

Oh, really?

But he had already proven by that time that he had incredible power

working with him, healing in the name of Jesus,

making people well again around the temple.

So he was a fantastically important figure.

Peter's reputation as a miracle worker

helped win Jewish converts to the Jesus movement.

But what of the non-Jewish world?

In the Book Of Acts, Peter comes to realise

that the death and resurrection of Jesus was not just for the Jews -

it was meant to usher in a new age of social inclusion,

for Jews and non-Jews alike.

Peter was about to convert the first Gentile.

And, as historian Gil Gambash explained,

this was no ordinary convert,

but a Roman centurion called Cornelius,

stationed in the Mediterranean garrison town of Caesarea.

Do you think it would have been a big moment for the Jesus movement

at that time to have a Roman centurion wanting to convert?

I think that, for the time that we are talking about,

-this is revolutionary.

-Really?

-Yes.

A distinguished citizen of this town, a pagan, a centurion

-with a very rich household...

-Yes.

-..lots of followers...

-Yes.

..and he invites his family, so this is a distinguished person.

This kind of person is converting,

so all of you out there who are considering this

and who are usually looking up to centurions in this society

can imagine that this is doable. Definitely.

Well, we talk about Cornelius, but it's a huge moment for Peter.

This movement is debating whether to stay within Judaism

or to emerge out into the Gentile world.

Now this involves two very significant moves -

one, to accept people who are not circumcised and

two, to be able to eat non-kosher food.

-Yes.

-Very... Very basic. Very simple.

Once Peter comes here and accepts into this new movement a Gentile,

a non-circumcised person,

-who is probably also eating non-kosher food...

-Yes.

..then this movement takes a very significant turn,

and from this point onward we can see how the entire Gentile communities...

-Yes.

-..of the Mediterranean are fair game.

Peter's actions spark a major debate

within what was still a branch of Judaism.

Should non-Jews entering the Jesus movement follow Jewish law?

More worryingly, back in Jerusalem,

Peter and his followers are becoming a threat

to the established Jewish leadership and their Roman overseers.

What was the problem with the Jesus movement

for these religious rulers?

Well, the Jesus movement,

which is a movement of people claiming

to have special authority

which circumvents the normal paths

and channels of authority

in the Jewish world,

they're not taking their orders from anybody except from God.

So they're claiming authority in ways which pose a threat

to the established Jewish authorities in Jerusalem.

A Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Israel means not a Kingdom of Rome.

-Oh, OK.

-And to preach the coming end of the kingdom

is something which gets people in trouble in the Roman Empire.

It was what got Jesus into trouble

and it's what's getting his followers into trouble as well.

His followers were, perhaps, a little bit more threatening

cos they claimed to be pointing to a really massive miracle,

which shows they've got to be right.

They know who this coming king is going to be,

and he's been resurrected. That's what they're claiming.

So, the Jesus movement was really

going against Rome?

Yeah, I think that's what was probably most threatening

in the eyes of the priesthood.

They had to make sure from day to day that the Roman governor,

who had his garrison in Jerusalem,

and his agents and his informers,

that they were all happy, because if they're not happy,

-things are going to go very badly.

-Yeah.

The Book of Acts tells how Herod Agrippa,

the Roman-appointed King of Judea,

struck against the Jesus movement and had Peter imprisoned.

Execution was a near certainty.

But that night, Peter makes a miraculous escape.

He travels across the city

and goes to a house, where his friends are in hiding.

But the disciples wouldn't believe it was Peter at the door.

"No, Peter...Peter's in prison.

"By now, he could have even been executed."

Then Acts tells us...

"But Peter kept on knocking.

"And when they opened the door and saw him,

"they were astonished.

"Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet,

"and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison.

"'Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this,' he said.

"And then he left for another place."

I've always found that a very unsatisfactory exit

for the character of Peter.

"He then left for another place."

Where did he go? We're just not told.

He just disappears.

'A letter in the New Testament,

'known as 1 Peter, offers a clue.'

'Opinion differs on whether or not

'Peter was the actual writer of the letter,

'but it's addressed to Christian communities in Asia Minor,

'including Cappadocia in modern-day Turkey.

