Dan is joined by author, broadcaster and historian Professor Alice Roberts to examine how Christianity out-organised and outlasted the Roman Empire.
Around 50 CE, a small group of travellers began to preach that a Jewish man, crucified by the Romans, had risen from the dead. Teaching love, forgiveness and eternal life, this new faith quickly gained followers. By the early fourth century, it was thriving, and over the next hundred years, it exploded, spreading across the entire Roman Empire before becoming its official religion. What enabled it to take such a strong hold so quickly and so steadfastly?
0:00 Introduction
0:37 How Christianity grew from a small movement
2:20 Looking at Christianity through archaeology
3:24 Urban growth and early church organisation
4:42 Why Christianity spread across the Roman Empire
7:40 Henotheism and monotheism in ancient Rome
9:04 Guilds, networking, and social support in cities
12:02 Converting leaders and top-down expansion
14:25 Bishops, grain trading, and economic power
18:43 Constantine and the Council of Nicaea
21:48 Early Christian cemeteries and post-Roman Britain
25:02 Sidonius and the rise of bishop power in Gaul
28:03 Continuity of Roman administration in Britain
32:00 Exclusivity, imperial cults, and pagan adaptations
35:36 How Roman basilicas became Christian churches
Produced by James Hickmann and Mariana Des Forges, and edited by Matthew Wilson and Dougal Patmore.
#archaeology #aliceroberts #christianity
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