[soft music]
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- [Announcer] And when he
had opened the fourth seal,
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I heard the voice of the fourth
beast say, "come and see."
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And I looked, and
behold a pale horse,
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and his name that
sat on him was Death,
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and Hell followed with him,
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and power was given unto them
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over the fourth
part of the Earth,
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to kill with
sword, and with hunger,
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and with death, and
with the beasts of the earth.
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[soft music]
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- [Narrator] It is
the late 4th Century AD.
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The emperor Constantine,
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the most successful Roman
commander since Julius Caesar,
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has now been in his
grave for two generations.
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The capital of the empire
is firmly planted in the east,
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in the thriving
city of Constantinople,
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named for the man who managed
to unite a fractured empire.
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The brutal persecution
of Christians ended long ago
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with the edict of Milan,
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and the Roman Empire has
become remarkably stable.
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But all that is about to change,
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because a ferocious
tribe of unknown warriors
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is spilling over the Asian
steppes into Eastern Europe.
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They are the Huns,
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a people so
dedicated to the art of fear
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that they slash the
faces of their newborn sons
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just to teach them pain,
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and to inspire
terror in their enemies
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when they grow up
and become soldiers.
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The people of
eastern Europe panic.
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The Goths, a barbarian
tribe that long ago settled
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into an agricultural life
on the north side of the Danube
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cannot defend
themselves against the Huns.
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They crumple in
the face of invasion.
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Desperate to save their lives,
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they flee southward
towards the Roman Empire.
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Tens of thousands
of frantic refugees
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pile up against the border,
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hoping to cross
the Danube into safety.
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The emperor Valens,
ruling from Constantinople,
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is sympathetic to
the plight of the Goths
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and he gives the migrants
permission to cross the river
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and settle on Roman land.
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[dramatic music]
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[tense music]
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[tense music continues]
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It should have been
the end of the crisis,
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but two Roman commanders charged
with resettling the Goths
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smell an opportunity.
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Instead of giving the
Goths the food and supply
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sent over from the emperor,
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instead they begin
to sell those materials
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at very exorbitant prices.
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And when the desperate refugees
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finally run out
of silver and gold,
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they begin to sell them dog meat
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in exchange for
their children as slaves.
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The land they were
promised never materializes.
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The desperate Goths strike back.
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[dark music]
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Under the command
of King Fritigern,
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they suddenly
pour across the Balkans
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like a plague of
locusts, looting and pillaging,
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wreaking vengeance on the Romans
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and skirmishing
with Roman troops
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at every available opportunity.
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The emperor has no
choice but to respond,
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and confident
that he could easily
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squash the
rebellion of mere barbarians,
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he meets the Goths
with the force of 30,000 men
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just outside the city of
Adrianople in August of 378 AD.
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It is a battle for the ages,
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still featured in
military textbooks to this day.
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The Romans should have won.
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They outnumbered the
less disciplined Goths
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at least two to one,
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but desperation
is a powerful ally,
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and the barbarian horde
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shockingly defeat the
greatest army on Earth.
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The emperor's body, never found.
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Not content with a
victory in Eastern Europe,
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and with a deep grudge
simmering against the Romans,
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the Goth start
marching westward toward Italy.
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Fritigern dies in 382.
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A few years later, a
young Visigoth named Alaric
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takes his place and
leads his people further west.
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They arrived in Ravenna in 407,
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which the
Western emperor Honorius
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has just made his
administrative capital,
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because it was easier to defend
than his hometown of Milan.
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Alaric attempts to
negotiate with the Romans,
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but he comes away empty handed.
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He turns his men to the south
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with his eyes on the
greatest prize of all,
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the mother city, Rome.
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Less than a hundred years
after the forces of Constantine
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arrived on the
shores of the Tiber River
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and won the
Battle of Milvian Bridge,
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it is now
barbarians, complete outsiders,
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who are marching
on the city of Rome.
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[dramatic music]
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[dramatic music continues]
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The City of Seven Hills
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is not only the symbolic
center of the Roman Empire,
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it is the biggest
city in the world,
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with a population
of more than 800,000.
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Early one morning, 408 AD,
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the Romans wake up to
their very worst nightmare,
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actual barbarians at the gates.