'Could he have come here?'

There are some places on this earth that don't quite seem to belong here.

They're like fragments of an alien planet.

The whole region around Goreme in Turkish Cappadocia

is just one of those places.

It's the most extraordinary landscape,

shaped by volcanic activity for the past ten million years.

And over time, wind and water

have carved these soft volcanic rocks

into the most bizarre shapes.

People have lived here since the earliest times,

and it's also provided refuge

for some of the very first Christian communities.

As Christianity spread through Cappadocia,

places of worship were carved out of the soft rock.

Art historian Ferda Barut

took me into the fresco-filled dark church.

My, goodness me.

Wow!

Look at that!

These are extraordinary!

Yes, that's true.

I have never seen anything like this ever before.

These frescoes are dated from the 11th century.

Do we have any pictures of Peter here?

Yes, we have.

-Here we see the transfiguration scene.

-Yes.

And here we see Peter,

with the curly white hair,

at the left of the scene.

'These wonderful frescoes are from the 11th century,

'but we know that many centuries earlier

'Christian hermits were living in these caves.

'Intriguingly, when the Cappadocian Christian leader St Basil

'sought to establish a proper community here

'in the fourth century,

'he seemed to have been influenced by Peter.'

St Basil, especially,

stresses upon the point that

you have to live together,

not in isolated ways.

You have to be in contact with the society.

That's very interesting, Ferda, because Peter,

when he formed his first community,

told people that they had to share everything -

money, goods, possessions.

Do you think that influenced Basil?

Yes, of course, I think that.

I think that because St Basil mentions Peter in his letters,

and they...

St Basil copies some of the rules

for his community here.

He tries to build almost the same thing for the community.

What was going on with St Basil and the other Cappadocian fathers

may well have been inspired by Peter.

"Live in harmony with one another.

"Be sympathetic.

"Love as brothers.

"Be compassionate and humble.

"Do not repay evil with evil,

"or insult with insult,

"but with blessing, because to this you were called

"so that you may inherit a blessing."

Now, this is from a letter that mentions the Cappadocians

and that also, some credit to Peter.

But is this proof that the man himself was actually here?

'Rock-cut churches, big and small,

'are scattered across this landscape.

'Many are filled with the most beautiful frescoes.

'I took a moment to go in search of more images of Peter.'

I'm now standing in the oldest rock-cut cave church in the region,

and all around me, on the walls and ceilings,

are little panels depicting the life of Jesus Christ in sequence,

rather like a filmstrip.

And if I move into another, and much larger, part of the church,

which was added later,

when Christianity was more established,

there was no need to tell the story of Jesus.

Instead, they were showing on the walls stories of the Gospels.

And over there...

you can see the Apostles and Peter in his fishing boat.

'Could Peter really have come here?

'What would he have made of this extraordinary landscape?

'I met up with biblical scholar Helen Bond.'

Do we have any evidence at all

that Peter was here in Cappadocia?

Well, we have a couple of little hints.

In the Book of Acts, at Pentecost we hear that

there are Jewish people there

-in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast.

-Yes.

And so, they get caught up in this whole sort of Pentecost thing,

so it's possible that when they go back to Cappadocia,

they take some of the message.

So, is it possible that Peter,

in a sense, would have visited them here?

Yes, I think that's quite likely.

If he thought there might be a receptive audience here,

if people had already heard him,

perhaps people had said to him, you know,

"We're really interested in this. We'd like to hear more about it."

So, you would call him a missionary?

Yeah, he was definitely a missionary.

He's going out finding synagogues,

finding Jews that he can convert to the new way of life.

And what would it have been like

being a missionary in this sort of country?

Well, yes, I think pretty incredible.

But he would have...he would have known.

I mean, there was a fairly well sort of planned out series

of the Jewish dispersion, or the Diaspora,

around the Mediterranean,

and those are the places that welcomed him, too,

you know, as a Jewish brother from Jerusalem.

Because, of course, Christianity is still a version of Judaism.

-It's a kind...

-Yes, yes.

..it's a branch of the Jewish belief.

