Pod Insights The Ancients Rise of Christianity About this episode How did a persecuted minority religion rise to be embraced and enforced by mighty Roman Emperors?
Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Peter Heather to chart the dramatic rise of Christianity, exploring how Emperors such as Constantine the Great were forced to hide their true religions and the suppression of paganism across the world.
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Council of Nicea
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Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
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Transcript 11,160 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Tristan Hughes? Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week, covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.
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1:07 Tristan Hughes? Hello, I just want to say a quick message. Welcome back. We are kicking off 2026 on the ancients with a bang because we're talking about the rise of Christianity. And guys, we've got so many episodes already lined up for you over the coming months. We're going to be covering everything from Alexander the Great to Neanderthals, early popes, ancient Egypt, Hadrian's Wall, Jericho, Korea, Arabia, India, saber-toothed tigers, Ice Age, and so much more. That's all to come. We're so excited. We are prepped and primed to make 2026 the biggest ever for the ancients. And we want you along with us for the ride for as long as you can. So exciting, lots to get into.
1:49 Tristan Hughes? And let's kick it off with this episode today, The Rise of Christianity.
2:04 Tristan Hughes? It's the year 300 in the Roman Empire. Christianity is a small fragmented religious minority and about to face the harshest persecution in its history. But fast forward 100 years and the emperors are Christian, pagan temples are closing, and bishops are political heavyweights. How did this happen? How did an empire that once hunted Christians come to embrace them? Today, we're tackling one of the most dramatic religious and political transformations in world history: the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. To help us unpack this extraordinary story, we're joined once again by historian Peter
2:46 Tristan Hughes? Heather, whose book, Christendom, explores how a tiny persecuted sect defeated its religious rivals, converted Constantine, and eventually came to dominate the whole of Europe. Peter, welcome back to the show. It is great to have you back on the podcast.
3:04 Speaker 02 It's fantastic to be here. And we're talking about something else.
3:07 Tristan Hughes? We're talking about something else. I mean, who'd have thought it? We've done the fall of Rome, we've done the Saxons, and now we're doing the rise of Christianity. And I think it's fair to say, the 4th century, it's a big century for Christianity.
3:20 Speaker 02 It's actually huge. There's quite a lot of scholarship out there that doesn't quite want to recognise it, but if you look at the before and the after, then a lot changes.
3:35 Tristan Hughes? And can we say that this is one of the few big revolutionary moments in European, and maybe even in world history, which is the rise and Romanisation of Christianity across this century?
3:49 Speaker 02 In my view, you absolutely can. I mean, it's very hard to... Shake off hindsight here because we know Christianity becomes this dominant cultural system across the European landscape and then in the process of European expansion and colonisation in the early modern and modern periods, it spreads across the globe. And you have this colossal structure, absolutely colossal. The thought that it was anything ever other than colossal and that it might not have become so colossal, that is really hard to encompass when you first start thinking about it, I think. So, you know, stretching your mind back and really looking at the process that led to
4:33 Speaker 02 this outcome, that that is worth doing but hard to do.
4:37 Tristan Hughes? I guess it's also interesting, as we'll delve into with with certain key moments that epitomise this, I mean, what is it, it's the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nice this year as well.
4:46 Speaker 02 Yes, it is.
4:47 Tristan Hughes? So, like you also see over this century, almost the formulation of, oh, can we say almost like official Christianity at the time, the kind of defining what is right and what is wrong in their eyes.
4:59 Speaker 02 Absolutely so. If you're thinking about Christianity as a system, then obviously when you're deciding what is the Christian view on anything, you go back to the Bible as the source texts, Old Testament, New Testament. But there is no religious system straightforwardly in the Bible. You have to extract the passages that you think are relevant to any particular topic, you know, understanding of God, what is good piety, you know, all the key questions. And then you have to string them together in an order and iron out any ambiguities
5:40 Speaker 02 or potential contradictions occasionally. So, turning the biblical evidence into the backbone of a system, that is a huge intellectual process. And it takes a long time. Some of it doesn't happen really until the 12th century. But the 4th century is a big moment where some really key things are sorted out.
6:02 Tristan Hughes? And do we have quite a rich array of source material for charting this rise of Christianity throughout the 4th century?
6:09 Speaker 02 For the 4th century, we do have a lot of material. You've got a spread of Christianity through the highly literate classes, the Roman elites, and they write a lot about it. And with the removal of persecution, the Christian intellectual centres, you know, places like Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, their physical record of their writings doesn't get disturbed or broken up in the way that it did before. I mean, they'd been literate since whenever, but the continuity in the transmission of texts is disturbed and broken up by persecution, whereas from the 4th century onwards it doesn't. So there's a certain amount of self-centring where they burn the products of people
6:54 Speaker 02 who are deemed to be wrong as this process unfolds. But, you know, if you look at the sheer quantity of writing that survives Christian about Christianity from the 4th century, I mean, it's colossal. Would fill some very good bookshelves.
7:09 Tristan Hughes? Probably this one.
7:10 Speaker 02 Oh, easily.
7:11 Tristan Hughes? And quite a few more.
7:11 Speaker 02 Easily, yeah, easily.
7:12 Tristan Hughes? And as you as I highlighted there, it's not very like lovey dovey, very peaceful, this rise of Christianity. There is some violent episodes in it as well, which we'll certainly cover.
7:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
7:21 Tristan Hughes? And I guess also on the archaeology side, I'd think of things like coinage straight away, but also architecture, the building of big churches and the like. I guess those are our other sources of information for this.
7:33 Speaker 02 Yes, they are. And we do start to get them. There's only, I think there are about two, possibly three, pre-4th century churches that have been identified. And at least one of those is contentious. But they're basically just house churches. They're not purpose-built buildings. So the one at Duropus, which is the best preserved one.
7:56 Tristan Hughes? The Pompeii on the Euphrates.
7:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. That is just a townhouse which has been converted for Christian use.
8:05 Speaker 02 So a central meeting room and a few side rooms, but it's just a house. It's like sort of modern Protestant sects that meet in houses.
8:14 Tristan Hughes? Well, let's start exploring that, but first of all, let's go back right to the beginning of the fourth century. So 300 AD, Peter, what does Christianity look like at this time? Because often you'll get little snippets online saying that Christianity at this time was only like five or 10%. So what do we know about this?
8:35 Speaker 02 You don't have an exact figure, of course. Well, you know, it wouldn't be fun if you did, would there be nothing to argue about? You have to kind of extrapolate. And there are some grandiose estimates suggesting that Christianity is between 10 and 20%, but there's no way that can be true.
8:54 Tristan Hughes? And also when we're saying that, we mean within the bounds of the Roman Empire.