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For the next two years,
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Alaric wages three separate
sieges against the city,
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and on August 24, 410,
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the Goths ride into town
through the Salarian gate.
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For three full days
they plunder and pillage,
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taking everything they want.
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The great buildings
and artwork of Rome,
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they get demolished,
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because that stuff
means nothing to barbarians.
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The graves of
great Roman emperors,
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including Augustus
Caesar, they're desecrated,
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their ashes scattered
unceremoniously to the wind.
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It's not just
devastating, it's humiliating.
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[dramatic music]
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The city is so
completely ravaged,
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that as the Goths prepared
to leave and continue southward,
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the citizens of the city protest
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that they've been left
with absolutely nothing.
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How are we supposed to
survive, they complain.
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What will you leave us?
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"Your lives," said Alaric.
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"I will leave you your lives."
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According to the
people who were there,
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that's exactly what happened.
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Instead of the
wholesale slaughter
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that usually
accompanied such conquests,
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Alaric simply
packed up and left town.
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"My voice sticks in my throat,"
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wrote the famous Jerome
from the city of Bethlehem
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when he heard the news.
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"And as I dictate,
sobs choke my utterance.
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The city which had taken the
whole world was itself taken."
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The greatest civilization
in the history of the world
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had just been humbled
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by what many Romans
considered a band of savages,
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and it was the
beginning of the end
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for the western Roman Empire.
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By 476 AD the last emperor
of the west had been deposed
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and Rome was no more.
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[fire crackling]
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[wind blowing]
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[soft music]
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[soft music continues]
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What is truly astonishing
is how much of Rome's history
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was actually
predicted in advance.
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More than half a millennium
before the birth of Christ,
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before Romans had
even put a mark on the map,
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A Hebrew prophet living in
the court of a Babylonian king
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predicted the rise
and fall of world empires
00:08:01.94\00:08:04.98
with amazing precision.
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In the second chapter of Daniel,
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the future of the world is
portrayed as a massive statue.
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It has a head of gold,
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which stands for Nebuchadnezzar
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in the neo-Babylonian empire.
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Beneath that is
a torso of silver,
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which the prophecy
explains is another kingdom
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that comes after
Babylon, but is inferior to it.
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Then a belly and
thighs of bronze,
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which is the third empire.
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After that, legs of iron,
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which stand for the
fourth great empire,
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and that's it, only four.
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And somehow those four empires
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just happened to
match exactly what happened.
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After Babylon, we got
the Medes and the Persians,
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then we got the
Macedonians, the Greeks,
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under Alexander the Great,
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and then finally the Romans,
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the Empire of Iron that
dominates the global landscape
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until the collapse
of the west in 476 AD.
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What's really
curious about the prophecy
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is the way that it just
ends after four empires.
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If this was just guesswork,
00:09:08.54\00:09:10.01
any rational prognosticator
would've continued on
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to a fifth and a sixth empire,
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because well, that's just the
way the ancient world worked.
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But no, Daniel stops after four.
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He says there will not be
a fifth empire after Rome.
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Instead, Rome will be divided.
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"Whereas you saw
the feet and toes,
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partly of potter's
clay and partly of iron,
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the kingdom shall be divided."
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In Daniel 7, we
find the same thing.
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Four great animals
coming up out of the sea,
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each one representing an
empire, but there is no fifth.
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Instead, the fourth
animal grows 10 horns,
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each one representing a
separate king or kingdom,
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because with Rome
there is no great successor.
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It simply collapses under
pressure from the barbarian
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wars. [dramatic music]
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The rise of the Roman
empire is a staggering story.
00:10:03.00\00:10:05.93
For 800 years, the
city stood undefeated,
00:10:07.24\00:10:10.77
unmolested by any outside army.
00:10:10.77\00:10:13.01
The last time a
band of wild barbarians
00:10:14.11\00:10:16.08
had crashed through the gates
00:10:16.08\00:10:17.51
was almost 400
years before Christ.
00:10:17.51\00:10:20.52
They were the Senones,
00:10:23.35\00:10:24.85
a savage Celtic tribe from
what is now modern day France.