'Another clue that Peter may have been active in this region

'can be found in one of the letters of the Apostle Paul,

'a newcomer to the movement charged with converting Gentiles.

'He writes of a conflict with Peter in Antioch in Asia Minor,

'over the continuing argument of whether Gentiles

'must accept Jewish law.'

Oh, look at the... Oh, goodness!

-HIS WORDS ECHO

-Hear the echo? Ah! Ha!

It's quite ornate, it's quite pretty up there.

It is, isn't it?

This is an old church with...

Helen, you and I are talking about a time

when the church didn't even exist.

And Peter had left Jerusalem,

but, all of a sudden, we see him turn up at a big meeting

where there was huge arguments and debates.

It was quite fraught.

What was it all about?

Well, you have to remember that this is the very,

very earliest stages of Christianity.

Nobody knew what they were doing at that moment.

They're working it out, working out what God's plan for them is

as they go along.

So they've been taking the message out, they've been evangelising,

and they seem to have been also offering the message to Gentiles.

And Gentiles have been coming into the movement,

sometimes in quite large numbers.

And everybody seems to be agreed that offering the message

to Gentiles is a good thing.

The question is, though, on what basis?

Do they first have to become Jews

and then become Christians?

-Christian-Jews, in effect.

-Yes.

Or are you allowed, simply as a Gentile,

to believe in what Jesus has done, to be baptised,

and then to be a Christian?

And what was Peter's stance?

Well, according to Acts, Peter has a dream in which

he's told that he can eat any food.

Oh, right.

And all foods, all peoples, are clean.

This dream is really telling him that...

that the future is going to be very different,

that now he can, um...

He can sit down and have meals with Gentiles.

So, there was... Could you see it as a heated debate?

I think it was extremely heated, yes.

'The argument forced Peter to return, at least briefly,

'to Jerusalem,

'where he was able to convince the Jesus movement

'that Gentile converts did not need to observe all Jewish law,

'including circumcision.

'It was one of the most important moments in the history

'of Christianity.

'The whole of the pagan world

'was now open to the new faith.'

If Peter did travel beyond Israel,

it's quite possible that he visited and spent some time

in Asia Minor, here in Cappadocia.

Well, certainly, there were Jewish and then Christian communities here

since the earliest days,

and traditions about Peter and Paul visiting this region

still lives on.

But there's nothing to say that Peter ended his days here.

So where did he possibly go next?

One tradition is that he travelled to Rome.

For the Roman Catholic Church, Peter is the first Bishop of Rome,

the first Pope chosen by Jesus as his successor.

My first stop in Rome is the Vatican's magnificent Sistine Chapel.

Peter features in Michelangelo's great masterpiece

The Last Judgment, which adorns an entire wall of the chapel.

But the Sistine is also the place where cardinals gather

to elect a new Pope.

Arguably the most important painting of them all

is Pietro Perugino's Delivery Of The Keys.

This is the only picture in the series that's not telling a story.

The fresco is more a statement than a story.

It's the moment when Christ is making Peter his vicar,

and the fresco has to be there to

legitimise the first Pope and to introduce the Petrine ministry

after Christ has returned to heaven.

And because Jesus gives Peter that office,

if you like...

that justifies the Vatican being called St Peter's.

That is where the tradition starts.

-That's legitimising the successor of Peter...

-Yes.

..because his power comes directly from Christ,

and is represented in this very emblematic form of the two keys.

-But Christ never gave two keys to Peter.

-No.

-This is a way...

-It was symbolic.

That's... Yeah, but it was sort of invented by the painters.

Is there anything in this picture that tells us about

the character of Peter through the eyes of the painter?

Peter is a person, in the way he's represented,

that you would trust.

-If you like, a fatherly figure, an elderly figure.

-Yes.

And those are attributes that the artist, in general,

attribute to Peter to make him, basically, the first holy father.

But how likely is it that Peter actually came here?

'On the Via Appia, the ancient road from Rome's seaport to the city,

'I met biblical scholar Ed Adams.'

Ed, we're told that Peter might have come to Rome.

Do we have any evidence that he was here?