8:58 Speaker 02 Within the bounds of Roman Empire, yes. There are a few Christian communities in the Persian Empire and Mesopotamia, not anywhere else, I don't think. Don't think it's spreading across the Silk Road yet in any dramatic way. But that that figure's got to be wrong. The reason it's got to be wrong is that 90% of the Roman population are peasants living in the countryside. And we know that Christianity doesn't spread systematically into the countryside until the sixth century. It's actually a post-Roman phenomenon in the West. There are one, two areas of the countryside, Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, where there clearly is some penetration of the countryside, but
9:42 Speaker 02 North Africa as well. Many parts of the Roman Empire, no sign of any Christianity in the countryside whatsoever. So you can't get to 20%. That knocks that out. And then if you go more positively, a lot of French scholars, Roman Catholic, have put a lot of effort into identifying how many bishops there might be, because the mark of an organised Christian community is whether it has a bishop or not in about 300 AD. And there are 1,800 or so city units in the Roman Empire, and about 600 of these have an organised.
10:18 Speaker 02 Christian community, so only one third.
10:20 Tristan Hughes? Do you think that might even, that might even include London in the North West?
10:24 Speaker 02 It, three Brits make it to the Council of Nicaea in three twenty five.
10:29 Tristan Hughes? So that might suggest that, you know, twenty five years earlier, there probably still was a bishop of London at that time.
10:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's probably spread up through the, the sort of busier networks, economic and social networks that are in an empire. So third of the cities have an organised Christian community, but two thirds don't. City populations, ten to fifteen percent, were down at more five percent max, but that's obviously too much too. Because although they've got Christian communities, the total population of these cities is not Christian. They're living in and amongst other believers. So the oldest Christian, continuous Christian community of all is Antioch.
11:16 Speaker 02 Because Jerusalem gets broken up in the revolt and the diaspora against the Roman rule in the start of the second century A D. So Antioch is actually the oldest continuous Christian community. And from the three eighties, where we have lots of information about Antioch, it looks as though Christians are about one third of the population of Antioch only. The Jewish community and the classical pagan communities are both about the same. Actually, everybody goes to everybody else's parties.
11:46 Speaker 02 At that point, which the bishops don't like. But, you know, so if the oldest Christian community of all is only one third of five percent, as it were. Then I don't see how you can get Christian numbers up above one to two percent.
12:02 Tristan Hughes? No, because also if I think ancient Syria, you might think also, I guess, Mithras from further east, but then Elagabal and, and all those kind of Syrian deities as well. And the Jewish community and the like. But is it very much the case that, let's say, the bishop of Rome, like the successors of Saint Peter? And their like small community in Rome, the exact like beliefs that they were following in Rome was probably different to what those, that small Christian community in somewhere like London were following, or Antioch, or Hippo Regius in North Africa.
12:34 Speaker 02 We know that that is the case because this is one of the processes that does come fully into the light of day in the fourth century, is that all these communities come into direct contact with one another and they find out that they don't quite believe the same things.
12:52 Tristan Hughes? Hmm.
12:53 Speaker 02 And the big issue, of course, because it is the kind of unique thing about Christianity, is this extraordinary doctrine about the deity, three in one, Trinity.
13:04 Tristan Hughes? Trinity.
13:05 Speaker 02 And one person of it, one person of the Trinity, namely Christ, being fully human and fully divine, you know. Easy to say, but what does it mean? Exactly, what does that mean? You know, how are we to understand Christ, the figure of Christ? And what is the implications of Christ's teaching for us, given that he's like us but not like us?
13:29 Tristan Hughes? And this will lead to names such as the Arians and the Donatists and, and, you know, you'll see that explode later as well, won't you?
13:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, absolutely. This is, this is the big dispute, the first big dispute that explodes in the fourth century, is that you find that people are placing different emphases on the extent to which Christ's humanity is what's important, or Christ's divinity is what's important, how to understand this. And it goes back to the biblical evidence, because the smartest description of this I've ever come across is actually, the problem is created by the Gospels. You've got three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, which present a very human Christ. And it's a Christ who suffers, it's a Christ who prays in the garden of Getsemane, "Not
14:21 Speaker 02 my will, but thy will be done when praying to the Father." This does not sound like an equal divine personage.
14:31 Speaker 02 Sounds hierarchical, but then you have the Gospel of John and its fabulous opening. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, you know, complete cosmic equality. So the fundamental problem that Christians are facing is you have to explain John away in terms of Matthew, Mark and Luke, or you have to explain Matthew, Mark and Luke away in terms of John.
14:56 Tristan Hughes? Hmm. And we'll delve into all that. I mean, one last question from me. Of course, you get all the so-called apocryphal Gospels as well today, but at this time, let's say around 300 AD, can we presume that certain of these Gospels, like the infancy Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of James and so on, that in some of these communities would not have been seen as apocryphal, you know, they would have learnt those Gospels as well. So we shouldn't also be thinking that they all, they had different beliefs, but they all were looking at the same Gospels and then interpreting them differently. Some of them probably looked at different Gospels to others.
15:29 Speaker 02 Certainly. I mean, the the main manuscripts we have of these alternative Gospel texts are fourth century papyri.
15:36 Tristan Hughes? There you go.
15:36 Speaker 02 So they're all still floating around.
15:38 Tristan Hughes? So it's another, it's another spaniel in the works there.
15:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, they had, they had more or less decided, or some people have decided the shape of the New Testament. So it's only the four Gospels and then Acts and the Epistles. Not so, they weren't so sure about Revelation at that point.
15:55 Tristan Hughes? Revelation is fascinating, but that's a story for another time.
15:58 Speaker 02 Indeed.
15:59 Tristan Hughes? Um, okay. So that's really nicely set the background of like the Christian world in 300 AD. So maybe one or two percent largely in urban cities, I mean, Antioch and North Africa, Anatolia, bigger presences, but also small ones in London and Rome and so on. So let's start, now we've set that context, with the last big persecution of Christians that happens around this time. And this is, it is known as the Great Persecution, isn't it?
16:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, it is. It unfolds in a series of decrees which eventually culminate in a kind of sacrifice or die order.
16:38 Speaker 02 It looks as though it kills a few hundred people are executed in the course of it. The the sort of more persuasive martyr acts. And you have some material that's entirely authoritative and every reason to believe it. Some that's a bit more fanciful, but yeah.
16:57 Tristan Hughes? And this is Emperor Diocletian telling people that you need to do sacrifices to the gods to keep them happy. And so of course the Christians say, we can't do that. And then a few of them who keep refusing do ultimately get, as you say, martyred in this persecution.
17:09 Speaker 02 Yes, they do. Yes, they do.
17:10 Tristan Hughes? And and how big an impact do you think this persecution actually has on Christians throughout the Roman Empire at that time?
17:18 Speaker 02 The best marker of its effect is that in the areas where Christianity had spread a bit more widely. So like Egypt or North Africa, the the hot issue after it stops is what to do about lapsy. People who had sacrificed or handed over the gospels, you had to hand over the holy texts. Traditoris, as they were called, people who handed the material over. And there are very fierce disputes in the North African and the Egyptian churches in the three tens onwards about this.