00:10:24.85\00:10:27.92
[dark music]
00:10:29.92\00:10:32.43
[wind blowing]
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When most people
think of the Celts,
00:10:36.43\00:10:38.33
they tend to think of Ireland,
or maybe Scotland or Wales.
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But at one time, a
very long time ago,
00:10:42.27\00:10:45.51
the Celts were found all
over the European continent.
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Their origins are
lost in the murky history
00:10:48.84\00:10:51.05
of long
forgotten oral traditions.
00:10:51.05\00:10:53.52
Nobody is absolutely
sure of where they come from.
00:10:53.52\00:10:57.22
Some scholars think, based
on possible linguistic evidence,
00:11:01.16\00:11:05.59
that maybe the
Celts actually started out
00:11:05.59\00:11:07.96
as Venetian sailors who
landed in the south of Portugal,
00:11:07.96\00:11:11.07
and then spread across
both western and eastern Europe
00:11:11.07\00:11:13.80
from that spot.
00:11:13.80\00:11:15.47
The oldest Celtic
settlement we know of
00:11:15.47\00:11:17.24
is not actually
found here in Ireland,
00:11:17.24\00:11:18.84
It's in Hallstatt,
in modern day Austria,
00:11:18.84\00:11:21.74
where Celtic miners
were digging for salt,
00:11:21.74\00:11:23.98
one of the most precious
commodities in the ancient
00:11:23.98\00:11:27.15
world. You see the Celts were
more of a widespread culture
00:11:27.15\00:11:29.92
than a single ethnic group,
00:11:29.92\00:11:31.42
spilling across all
kinds of national boundaries.
00:11:31.42\00:11:34.46
In Europe, there were
Celts just about everywhere.
00:11:34.46\00:11:38.26
[soft music]
00:11:38.26\00:11:39.76
Look across a map of Europe,
00:11:39.76\00:11:41.40
and the evidence of
ancient Celtic peoples
00:11:41.40\00:11:43.47
can be found emerging
from all points of the compass.
00:11:43.47\00:11:46.97
One of the telltale
signs that any region
00:11:46.97\00:11:49.60
was once home to Celtic people,
00:11:49.60\00:11:51.77
is the simple syllable gal.
00:11:51.77\00:11:54.51
At the very western edge of
Europe, you've got Portugal,
00:11:54.51\00:11:57.68
which was once a
Celtic settlement.
00:11:57.68\00:11:59.61
The whole nation of
France was once called Gaul
00:11:59.61\00:12:02.35
because it wasn't
populated by Franks,
00:12:02.35\00:12:04.39
a Germanic tribe, who
eventually became the French,
00:12:04.39\00:12:07.22
it was originally Celtic.
00:12:07.22\00:12:09.36
There's a region
named Galicia in Spain,
00:12:09.36\00:12:11.56
a Celtic settlement,
00:12:11.56\00:12:13.06
and another kingdom of Galicia
all the way over in Poland.
00:12:13.06\00:12:16.80
There were Celts in the
Roman province of Galatia,
00:12:16.80\00:12:19.30
down in Asia
minor, modern day Turkey,
00:12:19.30\00:12:21.64
a region settled by
ancient Celtic tribes
00:12:21.64\00:12:23.87
who moved into the area
some 300 years before Christ.
00:12:23.87\00:12:27.64
And that means
that Paul's letter
00:12:27.64\00:12:29.58
to the Galatian
Christians in the New Testament
00:12:29.58\00:12:31.91
was actually
written to first century
00:12:31.91\00:12:33.75
Celtic believers in Christ.
00:12:33.75\00:12:35.42
There are other
telltale signs on the map.
00:12:36.55\00:12:39.22
The ancient
Celts, master navigators,
00:12:39.22\00:12:42.02
were able to build
perfectly straight roads
00:12:42.02\00:12:43.99
across thousands of miles.
00:12:43.99\00:12:45.86
And every so often,
00:12:45.86\00:12:47.13
they named an important
00:12:47.13\00:12:48.40
navigational or
sacred place, Mediolanum.
00:12:48.40\00:12:51.83
It literally means middle Earth,
00:12:51.83\00:12:54.24
and its a ubiquitous place name,
00:12:54.24\00:12:55.80
ranging from the
west coast of Ireland
00:12:55.80\00:12:57.47
all the way over
to the Black Sea.