-Well, there's no explicit evidence in the New Testament.

-No.

But there's a very strong hint in Peter's first letter.

-You see, he gives a greeting from "she who is in Babylon".

-Oh.

Now "she" probably refers to a church.

So the question is, what's Babylon?

Now, it probably wasn't historical Babylon

-because it was a wasteland at this time.

-Yes.

So it's very likely that it's a codeword for Rome

-because it was used in this way in ancient Jewish texts...

-I see.

Yeah, and also in the Book of Revelation,

Babylon is a way of talking about Rome.

So it looks to be that that letter was written from Rome.

And when Peter came to Rome he would have come this way?

He would have walked the Appian Way from the south into the city.

I do find that extraordinary that we're actually standing on it.

Yeah.

Well, unfortunately, Ed, I think we still have some way to go.

We do indeed.

-Now what a view!

-Yes.

-And there's St Peter's.

-St Peter's, yeah.

The tradition is that Peter may have founded Christianity in Rome.

That's right. There is an early tradition which states that.

-I am sceptical of that because in Paul's letter to the Romans...

-Yes.

..he presumes a church which is already in existence,

and he never mentions Peter in that letter.

And you would expect him to do that

if Peter had been the evangeliser of the church at Rome.

So if Peter didn't found Christianity in Rome,

how did it come to be here?

Well, the most likely explanation is through travelling Jewish believers.

There had been for quite some time

a very strong Jewish community in Rome,

with very strong links back to Jerusalem.

So there was a recognised route from Jerusalem to Rome.

The Jewish community in Rome is said to be

the oldest Jewish community in Europe,

and it was well established in Peter's time.

So if he did come to this city

it would have been the obvious place for him to stay.

Where we are, here, is a Jewish community,

a Jewish, you would you say, "quarter"?

Yeah, we call this the ghetto neighbourhood.

'Riccardo Di Segni has been the Chief Rabbi of Rome since 2001.'

What do you think the community in Rome

would have felt about the new Jesus movement,

Jews coming believing in that, here in Rome?

How would they have been treat...?

The Jews were split into different parties,

and they killed each other.

They were very disordered.

-Did they fight each other?

-Yes!

-This is a community where we fight about any issue...

-Yes.

..as we have very deeply rooted customs, so...

Can you tell me anything about Peter, here?

We don't have, as Jews, specific news

about Peter coming to Rome.

-But we have some interesting legends.

-Go on, tell me!

He was a religious poet who composed poems and prayers,

so there is a legend that says that one specific prayer that we recite on

the morning of Shabbat, which is called Nishmat Kol Chai,

a very beautiful religious poem, had been written by him.

Ah, it is not true,

but it is very interesting that this tradition is kept.

It means that the specific character is considered with sympathy.

It was certainly a curious legend,

but it also perhaps points to a simple truth -

that Peter always stayed close to his Jewish religion.

Of course in the centuries that followed

he would be claimed by the newly emerging Christian church.

In this backstreet of Rome...

is a little piece of England that has been here for 650 years.

The Venerable English College is a Catholic seminary

that prepares young Englishmen for the priesthood.

It seemed a good place to talk to a future generation of priests

about Peter, and his significance to them.

-So this is the English College?

-That's right.

And the oldest English institution outside of England.

The... Say that again? The oldest...

The oldest English institution outside of England.

You've got to understand, in the year 1300,

the Pope at the time, Boniface the VIII,

declared a Holy Year,

inviting pilgrims to come from all over northern Europe,

and they came in their thousands, including Englishmen.

And that coat of arms, it was above the door here saying,

"This is the English hospice. You can stay here."

And what was their pilgrimage at that point?

So coming to St Peter's tomb.

-I mean, that was the point.

-Oh, to St Peter's tomb!

-Exactly.

So the Pope at the time was trying to refocus

European Christianity back onto Rome, and that was the very purpose of it.

And that's the start of this now seminary as an institution.

-Pilgrims to see the bones of Peter.

-To come to the tomb of Peter.

So we're going to do two things.

-We're going to take the excess wax off here...

-Yeah.

..with your hand first of all.

-Just going to take this top edge off...