18:00 Speaker 02 So that strongly suggests that it did generate a bitter divide amongst those who faced up to the full rigor of persecution and held to their faith without flinching, and those who found various accommodations. The accommodation thing is interesting because that's the other striking thing about the so called great persecution. It is a top down process. In the second century, you've got people like Zatellian saying every time, you know, a volcano goes off or an earthquake, throw the Christians to the line. Yeah, that's right. But no one's saying that in the fourth century. And we know that town councils who had to enforce the collection of holy scripts and whatever
18:45 Speaker 02 would do deals with their local communities to hand over, you know, some account books, not the gospels. So there isn't any sign of that kind of spontaneous suspicion and and hatred of Christianity. I I think in the first century. People were confused by the body and blood stuff and thought weird stuff was going on in Christian rituals. But by the fourth century, they're part of the urban fabric and.
19:11 Tristan Hughes? This was also what I was going to ask. I mean, like, would you think this, you know, so-called Great Persecution was popular with the everyday Roman? But it sounds like what you're saying there by the fourth century, probably not, because they've lived alongside Christians for so long, even though they are a minority.
19:24 Speaker 02 Yes, absolutely. I mean, the the real issue about Great Persecution, why was it ever launched? Because, you know, Diocletian successfully puts back the Roman Empire together, beats off the Persian threat, creates this system. And then seventeen years later, having successfully done everything, turns to religious matters.
19:46 Tristan Hughes? You're right. I mean, it is for an emperor who otherwise would rightly be heralded as one of like, I guess you could say, greatest or one of the most significant Roman emperors. This is kind of for many people like the biggest stain on his reputation, the fact that he did decide to do it.
20:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, and it's also, you know, it's kind of bonkers logically. If you think that you have to get the God's favor to be successful, then you would think you would do that at the beginning, you know? Whereas actually, he's successful and then he does it.
20:17 Tristan Hughes? Is it fair to say that this Great Persecution is very much a failure? And Christianity, as we get to the the rise of the next big figure, Constantine, you know, it is as strong as it's ever been?
20:29 Speaker 02 Yes, I think I do think that's right. And in fact, there are big queries over why it's launched. My best guess for what it's worth is that it's really about a power struggle within Diocletian's ruling circle. And that people who don't like Constantine's father, who's a co-emperor with Diocletian, think that he is soft on the Christianity angle. And they are trying to expose that and particularly cut Constantine out of succession. So I think it's a kind of struggle within the inner imperial circles.
21:09 Speaker 02 And it's very striking, for instance, that no martyrs are created in. Constantine's father Constantius runs Gaul and Britain, and there are no martyrs from the Great Persecution. Churches are shut down and whatever, but no one's killed.
21:22 Tristan Hughes? No one's killed, indeed. And then, of course, he becomes. Constantine's father Constantius dies in York.
21:29 Speaker 02 Yes.
21:29 Tristan Hughes? And Constantine is proclaimed emperor in three O six in York.
21:32 Speaker 02 In York.
21:34 Tristan Hughes? Do you think there could have been a Christian community in York as well?
21:36 Speaker 02 There might easily have been.
21:37 Tristan Hughes? One of the northernmost of them all.
21:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. Well, because Christianity in the West is spreading through the bigger Roman communities, not in the countryside. So, you know, York is a major imperial capital, capital, regional capital.
21:56 Tristan Hughes? And if you get the worship of Mithras on Hadrian's Wall, then may well have been some Christianity there as well.
22:01 Speaker 02 There isn't a bishop at that point.
22:03 Tristan Hughes? A bishop, a bishop of Hadrian's Wall. Can you imagine that? Well, okay, let's go on to one of like these, these big traditional landmarks in the story of the rise of Christianity, which is the conversion of Constantine, and also got in here, the edict of Milan. Now, I will say that if you want to learn more, like in detail about the life of Constantine, we have done separate episodes, really delving into that. So we're going to kind of approach it through the lens of Christianity here, Peter, and not kind of do the whole biography of Constantine.
22:28 Speaker 02 Okay, I promise not to talk about the whole biography.
22:31 Tristan Hughes? Yes. Where was he born? Now, so do we have any idea with his background and with his family? What might have inspired his conversion to Christianity?
22:43 Speaker 02 Well, yes, it's interesting, really interesting. Because he says different things to different people about his conversion. We have two accounts of it. You know, you've got this. The classic image is cross in the sky, just before the Milvian Bridge, dream.
23:04 Tristan Hughes? Big battle, three twelve A D.
23:05 Speaker 02 Win. But those are constructed in different ways in two contemporary sources. Lactantius in the three tens and then Eusebius of Caesaria in the biography writes of Constantine after Constantine's death. So there's something a bit dodgy about that. And what's even more striking is that Constantine's religious position, his official one, as proclaimed in his, by his spokesman and on his coinage, has four stages. So straightforward, tetrarchic paganism, loyal to Diocletian. Same thing to start with. Then he becomes a solemn monotheist. So Helios, sun god.
23:50 Tristan Hughes? Oh, solemn victus, this idea.
23:52 Speaker 02 Yes, solemn victus. Then he becomes Christian when talking to Christians, but otherwise vague monotheism, with a lot, still a lot of sun, then Christian to everyone. So there are four distinct stages. Each of those stages are marked by political victory, military victory. That's what separates them. So he moves to solemn monotheism when he defeats Diocletian's old buddy Maximian. He moves to the Christian to Christians, though vague monotheism to everybody else, after the Milvian Bridge, when he defeats Maximian's son Maxentius.
24:30 Tristan Hughes? Maxentius, yeah.
24:31 Speaker 02 And then he's Christian to everyone after he defeats Licinius in three twenty four.
24:37 Tristan Hughes? Three twenty four, so that's twelve years after the Bass, the Milvian Bridge. So these aren't abrupt, kind of quick stages from one to another.
24:44 Speaker 02 Yes.
24:44 Tristan Hughes? They're big.
24:45 Speaker 02 And so at least part of the story of Constantine is coming out as Christian. You know, where in this progression do you date his actual conversion? You know, he's not completely open about this.
24:58 Tristan Hughes? He's promoting himself at the same time to both audiences.
25:01 Speaker 02 Yes, he is.
25:02 Tristan Hughes? It's very interesting. I remember, as I've said in the past, I remember twenty, David Potter, so many years ago now. But I always remember this, this, um, one of the things kind of mentioned in our chat is this idea that, um, you know, for quite a bit of time, let's say between three twelve and three two four, it's almost like he is hedging his divine bets.
25:22 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah, absolutely, he's hedging his bets, yeah.
25:24 Tristan Hughes? And you see it in the coinage, you see it in everything to kind of please both sides.
25:28 Speaker 02 Absolutely. I mean, my own hunch is that he was always Christian.
25:32 Tristan Hughes? Interesting.
25:33 Speaker 02 And that's always a story of coming out. At least a sort of near Platonic, vague monotheistic line from his father. You know, his mother makes this famous visit to the Holy Land.
25:47 Tristan Hughes? His mother, yes.
25:49 Speaker 02 Got a cistical Anastasia, which means resurrection.