00:12:57.47\00:13:00.04
Over the course of centuries
it's changed a little bit,
00:13:00.04\00:13:02.88
as in the case of the
city of Milan in Italy
00:13:02.88\00:13:05.98
or Meylan in the
southeast of France.
00:13:05.98\00:13:08.88
And of course we
also find the names
00:13:08.88\00:13:10.39
of ancient Celtic
tribes on the map,
00:13:10.39\00:13:12.05
such as the Parisi who
gave birth to the city of Paris.
00:13:12.05\00:13:16.06
About 400 years before Christ,
00:13:17.29\00:13:19.39
the European climate
suddenly started to get warmer,
00:13:19.39\00:13:22.30
and in the Celtic
territory of Gaul,
00:13:22.30\00:13:24.70
the mosquitoes began to breed
00:13:24.70\00:13:26.20
in the marshy
beds of dried up ponds,
00:13:26.20\00:13:28.70
and the
mosquitoes brought malaria.
00:13:28.70\00:13:31.64
That may be the
reason that a band of Celts
00:13:31.64\00:13:34.11
suddenly decided to
cross the Alps into Italy.
00:13:34.11\00:13:37.11
They established a
new home near this spot,
00:13:41.95\00:13:44.49
the ancient
Etruscan village of Clusium,
00:13:44.49\00:13:47.09
where an Italian man discovers
00:13:47.09\00:13:48.49
that his wife's
actually been cheating on him
00:13:48.49\00:13:50.29
with one of the nobles.
00:13:50.29\00:13:51.79
Now he's too poor to have
the resources to exact revenge,
00:13:51.79\00:13:55.06
but then he gets this idea.
00:13:55.06\00:13:56.60
He goes out to the camp of
the Celts to enlist their help,
00:13:56.60\00:13:58.93
and he bribes them with
something they absolutely love,
00:13:58.93\00:14:02.27
alcohol.
00:14:02.27\00:14:03.14
The Celts blew
into town like a storm,
00:14:05.01\00:14:07.61
and the residents of Clusium
were understandably terrified
00:14:07.61\00:14:10.51
because the Celts,
well, they were horrific.
00:14:10.51\00:14:13.52
They actually fought naked,
00:14:13.52\00:14:15.48
and had this habit of nailing
00:14:15.48\00:14:17.19
the severed
heads of their enemies
00:14:17.19\00:14:18.89
over the doors of their huts.
00:14:18.89\00:14:20.96
So the Clusians
panicked and sent an appeal
00:14:20.96\00:14:22.86
to the city of Rome
to please come and help.
00:14:22.86\00:14:25.56
The Romans sent three men
to try and negotiate a peace,
00:14:25.56\00:14:29.70
and it almost worked.
00:14:29.70\00:14:31.53
The Celts had never
even heard of Romans,
00:14:31.53\00:14:33.60
but assumed these
must be very brave men
00:14:33.60\00:14:36.17
if the Clusians
had asked them to come,
00:14:36.17\00:14:38.61
and because the Romans
used diplomacy instead of force,
00:14:38.61\00:14:41.88
the Celts agreed to make a deal.
00:14:41.88\00:14:43.88
All they really
wanted, they said,
00:14:43.88\00:14:45.98
was some extra
farmland outside of town.
00:14:45.98\00:14:48.48
But then the
Romans betrayed them,
00:14:49.52\00:14:51.79
killing a Celtic chieftain,
00:14:51.79\00:14:53.39
and now the
Celts wanted revenge.
00:14:53.39\00:14:55.82
Brennus, their leader,
marched on the city of Rome.
00:14:55.82\00:14:59.29
11 miles north of town
they met the Roman forces
00:14:59.29\00:15:02.50
at the place where the river
Allia flows into the Tiber.
00:15:02.50\00:15:06.17
The Romans had never
seen anything like the Celts.
00:15:06.17\00:15:09.67
The historian Livy tells us
they were fair-haired giants,
00:15:09.67\00:15:12.67
who filled the whole region
00:15:12.67\00:15:14.61
with their wild
singing and horrible yelling,
00:15:14.61\00:15:17.68
and it scared them.
00:15:17.68\00:15:19.75
They were right to be afraid.
