REVIEW: The Chronicles of the Christians - Part I

Part I: The Rise of Christianity

Human Events Daily with Jack Posobiec have created a four part documentary about the story of Christians from their rise as a small group of persecuted believers, to the foundational system that created the entire Western Civilization and our modern world. Each episode deals with a different aspect of the tale of Christianity, bringing to light many stories that most modern people simply do not know about.

Virtually everyone today was robbed of their Christian patrimony that they are the rightful owners of. It was stolen from you intentionally because a people who do not know their history is a people that can be conquered easily. It does not matter if you are Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Jew, Muslim or unbeliever, you need to watch them. You need to know the history of the civilization that you live in.

In this season of Christmas, which runs until February 2nd & Candlemas (bet you didn’t know that), now is the perfect time to start watching these episodes. This post will discuss Part I: The Rise of Christianity.

The Chronicles of the Christians - Part I: The Rise of Christianity

The Chronicles of the Christians - Part II: The Truth About the Crusades

The Chronicles of the Christians - Part III: The Shroud of Turin

The Chronicles of the Christians - Part IV: Notre Dame

Discussing, detailing, covering and exploring two thousand years of Christian history is virtually impossible. You have to pick and choose which topic or period you wish to discuss. So going in to this series, realize that everything won’t be covered. It just can’t. But these episodes can mark the BEGINNING for everyone to start learning about the two millennium since Our Lord was born in Bethlehem. Even for those who are well-versed in history, you ALSO must watch these episodes. Because so much of what we have been taught was simply false, or such a gross oversimplification and twisting of history, that we are basically unlearned in our actual history.

As mentioned above, everyone needs to watch these episodes. It does not matter your religion or lack of religion. You live in this civilization, and you need to know and understand how it came about and what shaped our very lives. As the old saying goes, “A fish doesn’t know it is wet”, the very culture and society that you live in are the water that you swim through. You don’t even realize that the very foundation of the society you live in was created and formed by Christianity. The very concepts of rule of law, human rights, human dignity, freedom and charity flow from the Christian ethos. It didn’t arise anywhere else. The system of laws, courts, property rights, familial and personal rights, education, science, art, humanities and culture all were built by Christianity and Christians. It didn’t rise up anywhere else, because those all flow directly from Christianity. Other cultures have since borrowed some of these concepts, but they did not create them.

Part I begins with a discussion of Christianity after the period of the Apostles in the first century. During this time, Christians were a small group of a novel religious sect, which started growing throughout the Roman Empire. Over the next two centuries, Christians go through varying levels of persecution, from mild intolerance to extreme barbarism in an attempt to destroy them entirely. (For Christians today, you need to understand that any of the persecutions we see today would be judged as mild compared to the extreme persecution the early Christians faced.)

It really is fascinating that Christianity spread at all, and especially considering that Christianity faced horrific persecution through much of this time. Understand that in pagan religions, where carnal passions not only were permitted, but celebrated, this religion of Christ demanded modesty and chastity instead. (Chastity in Christian terms means abstaining from all carnal activities outside of marriage.) Those converting to the Christian faith had to give up their celebrated vices and impose strict moral discipline on themselves instead. This is unheard of in human history.

The discussion moves on to Constantine and the legalization of Christianity. This section is important because the amount of people today who either know nothing about this time period, or more likely, have a completely false or twisted history of Constantine. Many people think Constantine created the Catholic Church. That’s just not true. The thousands of Catholic martyrs from 100AD to 300AD would like to have a word with you. Many people think Constantine called the Council of Nicea and had the Bible canonized. This is a severe twisting of history. Constantine called the Council, but it was to deal with the heresy of Arianism which had infected the Catholic Church. This Council did not canonize the Bible. The Bible was canonized much later in the 4th century, long after Constantine had died. Still many others believe Constantine forced the Catholic Church to change its beliefs and declare Jesus was divine at the Council. This is flat out untrue. Constantine actually favored the Arian view that Jesus was not divine, but accepted the decision of the Council. Are you starting to see how so much of what you were taught of history is simply wrong?

There’s a great discussion about the effects of the legalization of Christianity and the conversion of Constantine, especially the effects that it had on the Catholic Church. Prior to this, Christianity was spreading mostly among the lower classes and poor of society. There were certainly some high profile converts, but most Christians were on a lower social level. When Constantine converts, this does cause the higher levels of society to view Christianity in a new light. Constantine’s mother, the Empress Helena (now knows as St. Helena) made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. During this pilgrimage, she recovered many relics of the Christian faith, including the True Cross. She also ordered the excavation of the site of Calvary and the tomb of Christ, and erected the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there.

Jack and Blake, the hosts, begin to discuss the many missionaries throughout Europe and their work in converting the pagans to Christianity. They make the very important point that this was not a quick excursion but instead was a centuries-long effort into many dangerous lands and evangelizing to many dangerous enemies of the Faith. Martyrs were profuse everywhere because they were evangelizing with their own lives. Even the successful missionaries, like St. Patrick, faced incredibly daunting challenges. Ireland, for example, had little in the way of any structure. It was mostly a collection of hundreds of clans and small kingdoms with no contact with any part of civilization. It was dangerous wilderness interrupted by small villages. Even with these daunting struggles facing them, these missionaries so vehemently believed that all should know Christ, that they went anyway.

This dovetails nicely with the next discussion, and that goes into the difference between the value of human life in pagan worlds versus the value of human life in Christianity. Pagan gods were distant and indifferent to the lives of believers. Christianity instead declares that the one true God became man and shared His life with us and gave His life for us. For us today, this is not surprising in the least, because we were raised in a culture built on Christianity. This was a STUNNING change for those who lived in this time. Each person was valued by God and no matter how evil they may be, this God offered forgiveness, peace and reconciliation with them through His own Blood. There is no religion comparable to this in history or the world.

Next they discuss what happened through Europe where Christianity became the religion of the culture. Knowledge became highly valued, because man could know God and His creation. So vast sums of money were put into building churches, monasteries, chapels, basilicas and institutions. Monks devoted their lives to copying the Bible and other ancient writings by hand. Monasteries and centers of learning eventually became our modern university system. All funding of law, science, medicine, mathematics and astronomy were funded by individual Catholics and the Catholic Church itself. (While not covered in this episode, our modern legal system was created from the Inquisition. The entire concept of legal rights, limits on punishment, the right to face accusers and having legal representation were directly from the Inquisition. I bet you didn’t know that either.)

The last big topic they discuss is the Great Schism in the Catholic Church in 1054AD. Most people in the west are taught that this was a big event, and the date of the Great Schism was on our history test, but beyond that nothing was taught at all. There might have been a brief discussion of the causes, but our history classes never really delve into how monumental this event truly was. The discussion, in charity, discusses the Filioque and also the political motivations that caused the Schism. A great point is made that this Great Schism is a stain on all Christians because Jesus Christ built one Church. He did not build two churches or multiple churches. Both sides of the Church need to come together and get back into communion with one another.

This concludes Part I of the Christian Chronicles. If you have not watched it, please do take the time and watch it now. You need to know where you came from to even begin to understand where you are going.