25:54 Tristan Hughes? So you think, so how big an influence do you think his mother might have had on it all? Do you think she was maybe inviting a Christian bishop in, in his early years when he was growing up?
26:03 Speaker 02 I think it's at least possible. And the thing is, he has to have a conversion. Because if he hasn't had a conversion, he is one of the lapsi. He has hidden his Christianity in the Great Persecution. So he has to cover his rear end by having had a conversion after the Great Persecution. I may be being overly devious, I do realise that.
26:28 Tristan Hughes? No, but it's very interesting to hear this idea that actually perhaps, you know, which is so, you know, completely new compared to other Roman emperors before him, that actually maybe he was influenced by Christianity from his earliest years.
26:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, and again, it ties into the expression of why the Great Persecution was launched. His father Constantius is one of four emperors. They're thinking about succession. Diocletian has said he's going to retire. Everyone's concerned with who the next emperor's going to be. And, you know, the knives are out. So trying to cut Constantius's line out of contention for the succession strikes me as by far the most plausible reason to why the Great Persecution was launched.
27:10 Tristan Hughes? Wow, that is fascinating. I had to delve into that more in another chat.
27:14 Speaker 02 I may have spent too much of my youth Kremlin watching.
27:20 Tristan Hughes? Well, moving on.
27:21 Speaker 02 Yes, putting that to one side.
27:23 Tristan Hughes? So if we go to that, that fourth stage that you mentioned earlier, so after 324, when he defeats Licinius, and from that time, it's gone from a rule of four to, post Milvian Bridge, a rule of two, Constantine and Licinius, to now a restoring of a rule of one.
27:40 Speaker 02 Yes.
27:41 Tristan Hughes? Just Constantine. He's founded Constantinople by this time, has he?
27:44 Speaker 02 Starting.
27:45 Tristan Hughes? He's starting. And so how do we now see this fully openly promoting of Christianity Constantine coming to the fore after 324?
27:56 Speaker 02 The, the element to feed in is Roman imperial ideology, which says that God chooses emperors.
28:03 Tristan Hughes? Right.
28:04 Speaker 02 And you can tell God is on your side by whether you win. Because, you know, if the supreme omnipotent creator of the entire cosmos is on your side, you ought to bloody well win. It's quite straightforward. And Constantine has won. He has won in spades. In fact, there were six emperors. Actually, it might be seven, sorry, brain going in three oh six. I think there are seven contenders in three oh six of which he's won. And he is the last man standing out of all of this. And he's won all these victories. God is certainly on his side. And this is what gives him the ideological clout to stand up and say, you know, I'm Christian, Christianity is the right religion.
28:47 Tristan Hughes? And if someone was to go to his royal courts, let's say in, let's say, three hundred and twenty five, would they expect or would they see Christian imagery like surrounding him in his court already by that time?
28:59 Speaker 02 They would see some, absolutely. We're starting to get crosses on some of his, well, we've had the La Brarm in a few contexts after three twelve, but only a very few.
29:11 Tristan Hughes? So what do we mean?
29:12 Speaker 02 La Brarm is the cross with the semicircle at the top.
29:15 Tristan Hughes? Oh, like the Cairo?
29:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, the Cairo symbol. So we've had, but only in a very few. Now it's on his coinage. Still, Solomon Victus as well, depending on which coin. I mean, he's playing it up to every audience. But yes, you're seeing the La Brarm, you're seeing bishops invited to court. He doesn't stop patronizing pagans. It's not a kind of universal switch because he couldn't, you know, there are too many pagans in the world. But certainly, Christianity has its place at court now and is allowed in.
29:50 Tristan Hughes? And you get the rise of bishops, like, I guess Sylvester, is it Pope Sylvester the first in Rome at that time?
29:55 Speaker 02 Yes, although whether Constantine ever met Sylvester.
29:59 Tristan Hughes? Really? Interesting.
30:01 Speaker 02 It's medieval popes who put out the idea that Sylvester cures Constantine of leprosy and baptizes.
30:07 Tristan Hughes? Oh, wow. Okay, yeah, that's quite, that's quite a stretch.
30:09 Speaker 02 There's a bit of skin in that game.
30:12 Tristan Hughes? But it seems very much so that, so we won't go into the Council of Nice here too much at the moment because we've done episodes in the past on it. But by three hundred and twenty five, at that time, you, when that council is called and they're getting together to kind of decide out the trinity and all of that, the fact that Constantine is there and seen as the figurehead there, you know, I know he's not there the whole time, but he's there for a bit of the time. Very clearly by that point, he is openly showing himself as Christian.
30:39 Speaker 02 Yes, absolutely. As soon as he defeats Lucinius, he writes a letter to the provincials, which Eusebius has a text of and puts in his life of Constantine. And there he's totally straightforward, says, I'm Christian. Any anti-Christian measures are being removed. But if you want to carry on being ridiculously superstitious and pagan, you can.
31:01 Tristan Hughes? Right.
31:01 Speaker 02 I mean, it's the language is very straightforward.
31:03 Tristan Hughes? It's almost like a toleration the other way.
31:05 Speaker 02 Yes, it is a toleration the other way.
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31:52 Speaker 03 What started the Civil War? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was Paul Revere? And did the Vikings ever reach America?
32:03 Speaker 03 I'm Don Wildman, and on American History Hit, my expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years to uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors where the nation was formed, meet the characters who have altered it with their touch, and count the votes that have changed the direction of our laws and leadership.
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32:52 Tristan Hughes? And actually going back to the toleration the other way, the other way before that, because this is really interesting to put as a contrast to this, if we then talk about the edict of Milan that had happened about a decade or so earlier.
33:04 Speaker 02 Yes, that's after the defeat of Maxentius at the Milgin Bridge.
33:07 Tristan Hughes? It's halfway through those phases of Constantine coming out, kind of thing. So can you talk us through what the edict of Milan is and how important to stage this is in Constantine's development?
33:18 Speaker 02 Yes, it is, it is the edict that officially ends the Great Persecution. In fact, it looks as though enforcement had petered out after about 306. But you have strongly pagan emperors in the East that Licinius defeats. It's a joint decree by Licinius and Constantine, which is effectively removing the Great Persecution edicts and taking away their force.
33:52 Tristan Hughes? As time goes on, in Constantine, he reigns into the 330s. How significant, how important then is this aligning of Christianity with the Roman state, with the Roman emperor, in the rise of Christianity at that time? And the more, I guess, the creation of a Christianity proper, as it was?
34:17 Speaker 02 I think it's impossible to escape the conclusion that the slow coming together of Christianity and the Roman imperial system is a profoundly revolutionary moment in the history of Christianity. It sets in motion a series of processes that mean that Christianity, as it emerges, say 100 years after Constantine, is completely different from what we understand it to be in about 300 AD. It isn't, of course, just Constantine. It's really the fact that Constantine inaugurates a succession of Christian emperors, which is only broken for two years by his...
35:00 Speaker 02 What he is, weird second cousin twice removed.
35:04 Tristan Hughes? Julian, we'll get to Julian in a bit, yes.