00:15:19.75\00:15:21.72
Brennus and the Celts
utterly demolished them.
00:15:21.72\00:15:25.09
There was nothing stopping them
00:15:27.36\00:15:28.69
from entering the
city of Rome itself.
00:15:28.69\00:15:31.53
What the Celts found
when they arrived, however,
00:15:31.53\00:15:33.80
was unsettling to say the least.
00:15:33.80\00:15:36.06
The city was vacant, quiet,
00:15:36.06\00:15:38.40
because most of the people
00:15:38.40\00:15:39.77
had fled up onto
the Capitoline Hill,
00:15:39.77\00:15:42.00
which was better
defended than the rest of town.
00:15:42.00\00:15:44.87
The eerie silence
set the Celts on edge.
00:15:44.87\00:15:47.88
Finally, they came
into an abandoned yard
00:15:54.12\00:15:56.69
where they found about
80 old men with long beards
00:15:56.69\00:16:00.59
dressed in purple-edged togas,
00:16:00.59\00:16:02.09
sitting on ivory
chairs holding their staffs.
00:16:02.09\00:16:06.13
They were the Patricians,
00:16:06.13\00:16:08.13
the heads of the
senior families of Rome,
00:16:08.13\00:16:10.10
men who refused to hide.
00:16:10.10\00:16:12.63
They were perfectly still,
00:16:12.63\00:16:13.90
not moving a
muscle, majestic, dignified.
00:16:13.90\00:16:17.67
The crude half-naked barbarians
covered with war paint
00:16:17.67\00:16:20.61
had never seen anything like it,
00:16:20.61\00:16:22.74
so they moved very
carefully into the clearing,
00:16:22.74\00:16:25.91
not sure what to make of it.
00:16:25.91\00:16:28.42
One of the Celts
couldn't handle the tension.
00:16:28.42\00:16:30.49
He had to know if
these men were real.
00:16:30.49\00:16:32.95
So he reached out
and pulled on the beard
00:16:32.95\00:16:34.92
of one Marcus Papirus,
00:16:34.92\00:16:36.79
who was so indignant
00:16:36.79\00:16:38.59
at having been
touched by a mere barbarian,
00:16:38.59\00:16:41.10
that he took his staff and
smashed the Celt over the head.
00:16:41.10\00:16:44.90
That was the
beginning of the end.
00:16:44.90\00:16:47.27
For seven long months,
00:16:47.27\00:16:48.47
the Celts poured
their rage on the city,
00:16:48.47\00:16:50.47
laying siege to the
fortress on Capitoline Hill.
00:16:50.47\00:16:54.61
[dramatic music]
00:16:54.61\00:16:57.61
The path up to the fortress
was steep and easy to defend,
00:16:57.61\00:17:01.32
so the Celts decided
they would sneak up at night.
00:17:01.32\00:17:04.49
Now, they probably
would've been successful,
00:17:04.49\00:17:06.52
except for the
sacred geese of Juno,
00:17:06.52\00:17:08.86
who famously made a huge ruckus
00:17:08.86\00:17:11.66
when they saw the Celts
come over the top of the hill.
00:17:11.66\00:17:14.56
They woke up the Romans,
00:17:14.56\00:17:15.73
who easily drove
the Celts back down.
00:17:15.73\00:17:18.50
After seven long
and brutal months,
00:17:18.50\00:17:20.97
everybody had had enough.
00:17:20.97\00:17:22.64
The Celts were getting sick,
00:17:22.64\00:17:24.14
probably from the
piles of dead bodies,
00:17:24.14\00:17:26.14
which they failed to bury.
00:17:26.14\00:17:28.01
The Romans were running
low on supplies and patience.
00:17:28.01\00:17:31.41
Finally, the two
parties struck a peace deal.
00:17:31.41\00:17:34.32
Brennus told the
Romans he would leave
00:17:34.32\00:17:36.85
if they gave him a
thousand pounds of gold.
00:17:36.85\00:17:40.22
Now, it wasn't easy
to find that much gold,
00:17:40.22\00:17:42.02
and the Romans
suspected that Brennus
00:17:42.02\00:17:43.99
was actually
using dishonest weights.