-Oh, I see.

-..just so it looks a bit smarter, that's all.

-Yes.

-So there's your knife and there's your candle.

-Right.

While I'm doing this, tell me what you feel about St Peter.

What is he to you?

He's accessible. I think that's the key word.

You know, some of the saints in the history of the church are perfect,

and that's wonderful.

You know, they've lived perfect human lives,

they've had every human virtue you'd ever want to have.

Peter didn't. Peter messes it up all the time.

And I think most of us in the church can completely relate to that.

These are the scrapbooks.

Another job in the college is to cut out bits of newspaper

-and put them in these books.

-Is that your job?

No, it's another one.

Ah, so the first one here from 1850...

Let me read this out loud. It's the most amazing language.

"Do not be humbugged by the exploded cry of "No Popery".

"It is a phrase coined in the mint of persecution

"and only fit for ancient apple-women."

How wonderful, isn't it?

-And then up in...

-These are wonderful.

-Yeah.

That's like one of my scrapbooks. I'm not in here.

And last year was a very big year with the election of Pope Francis.

We all ran in the rain to the square to get our positions.

And I'm somewhere there...

-You're there.

-..with my friends. It was very dramatic.

What do you think of Peter, then?

The amazing thing about St Peter is, you know,

he makes mistakes, he's not always,

certainly at the start,

he's not always sort of perfect or living up to kind of Christ,

if you will.

And I can see so much in myself in that story as well, you know?

Today, Peter's legacy is an inspiration.

And part of that is the tradition that he was martyred.

I wondered how Peter could've met his end.

SIREN BLARES

-Whoo-hoo-hoo!

-Exciting, yeah?

-Yeah, for me!

If he were in Rome,

then he would have been part of one of the most catastrophic events in

the history of the city.

The Great Fire of Rome broke out on a hot summer's night in AD 64.

Would the fire have spread very quickly?

There were poor houses.

Also with the material,

combustible materials...

-Yes.

-..mixed together.

Just dry wood.

Dry wood and there was not also water in the houses, so...

Oh, now that's interesting.

It was very difficult for them.

Were there ways of fighting a fire,

like we have the fire brigade now, like you?

At the time, there was not a real fire station, a real...

-No.

-..fire unit.

The Great Fire started actually here in the Circus Maximus.

You have to imagine that there was seating up in either side,

and outside, under the arches, there were shops.

And in one of these shops, that it's said

sold inflammable goods or inflammable materials,

the fire started. And it was a summer evening,

it was very hot and there was a strong wind.

And it's said that the fire swept down Circus Maximus here,

and the flames were sort of generated by this wind

that could sweep down.

It really was a catastrophe.

The story goes that after the fire,

the Emperor Nero turned on the Christians.

What evidence do we have that he then blamed

the Christians for starting the fire?

Well, there is some evidence for that, but it is quite slight.

Nero was a person who was a very nervous emperor in many ways.

He did like to find scapegoats.

It seems not out of character that he would do such a thing.

-And tradition has always had it that it was the Christians...

-Yes.

..that, um, he chose as his scapegoats.

That tradition goes back to

the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus.

"He falsely charged with guilt

"and punished with the most fearful tortures

"the persons commonly called Christians."

But what of Peter?

Well, it's possible that in the aftermath of

the Great Fire of Rome, that Peter got swept up in Nero's attempt

-to scapegoat the Christians...

-Yes.

-..and was executed.

If that took place, then he would have been burned alive

because the Romans killed arsonists by burning them.

-It was sort of an eye for an eye, the lex talionis.

-Yes.

We'll burn you cos you burned the city.

Where does the tradition that Peter was martyred upside down come from?

The tradition that Peter was crucified upside down

comes from much later, from 100 years after he died.

Oh!

And the idea that he was crucified upside down

because he didn't think he was worthy to die like Jesus,

-you know, the story you hear in Sunday school.

-Yes.

-That's actually from another 400 years later.

-400 years?!

-400. Now...

-Oh, wow!

It is possible that the Roman soldiers might have acceded

to a request to be crucified upside down.

Or they might actually have been punishing him.