35:06 Speaker 02 But otherwise, we have a hundred years of Christian emperors where the the tie in between Christian religious devotion and the Roman state is unbroken. And over the course of that hundred years, a series of processes play themselves out, which totally transformed Christianity.
35:26 Tristan Hughes? And is this also this alignment, this centralisation of Christianity in the Roman Empire, started by Constantine, I guess also maybe benefited by him being a one man rule at the time. We mentioned earlier how a Christian community somewhere in London may well have been following different beliefs to such to a Christian community in North Africa or in Rome. With the centralisation and that link of Christianity and the more kind of unity of Christianity under Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, does that also result in a more uniform set of beliefs so that actually by the three thirties, a Christian community in London would by and large be following the same beliefs as a Christian community in West Asia, for instance?
36:09 Speaker 02 Yes to the process, no to the chronology. Takes a bit longer.
36:12 Tristan Hughes? Takes a bit longer, okay.
36:13 Speaker 02 By the four thirties, yes. In fact, Nicaea doesn't settle the argument. It's the start of the argument.
36:21 Tristan Hughes? And this is the arguments around the trinity?
36:22 Speaker 02 It is exactly, and the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. Really, whether it's a hierarchical relationship, you know, father, son can, I don't know why I say that, having sons implies subordination of the father to sons, rather than the other. Anyway, to most people, in most contexts, father, son implies hierarchy.
36:46 Tristan Hughes? Respect thy elders in some contexts, Peter, okay, we can understand.
36:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, absolutely. But there's then, well, what is it? It's fifty six years of back and forth. And the official Christian, Roman Christian position for thirty five of those is actually hierarchical trinity.
37:12 Speaker 02 It's only with the Council of Constantinople in the early 380s that Nicene is reaffirmed. And then you get the crucial enforcement process, which involves the power of the Roman state. Because what happens is, under Theodosius, Council of Constantinople reaffirms Nicene. But actually, what everyone says in church as the Nicene Creed is actually the Creed of Constantinople. It's not the Creed of Nicene. It's a slightly rewritten creed that came out of that second council. And then this massive enforcement whereby the churches of those who held to a more hierarchical trinity are confiscated.
37:54 Speaker 02 Churches, all their endowments, all their property, and huge fines are put in place for important lay supporters of those positions. And it's that which shuts down the non-Nicene Christianity.
38:10 Tristan Hughes? I mean, how would you think Constantine fared when he's ruling and he still sees that there are, you know, in these early stages? There are still bitter divisions amongst the Christians at this time, even though he's favoring them. You know, with the imagery and kind of that reverse toleration, kind of decree where now they're tolerating non-Christian religions. And how do you think he feels, you know, still seeing that, you know, there is now kind of rivalry? And I guess in animosity between Christian groups.
38:42 Speaker 02 It is, it is animosity. And I'm sure, you know, bloody bishops. But it is this, we do not, the documentation from Nicene is not very strong. The, the biggest account of it is in Eusebius of Caesaria, and he's a partisan attendee. So you never know quite how much to trust it. But the story that he tells is Constantine gets them all in a room. He suggests the definition of the relationship between the father and the son, homoosios, identity of substance. Eusebius says Constantine came up with that. And then he bangs heads together. Until they agree, that that's the story as told by Eusebius.
39:24 Speaker 02 And only about three people wouldn't go along with it and they get exiled.
39:29 Tristan Hughes? But Eusebius is almost trying to promote Constantine as the head of the Christian church then.
39:32 Speaker 02 Yes, he is. Well.
39:34 Tristan Hughes? Rather than a pope or something like that.
39:36 Speaker 02 Absolutely. But there is no pope in the fourth century, you know, there is a bishop of Rome. Uh, who is one of, as it turns out, to be five patriarchs. What defines patriarchate is uh, that it was a see, a community that was established by one of the apostles. And they go with five, uh, so Rome, Antioch, Alexandria. They add in Jerusalem because all they had been broken up, you know.
40:04 Tristan Hughes? Kind of have to.
40:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, you kind of do. And then they, on the most dodgy of grounds, add Constantinople. Because it is the new Roman should have all the, this is something else that is done at the council of Constantinople. Funnily enough, in the early three eighties. So, uh, we have five patriarchs who are all of equal standing. Uh, in the official view, except of course the view from Rome, but no one's listening to that, except in Rome. The emperor has, is the only person with universal authority over the entire geographical area of the empire. And the emperor has been directly appointed by God, no one challenges that. So it's extremely natural that the emperor should have religious authority.
40:46 Speaker 02 And in particular, it is only emperors, and this is never challenged in this period. Who can call these general ecumenical councils of everybody.
40:55 Tristan Hughes? So Constantine is very big in the rise of Christianity and I'm guessing the elites follow suit. They see that Christianity is on the rise, so there's a spread of um, people following Christianity at that time. So by the time of his death, you know, is Christianity very much a rising force?
41:12 Speaker 02 Christianity is a, is a rising force by the time of Constantine's death. But again, it's the fact that his successors are Christian that's so important. It's the fact that for the best, well. Forever after Constantine, apart from the Emperor Julian, that the imperial machine is headed by Christian emperors.
41:30 Tristan Hughes? Well, let's talk then about his initial successors. So these are the sons of Constantine, and are they all Christian?
41:35 Speaker 02 They're all Christian.
41:36 Tristan Hughes? Right.
41:37 Speaker 02 They, uh, they take a different view on the relationship of the father and the son, but they are all Christian. And you start to see a change in the political culture at the centre. The perception is out there that although pagans are still in receipt of imperial patronage, it is a slight advantage to be in line with the emperor's belief. And it is that perception over, I think, two to three generations, that means that by, say, the 380s, by the time of the Emperor Theodosius, that the functioning bureaucratic
42:20 Speaker 02 elites at the centre of the empire are by and large, at least nominally, Christian.
42:27 Tristan Hughes? So how do we then get, in the middle of all of this, the rise of this, you know, the so-called the last pagan emperor, Julian the Apostate?
42:37 Speaker 02 I think you get it because you're right on a knife edge at that point. So Julian hides his paganism.
42:46 Tristan Hughes? Really?
42:47 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
42:47 Tristan Hughes? Also, Constantine may well have hidden his Christianity.
42:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, it is Julian, Julian's behaviour that makes me think about Constantine coming out. So we know the stages of Julian's coming out as a pagan. We know he dated his own conversion to paganism to the early 350s, and he only comes out as pagan when he's in open revolt against his cousin, Constantine's son, Constantius II. And he comes out in stages. So he comes out to some people first, and then after Constantius dies, on the way to fight him, sign from God. We're pagan to all comers.
43:29 Tristan Hughes? And is it, do you think Julian very much playing to that audience was reflective of a wider, there was still resistance there to this new rise of Christianity, there was still a worship of the old gods by quite a lot of people?