00:17:43.99\00:17:47.00
But when they complained,
00:17:47.00\00:17:48.46
Brennus threw his sword on
the scales and quietly said,
00:17:48.46\00:17:51.17
"Vae victis,"
woe to the defeated.
00:17:51.17\00:17:54.57
It was that event that
made the Romans determined
00:17:56.71\00:17:59.74
to become stronger and better
00:17:59.74\00:18:01.54
and to never
suffer defeat again.
00:18:01.54\00:18:04.28
So to some extent,
00:18:04.28\00:18:06.31
the barbarian
Celts actually helped
00:18:06.31\00:18:08.28
give birth to the Roman Empire,
00:18:08.28\00:18:10.29
a kingdom that
lasted another 800 years
00:18:10.29\00:18:13.79
before the Goths brought
that second and final blow.
00:18:13.79\00:18:18.39
During the centuries in between,
00:18:18.39\00:18:20.76
the Romans had kind of
a begrudging admiration
00:18:20.76\00:18:23.63
for the Celts.
00:18:23.63\00:18:24.87
They thought of them
as crude and inferior,
00:18:24.87\00:18:27.64
but at the same
time, brave and beautiful.
00:18:27.64\00:18:30.81
To this very day,
00:18:30.81\00:18:32.04
there's a marble
statue of a dying Galatian,
00:18:32.04\00:18:34.38
a Celtic fighter,
on the very same hill
00:18:34.38\00:18:37.45
where the Romans took
refuge from Brennus and his men.
00:18:37.45\00:18:40.75
It's a copy of a
much older Greek statue,
00:18:40.75\00:18:44.05
but betrays the
admiration the Romans had
00:18:44.05\00:18:46.49
for these wild
people from the north.
00:18:46.49\00:18:48.66
Eventually, when
Julius Caesar set out to build
00:18:50.16\00:18:52.39
what would become
the mighty Roman Empire,
00:18:52.39\00:18:54.60
he made a point
of conquering Gaul,
00:18:54.60\00:18:57.20
the largest concentration
of Celtic tribes of his day.
00:18:57.20\00:19:00.87
From there, he
pushed all the way up
00:19:00.87\00:19:02.94
into the British
Isles, Britannia,
00:19:02.94\00:19:04.84
where there were more Celts.
00:19:04.84\00:19:07.18
But he stopped short of
crossing the water into Ireland,
00:19:07.18\00:19:10.68
because all there was
out there, he was told,
00:19:10.68\00:19:13.35
was a lot of winter,
00:19:13.35\00:19:15.18
and a lot of very wild Celts,
00:19:15.18\00:19:17.82
people who
performed human sacrifice
00:19:17.82\00:19:20.46
and did other
unspeakable things.
00:19:20.46\00:19:22.52
[soft music]
00:19:25.49\00:19:28.03
The story of Rome
comes full circle,
00:19:31.00\00:19:33.13
starting with the
Celts and in some ways,
00:19:33.13\00:19:35.47
ending with the Celts.
00:19:35.47\00:19:36.44
Without the Celts, in fact,
00:19:36.44\00:19:38.01
there may have
never been a Martin Luther
00:19:38.01\00:19:39.77
or a Protestant reformation.
00:19:39.77\00:19:41.94
The key to
understanding what happened,
00:19:41.94\00:19:44.38
is another very
ancient Bible prophecy,
00:19:44.38\00:19:46.61
this time from the
book of Revelation,
00:19:46.61\00:19:48.65
the Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse.
00:19:48.65\00:19:51.12
Now to most modern Christians,
00:19:51.12\00:19:52.69
the horsemen are
something that happens
00:19:52.69\00:19:54.16
in the very distant future
at the very end of the world.
00:19:54.16\00:19:57.86
But for the first 1800
years of its existence,
00:19:57.86\00:20:00.50
the Christian Church
00:20:00.50\00:20:01.63
understood that
prophecy quite differently.
00:20:01.63\00:20:04.87
They saw it as current history.
00:20:04.87\00:20:07.44
[soft music]
00:20:08.44\00:20:11.01
To our
ancestors' way of thinking,
00:20:15.81\00:20:18.11
that white horse represented
early 1st Century Christianity,
00:20:18.11\00:20:21.45
the church founded by Jesus
and the Apostles themselves.