If Peter had been on his way to martyrdom and said,

"Well, this is great, I'm going to die like my saviour,"

they might have said, "No you're not,

"we're going to execute you upside down." Just as a way to punish him.

They did have a lot of freedom, the soldiers did, when it came to

executing common criminals, and they were very brutal.

So we can imagine that he might have been crucified,

he might also have been quietly beheaded,

-or perhaps garrotted in a prison somewhere.

-Yes.

Do you think they would have singled him out,

or was he just one of many?

Well, if Peter had come to Rome,

we can imagine he would have been a celebrity to other Christians.

-This is someone who knew Jesus, who touched him...

-Yes.

..who lived with him, which would have made him a leader here.

And the Romans, when they did try to target Christians,

did target the leaders

because those would leave the biggest impact on the community.

That would be devastating for a small Christian community

to lose someone like Peter.

Whatever the truth, the image of Peter crucified upside down

is now one of the founding traditions

of the Roman Catholic Church.

This is Filippino Lippi's Crucifixion of St Peter.

And what I think

is really extraordinary about it is that he introduces

this idea of movement.

So you can see the figure on the right with a pulley, pulling him up.

-Yes.

-These two figures either side holding him in place.

So this the moment literally of crucifixion.

Jerry, as an actor, whenever I look at a picture,

I always look at people's costumes and people's faces,

and where they're looking,

and the relationships between people. And I notice here

that all the other faces are dark,

except that person there,

looking right at Peter's face

with such a feeling of sorrow and sadness.

Actually the focus is NOT on Peter's face.

-It's on the everyday figure who is showing the sorrow...

-Yes.

..of Peter's crucifixion.

-Mirroring OUR sorrow.

-It's our sorrow.

-Yes.

But let's look at the next painting which is just through here.

And what happens here is a complete change.

This is Michelangelo, this is in the Vatican,

and this is an extraordinary painting.

Look at the figure of St Peter.

He glares at you.

So he gives you the emotion much more powerfully

-than any other previous art...

-He's looking out.

He's glaring at you, David.

He's saying, "Look at what is happening at me."

This is actually an ANGRY Peter.

Let's move on and look at the next picture and how this idea develops.

So this is Caravaggio's rendition of St Peter.

Oh, wow, that is AMAZING!

Isn't it?

Oh! This is extraordinary.

-People were absolutely scandalised when it was first...

-Where? Why?

Because they just thought that you can't portray a figure

like St Peter in this way, clearly in pain,

clearly in distress, clearly not wanting to be here.

This is not the calm notion of Peter saying,

"I am a martyr, I welcome this."

Caravaggio is saying,

"This is difficult, hard, horrible, painful stuff."

And to me, Peter's almost looking at his hand and saying,

"So THIS is what Jesus felt."

Exactly. I think this is what Caravaggio captures.

He's not just a symbol of the church. He's a real man.

-This happened to him.

-Not a saintly picture.

No, I think we've definitely moved from Peter really is an icon.

-He represents a certain aspect of the story...

-Yes.

..so by the early 17th century he can be identified as

the man in the street who is suffering extreme pain.

-But at the same time, he's a very important figure in the story...

-Yes.

-..of Christianity.

-Yes.

So if Peter was executed in Rome, what happened to his body?

According to the Roman Catholic Church,

he was buried on the Vatican Hill -

the very reason St Peter's Basilica was built.

But before I go there,

I want to investigate a very curious side story.

That 200 years after his death,

Peter's remains were moved

to a site just outside Rome on the Via Appia -

the very road Peter once travelled along on his way into the city.

Today, this basilica is dedicated to San Sebastian,

a very popular Roman martyr.

But originally it was known as the Basilica of the Apostles

because tradition holds that the relics of both Peter and Paul

were brought here to the catacombs beneath this church

during the Christian persecutions of Emperor Valerian in the 3rd century.

OK, David, let's go this way.

Be careful.

My goodness.

Really does look like an underground city.

It's AMAZING!

In Greek the word "catacomb" literally means

"near the hollows", and it was first used to describe

the underground cemetery of San Sebastian because these tombs

were built in the remains of an ancient rock quarry.