43:42 Speaker 02 Oh, absolutely. The rank and file of the population are still going to the old temples and doing the old things, but you get these occasional glimpses of the kind of behaviours that the Constantine, Constantineian dynasties, adoption of Christianity required of people. So Julian makes a famous visit to the city of Troy in the 350s, before he's come out as Christian, to see the temples to Hector and Achilles, you know, the great heroes, the Trojan War, because Homer is a kind of religious text for one brand of classical pagans in the fourth century. And he's been told that the temples are in ruins.
44:29 Speaker 02 But he turns up and the local bishop greets him and takes him on a guided tour and he finds that the local bishop is actually protecting the temples.
44:36 Tristan Hughes? Ah.
44:38 Speaker 02 This man called Pagasios, who is probably my favourite person in the entirety of the fourth century.
44:44 Tristan Hughes? Pagasios?
44:45 Speaker 02 Yes, completely unknown otherwise. But what's so great about Pagasios and why we know this story is that later, when Julian is fully in control of the empire and launching a new style pagan priesthood, Bishop Pagasios applies for a job in it. So.
45:03 Tristan Hughes? He seems quite malleable in what he believes.
45:05 Speaker 02 Well, yeah, I mean, the sixty four thousand dollar question is what the hell did Pagasios believe? Is he really a pagan? Does he not really care that much? I mean, it could be either of those, but you know, that's just one anecdote that we have. The, we've had to find bishops for 1,200 Roman cities, just like that, you know, after Nicaea. This is, he clearly got the job. I imagine he's a local landowner.
45:30 Tristan Hughes? Oh, yes, I'm Christian, yes, yes, yes.
45:32 Speaker 02 He will use whatever official offices there to run his local community. I'm guessing, you know, I think it must be something like that, whether it's Christian, Christian pagan, whatever it is. But, you know, this is, this is what we have. Think about that, you know, conversion, we think of lightbulb moments, Paul on the road to Damascus, Constantine, ha ha, seeing a cross in the sky, or Augustine of Hippo, hearing voices in the garden that tell him to go and read Vital Passage. And there are some conversion moments that are like that, but there's lots of conversion in the course
46:13 Speaker 02 of history to many religions, which is much less profound, not such a life-changing moment. It's actually more a decision, a calculation of advantage and odds and whatever. So I think you've got a lot of, you know, some people do this, they collect information about Roman officials and whether they're Christian or not. And you can see the numbers going up through the 350s, 360s, 370s. But the question is, what kind of Christian are they? Are they like Pagasios? There's absolutely no reason to think that Pagasios is less representative than, say, Augustine of Hippo in terms of what his conversion might be. There is, once
46:57 Speaker 02 that perception is there, because the Roman state is a one-party state, that if you're ideologically in line with the emperor, you might get preferential promotion. It works by connections, then there you go.
47:12 Tristan Hughes? Well, even with cases like Pagasios under the, under Emperor Julian, his rollbacking of Christianity, it doesn't seem to be very successful, very effective. I mean, Christianity, it holds out. I guess it endures past Julian. Why is it so effective in resisting this attempt by Julian to roll it back?
47:31 Speaker 02 Because it only lasts for two years.
47:32 Tristan Hughes? Only two years?
47:33 Speaker 02 Yes.
47:34 Tristan Hughes? That's only much is ruining.
47:34 Speaker 02 It's not long. And actually, Julian fails the ultimate test. What Julian does is invade Persia. Why does he invade Persia? He wants a victory. Same thing that Constantine had. Victory is the sign of divine favor.
47:47 Tristan Hughes? And he gets a defeat.
47:48 Speaker 02 He gets a very defeat.
47:50 Tristan Hughes? Right, that's a big, okay, that's a good propaganda win, yeah, for Christianity.
47:53 Speaker 02 Yeah, doesn't look like God's on the side of Julian.
47:54 Tristan Hughes? No.
47:55 Speaker 02 So we don't get a sequence of pagan emperors. I mean, these counterfactuals are always very difficult to answer, but you know, had Julian got his army back safely, having sacked the Persian capital Tisfon, which he, you know, he wasn't too far from doing that. Um, then he would have had enough to proclaim a victory and he might well therefore have been able to set in place a pagan succession, but he didn't have any children of his own. Would have been more complicated than Constantine, but you know, sequence of pagan emperors, you could see a reverse of that process. If we think that a lot of the people who are declaring themselves Christian are a bit Pegasus like, they would be quite happy to declare themselves not Christian again.
48:39 Tristan Hughes? And the emperors that follow Julian then, is it, I don't know if Jovian's before or after, but then are there a few more big ones that are out and out Christian?
48:47 Speaker 02 They're all Christian. They're, I think Julian's pro pagan policy were very divisive. You can't tell, you know, what the outcome would have been had he lasted, you know, 20 years and initiated pagan successes. So it's really difficult to judge whether he's realistic that the clock could be turned back or whether he's bonkers, you know. It's very hard to judge that and I wouldn't, I couldn't give you a clear answer that I really believed in on that. I don't know what the answer is, but it's clear that it was very divisive and the conclusion
49:31 Speaker 02 was drawn in the sort of top bureaucratic and military circles where the choices of emperor are made, that actually a Christian emperor, but a tolerant Christian emperor is the right move because the next two emperors, so Jovian who follows Julian and the brothers, Valentian and Valens who follow Jovian, they both roll back to more Constantine's position on toleration than Constantius's position. Constantius had ramped up that pro-Christian favour, but the successors, and that's really the mark of Julian's success, if you like, or the mark of how much division was still
50:15 Speaker 02 there in Roman elite circles, that they dial it back.
50:19 Tristan Hughes? So who do you think then are the people surrounding these emperors as time goes on? Who actually then encourage them to not just stick to this toleration, to actually then kind of go back to more Constantine, more out and out Christian, more pushing forward, I guess even more radical policies for the time that goes away from toleration and more towards you've got to accept Christianity now.
50:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, as I understand the process, there are two things going on. The Roman elite is coming to some kind of accommodation with Christianity, generally speaking, the landowning elites who run the local communities still. So they may not be absolute, you know, born again Christians, but they're going to church, they are declaring in public that they're Christian. That is happening. But then because you've got Christianity as the official religion of the empire, you've
51:24 Speaker 02 then got pressure groups, particularly leading bishops and Christian intellectuals who are pushing a stronger Christian agenda.
51:33 Tristan Hughes? Is this a figure like Ambrose?
51:35 Speaker 02 It is a figure like Ambrose, but it's, it can also be imperial officials who are very pro-Christian. So when what we start seeing under Theodosius from the 380s is a first round of shutting down temples on a large scale. Constantine has shut down seven. There are about 20,000, I think, at least. No one's ever counted.
52:03 Tristan Hughes? It's barely a scratch.
52:04 Speaker 02 It's barely a scratch, yes. And Eusebius mentioned everyone he could think of and still only came up with seven, you know, so they're all mentioned by individual names. So not a lot happened. Constantius made it possible to shut down a few more. Um. But that was if people had, what Constantine did ban was blood sacrifice. You can throw olive oil around, you can throw wine around, you can light candles, you can pray.
52:32 Tristan Hughes? Incense and all that.
52:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you can't do blood sacrifice. And Constantius made it possible to shut down places where people were still doing blood sacrifice. And clearly, some, again, I think not that many, there's nothing that says it was huge numbers. Some get shut down in the three forties and the three fifties because of that. The big moment when they start to get shut down, start, is the three eighties under Theodosius. And at that point, the first figure we hear about who's playing a leading role uh is an imperial official, one of Theodosius's administrators in Syria and Palestine.
53:12 Speaker 02 He's in close alliance with bishops, local bishops, and monks play a role in the temple destruction as well. Um. But it looks like there we've got uh a properly born again Christian official in alliance with Christian pressure groups, uh exploiting the fact that most of the Roman elite is not going to fight you if you shut down a temple.
53:37 Tristan Hughes? And this is like the more violent side coming out, isn't it? This is not just shutting it down and barring the gates, this is torches and rousing, almost like the demagogues in Athens. This is rousing the rabble to follow and burn down these sites.
53:50 Speaker 02 Yes, that's right. Again, there are fights as to how many do get shut down. We have a pagan letter writer and commentator um from Antioch Labanius in the three eighties, who's one of the chief sources about this, and he's always saying, he's shutting down millions and burning all down there, you know. It's it's not clear exactly how many, but but that is that is the process. So we need the local Roman elites who run communities not to care too much. And then we need uh officials uh who, a few officials who do care in alliance with the the Christian pressure groups.
54:30 Tristan Hughes? Right. And so this first kind of big edict you mentioned under Empress, Emperor Theodosius the First. He's also known as Theodosius the Great, isn't he, like Constantine the Great? I guess aligning with Christianity ideas. Um.
54:46 Tristan Hughes? Is this the edict of Thessalonica at first when they kick it in?
54:50 Speaker 02 No, that comes a bit later. That's in the 390s.
54:53 Tristan Hughes? Right, my apologies.
54:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, no. The first stuff we've got going on is in the 380s. And it looks as though what happened is that this local official, a man called Materna Sinegius, extended the scope of existing legislation which was shutting down the Arian churches to paganism. So there isn't an edict which says temples are to close.
55:22 Tristan Hughes? Right.
55:23 Speaker 02 It's an interpretation of existing legislation and a widening application. And only in one area, so only Syria Palestine, the diocese of Aurions, which Materna Sinegius was in charge of. Then that kind of momentum starts to grow and you do get this edict in Thessalonica from the early 390s, which then starts to have more general application. And we see the same kind of process we've seen in Syria Palestine in the 380s going more broadly across the Roman world in the 390s.
56:03 Tristan Hughes? And so this is when, yes, this becomes more an imperial wide order to shut down pagan centres and the like?
56:10 Speaker 02 Yes, if you want to.
56:11 Tristan Hughes? If you want to, okay.
56:13 Speaker 02 That's why the kind of attitude of the local Roman elites in every community is important to the process. At this stage, if they're resistant, if they don't want to do it, then they will petition the imperial centre and they get exemptions or exceptions.
56:37 Speaker 02 So there's, there's one that says, I can't remember which city it applies to, but it says, you know, this is obviously a really ancient, beautiful building. So we need to leave these alone.
56:47 Tristan Hughes? Well, I mean, you say that, but I would immediately go to someone like Alexandria, where with the three nineties, you associate it with, at least I do, with probably the destruction of Alexander the Great's tomb, because it's also a site of where people go, a place of pilgrimage, kind of a deified figure. But of course, the most famous one is, is the Serapeum, isn't it?
57:04 Speaker 02 Yes, it is.
57:05 Tristan Hughes? It's that beautiful temple in Alexandria, and they completely burn it to the ground. So there are also, even in cities, like prestigious ancient cities, which have beautiful monuments from before the fourth century, I mean, that's, say, like, you know, those exemptions aren't, you know, they aren't always the case.
57:22 Speaker 02 No, absolutely not. And I think what I would suspect, and what the evidence suggests, is that the precise outcome varied in each locality according to the attitudes of the governing classes in that region. So Carthage, for instance, the temples are shut but not pulled down, you know, so you get a wide variety of outcomes. But the, but the general trajectory is closing it down.
58:01 Speaker 01 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of the best one yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.
58:36 Speaker 03 What started the civil war? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was Paul Revere? And did the Vikings ever reach America?
58:47 Speaker 03 I'm Don Wildman, and on American History Hit, my expert guests and I are journeying across the nation and through the years to uncover the stories that have made America. We'll visit the battlefields and debate floors where the nation was formed, meet the characters who have altered it with their touch, and count the votes that have changed the direction of our laws and leadership. Find American History Hit twice a week, every week, wherever you get your podcasts. American History Hit, a podcast from History Hit.
59:35 Tristan Hughes? And so what happens next, is there still more edicts that will go along that will then decide more about the futures of these now closed down pagan temples?
59:45 Speaker 02 Well, we're talking about pagan temples in towns, in cities, there's still the countryside.
59:51 Tristan Hughes? Right.
59:52 Speaker 02 And the next thing in the legislative sequence, well, two things going on. In the 390s already, they're saying, you can't be a pagan and be in imperial service. So we go from preferring Christians in the imperial service to saying you can't be a pagan and imperial service, and that's a crunch moment in the 390s. That's one legislative strand. The second one is trying to shut down paganism in the countryside. The first rules relate to temples that happen to be on land owned by the emperor, so imperial estates of one kind or another.
1:00:33 Speaker 02 And then in the late 420s, more general prohibition against temples in the countryside. What enforcement looked like? No idea, but...
1:00:44 Tristan Hughes? But these are now all imperial orders?
1:00:47 Speaker 02 Yes, they are.
1:00:48 Tristan Hughes? So once again, it's very much like the church is just, it's a wing of the imperial of imperial authority by this time?
1:00:56 Speaker 02 It absolutely is. The church has become a branch of the empire. I think what's different about it is that the empire had always... Dictated the cultural preferences of elites. So in the sort of first century B C and A D, when the empire is established, you see this wave of cultural accommodation amongst landowning elites in the conquered provinces. They all come into line with the imperial cult. They all learn Greek or Latin, they start wearing togas, they
1:01:40 Speaker 02 connect themselves into the imperial system, they get the right to find their own Roman local towns. They do all of these things because they have to succeed within the empire. You know, it's a bit like being a party member in one of the old Soviet states. You, if you want, if you want to succeed in what is very firmly a Roman empire, you have to be a Roman, and this affects elites. So we've seen that before amongst the elites. What's different about Christianity is because everyone has a soul, it's actually once the empire is Christian, then it's also interfering in the lives of everybody.
1:02:21 Speaker 02 And we're actually dictating cultural preferences and religious behaviours, or trying to, for everybody, and that's very new.
1:02:31 Tristan Hughes? So this is the time, I mean, yes, because you might think of like in the past when people might talk about the coming of Greek culture to the ancient Near Eastern likes after Alexander the Great. There's very much this idea, yes, you can see it in the towns and the cities. You can see it with the elites because they can get benefits by Greek culture. But everyday people, like Egypt, you know, they kept doing their traditional beliefs.