It's a very strange feeling being down here.

It's getting colder as you come down further.

It's getting colder and quite damp now.

We've got a big step here.

OK.

Wow!

Oh, my goodness!

Oh, that's weird.

A real sense of what it was like

walking through here with bodies on every ledge.

Extraordinary.

And very spooky.

Oh, look, there's some more.

Oh, there's another one here, look.

Oop, it's so narrow.

Ugh!

I feel like going home.

'The catacombs were a pagan burial ground

'and date back to at least the 2nd century.'

And here, David, we have the remaining of the graffiti wall.

'But in 258 AD, under the Emperor Valerian's persecutions,

'the catacombs became a haven for a group of Christians

'who came here to worship Peter and Paul.

'Could they have disinterred the remains of the saints

'from their original graves and brought them here for safekeeping?'

Paul...and Peter...

..pray for me...

..for victory.

Lucky I did Latin at school.

Peter and Paul, Peter and Paul. It's everywhere...

their names.

Oh, this is very clear now.

Peter...petish...petit...pray for us, pray for me.

Well, if this was a wall,

it's obvious that the people who wrote all this must have thought...

that Peter and Paul were here.

I mean, it's like a commemoration wall.

Or maybe they even knew they were there.

Extraordinary.

It seems that if the remains of Peter and Paul

were ever kept here, then it was only for a short time.

Once the persecution ended,

Christians stopped leaving messages on this wall.

The remains of the saints may then have been returned

to their original burial sites.

Of course, the tradition is that Peter's grave is

now beneath the basilica that bears his name.

And for Roman Catholics,

the holiest place within is the Clementine Chapel,

where I met Cardinal Angelo Comastri.

SPOKEN ITALIAN IN TRANSLATION:

How do you, as a cardinal,

feel inside,

being so close to the bones of St Peter?

And there he is.

Shimon...

Peter.

Simon Peter.

Holding the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

It's a long way away from the fisherman I first met in Galilee.

But there he is.

And if it wasn't for him, this extraordinary building,

this extraordinary edifice would never be here.

So if Peter is buried beneath the Vatican, how did he come to be here?

In the 1940s, Vatican archaeologists

made an extraordinary discovery.

A few metres below the floor of St Peter's...

..was a Roman necropolis, or city of the dead.

During Roman times,

it was forbidden to bury the dead

within the walls of the city,

so mausoleums sprung up along the roads leading out of Rome.

One of them ran up the Vatican Hill alongside the Circus of Nero -

an ancient racetrack -

where the Roman historian Tacitus says,

"The emperor executed Christians."

By the mid-second century,

Roman Christians were marking what they believed to be

the grave of St Peter with a red wall and a shrine called a tropian.

When archaeologists dug below the tropian,

they uncovered an empty grave.

Bone fragments were later found nearby,

purportedly belonging to St Peter,

though no Pope has ever definitively declared that they are HIS remains.

In the early 4th century,

the existence of the shrine led the Christian Emperor Constantine

to build the first basilica of St Peter,

levelling the slope of the hill

and filling in the street of the dead to form the foundations.

When that fell into ruin in the 16th century,

work began on the present building.

Goodness me.

So that grave, the grave of Peter,

is just below - at the bottom of those pillars.

It's from Peter's life and death

that all subsequent Roman Catholic popes draw their authority.

CHEERING

CROWD CHEERS

To many people in this crowd,

Peter is probably best remembered as the first Bishop of Rome,

or the first Pope.

But whether he led a church here,

or even came to this city and met his death here,

we can never be quite sure.

But I can't help wondering what Peter, the humble fisherman,

would have made of all this.

CROWD CHANTS

As he looked back on his life,

maybe he looked at those three years he spent with Jesus

like a sudden storm sweeping across the Sea of Galilee -

dangerous and unpredictable.

And yet, somehow,

he managed to battle his way through those dark waters

and set a new course,

one that would ultimately launch a new religion

far away from the shores of Galilee.

What a remarkable journey.

What a remarkable man.

CHORAL MUSIC DOMINATES SOUNDTRACK