1:02:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:02:51 Tristan Hughes? This is like a step change that by the end of the the fourth century, it's kind of gone past that with Christianity and the Roman Empire. It is now very much the rural, the ninety percent of the population or whatever, the people outside the cities, that even their lives are now clearly being affected by Christianity.
1:03:09 Speaker 02 They're starting to change.
1:03:10 Tristan Hughes? Yeah.
1:03:10 Speaker 02 Again, you have to emphasise the timeframe. It really is the sixth century in in both the Roman West and the still Roman East before people are taking systematic initiatives to provide a Christianity that can reach the mass of the rural population. So it takes a long time. Christianizing the entire world is not a quick process.
1:03:37 Tristan Hughes? A big task, yeah. Constantine couldn't have just done it in his.
1:03:39 Speaker 02 No, absolutely not.
1:03:40 Tristan Hughes? But one of the other takeaways from this chap, which I absolutely find fascinating is is very much it is, you know, those Roman emperors of the fourth century to to kick it off many of them. They ultimately decide what is Orthodox Christianity, you know, what to follow.
1:03:53 Speaker 02 Well, they do, or they rubber stamp it.
1:03:57 Tristan Hughes? They rubber stamp it.
1:03:57 Speaker 02 In a sense, the concilia process, so calling these ecumenical councils, gatherings of representatives of every Christian on the planet. And this is what defines an ecumenical council. Nicene is the first one. There are others which aren't recognised now as ecumenical councils because they came to the wrong decision. But they are exactly the same thing. They're the ones that Constantius held, which decided that actually the son was inferior to the father.
1:04:27 Tristan Hughes? Arian, okay.
1:04:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, the the sort of Arian position, as it's called, they were similar gatherings. But yes, the process is emperor calls people together. Emperor presides over the discussions in some way and emperor enforces. And when this process gathers its momentum, as it has done by the fifth century, then you only ever call a council when an emperor knows what answer they want. Bishops are involved in helping him make up his mind, but you don't call a council that's going to fail because that's a public relations disaster.
1:05:07 Speaker 02 I mean, it's a bit like a big climate summit or something like that. If it doesn't come up with an answer or a big statement, then it's a failure. So you see emperors being lobbied, preparing opinion, then when enough of the ducks are in a row.
1:05:27 Speaker 02 We call the council, emperor, emperor's officials preside. We start to get full minutes from the fifth century.
1:05:35 Tristan Hughes? Ah, origins of minutes.
1:05:37 Speaker 02 Yes, you can really see what's happening at these councils. And imperial officials preside over the sessions. They know what answer they want before they go in. That answer is duly arrived at. And then the panoply of imperial legal force is deployed to enforce the decision.
1:05:55 Tristan Hughes? Bit of a show trial equivalent then, or you know.
1:05:58 Speaker 02 Well, it is, it is. But yes, absolutely. In that sense, although you've got all the lobbying by all the Christian intellectuals and bishops and whatever, the buck stops with the emperor and the emperors are responsible for these decisions.
1:06:15 Tristan Hughes? It's been so fascinating, like in the course of this chat, to go from the beginning of the fourth century to the end. And how you have gone from the Christians being such a small minority to, you know, thanks to Constantine primarily, you know, starting it and, you know, showing support to the Christians. And then this idea, this switch you see as time goes on of then tolerating the non Christians. And then that next big step later on, which is then saying, actually, you can't worship anymore and the like. And from toleration to you must worship Christianity. It's fascinating to think that that actually all happens within, you know, it all kickstarts within a century or so.
1:06:54 Speaker 02 Yes, it's truly extraordinary. I mean, if you think about classical Greco Roman paganism, it's changed over time. But a lot of this has roots in an organic process of evolution that takes you back to the Bronze Age transition.
1:07:11 Speaker 02 It's that old, you know. You're looking at temples that have been there for thousands of years. And certainly the Egyptian temples, which were eventually shut down in the fifth century. They've been there since God knows when.
1:07:24 Tristan Hughes? Temple of, Temple of Isis, right at the south, that last kind of bastion. And, you know, where you see the images of Egyptian deities just kind of rubbed out right at the end. But actually, to finish it off, still some of those temples do get converted into churches. So they do endure, they have that Christian afterlife, don't they?
1:07:39 Speaker 02 Yes, they do. And often the Egyptian evidence suggests that you did some kind of Christianisation. Because the.
1:07:50 Speaker 02 Pre-Constantinian Christians thought that the gods were in fact devils, that this is Satan's fallen angels who are occupying these temples. So you need to cleanse them, you need to exorcise them. So inserting a Christian presence into the physical landscape was a way of getting rid of the demons.
1:08:11 Tristan Hughes? There you go. Peter, I could ask so many more questions, but I think we've covered them all. I've got one last statement that I'll just read out here, which is like the Romanization of Christianity, i.e. the co-optation of Christianity into the apparatus of the Roman state is the crucial factor in its rise to prominence in the fourth century. Would you agree, crucial factor?
1:08:34 Speaker 02 I think I wrote it.
1:08:37 Tristan Hughes? Well, there you go. Well, I know where they're.
1:08:39 Speaker 02 But I think this is it, you know. When you get these great religious changes, it's really hard to envisage that it could have been any other way. But you have to think about what a colossal process it was to shut down Greco-Roman paganism. And you need, it's like Henry VIII shutting down the monasteries. Before that happens, the monasteries have been there with a continuous history in England for, well, since the 10th century, so 600 years.
1:09:09 Speaker 02 And they're a fact of life, they're huge, they're rich, they're everything, and then they're gone.
1:09:14 Tristan Hughes? A step change, complete step change.
1:09:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:09:16 Tristan Hughes? Peter, this has been absolutely fascinating. As you can probably guess, we have read your book in preparation for this. Your book on this topic is called?
1:09:24 Speaker 02 Called Christendom.
1:09:26 Tristan Hughes? Christendom, just.
1:09:27 Speaker 02 The triumph of a religion, I think. But I didn't write that bit, I liked Christendom.
1:09:33 Tristan Hughes? Well, as always, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast.
1:09:37 Speaker 02 It's been a pleasure, thank you for having me.
1:09:45 Tristan Hughes? Well, there you go. There was the fabulous Dr Peter Heather kicking off our Ancients 2026 schedule by talking through the rise of Christianity in the 4th century A.D. I hope you enjoyed the episode just as much as I did recording it, exploring figures like Constantine the Great, Julian the Apostate, and Theodosius. Thank you so much for listening. This is just the beginning. We're back and we're ready to share amazing stories with you throughout 2026 from the ancient and prehistoric worlds. To make sure you don't miss an episode, well, please follow The Ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a
1:10:28 Tristan Hughes? big favour. If you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we'd really appreciate that. Now, don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe. That's all from me. Welcome back to The Ancients in 2026, and I'll see you in the next episode.
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