00:20:21.45\00:20:25.65
The Bible says it would go
out conquering, and to conquer,
00:20:25.65\00:20:29.29
which is exactly what happened.
00:20:29.29\00:20:31.49
In his letter to the
Colossians, Paul the Apostle,
00:20:31.49\00:20:33.80
was able to talk about a gospel
00:20:33.80\00:20:35.93
which was preached to
every creature under heaven.
00:20:35.93\00:20:38.97
Without the benefit of
communications technology,
00:20:40.54\00:20:43.34
those early Christians
somehow took the gospel of Jesus
00:20:43.34\00:20:46.17
to the whole known
world in a single lifetime.
00:20:46.17\00:20:50.31
[soft piano music]
00:20:50.31\00:20:52.65
The second horse is red,
the color of blood and warfare.
00:20:52.65\00:20:56.28
As the Christian Church grew,
00:20:58.19\00:20:59.45
it didn't take long
for the pagan Roman empire
00:20:59.45\00:21:01.52
to perceive it as a
threat to imperial stability.
00:21:01.52\00:21:04.59
And by the end of
the first century,
00:21:04.59\00:21:06.86
the Christians were
being persecuted ruthlessly,
00:21:06.86\00:21:09.56
thrown to the
animals, crucified,
00:21:09.56\00:21:11.83
burned at the stake, used
as playthings in the circus.
00:21:11.83\00:21:15.60
There were at least
eight separate persecutions
00:21:15.60\00:21:17.87
over the next 200 years,
00:21:17.87\00:21:19.67
finally coming to a
head with Diocletian,
00:21:19.67\00:21:22.24
who launched a
final 10-year persecution.
00:21:22.24\00:21:25.35
In the words of Revelation,
00:21:26.35\00:21:27.92
the red horse would
take peace from the Earth,
00:21:27.92\00:21:30.52
and that people
should kill one another,
00:21:30.52\00:21:32.59
and there was given
to him a great sword.
00:21:32.59\00:21:35.19
The persecutions
stopped with Constantine,
00:21:36.26\00:21:38.89
who was tolerant of Christians
00:21:38.89\00:21:40.63
even though he
wasn't one himself.
00:21:40.63\00:21:43.20
He marveled at the
unity of Christians
00:21:43.20\00:21:45.23
who stood together in
the face of certain death,
00:21:45.23\00:21:47.67
and he hoped they
would become the glue
00:21:47.67\00:21:50.44
that held his
new empire together.
00:21:50.44\00:21:52.27
[wind blowing]
00:21:54.88\00:21:57.55
As it turns out, the Christians
were anything but united.
00:22:00.62\00:22:03.92
Within the space of 10 years,
00:22:03.92\00:22:05.75
two major controversies
ripped the church in two.
00:22:05.75\00:22:08.96
First the Donatist
controversy in North Africa,
00:22:08.96\00:22:11.93
and then the Aryan controversy,
00:22:11.93\00:22:13.76
a fierce debate over
the divinity of Christ
00:22:13.76\00:22:15.93
that led to the
Council of Nicaea in AD 325.
00:22:15.93\00:22:20.10
In both of these controversies,
00:22:20.10\00:22:21.67
the Christian
Church found itself
00:22:21.67\00:22:23.61
helpless to settle the dispute,
00:22:23.61\00:22:25.47
so they made a direct
appeal to the Roman emperor.
00:22:25.47\00:22:28.24
Constantine was busy with
the affairs of his new empire,
00:22:28.24\00:22:30.75
so he turned to
the Bishop of Rome
00:22:30.75\00:22:32.85
to take the lead
in calming the fight.
00:22:32.85\00:22:35.45
Up until then,
the Bishop of Rome
00:22:35.45\00:22:37.42
really was just
another bishop among many.
00:22:37.42\00:22:39.95
But after Constantine, he
began to rise in prominence.
00:22:39.95\00:22:44.16
What the
Christians did essentially,
00:22:44.16\00:22:45.66
was beg the Roman
emperor to run the church,
00:22:45.66\00:22:48.26
which gave us a new
form of Christianity,
00:22:48.26\00:22:50.83
a marriage of
church, and the Roman state.
00:22:50.83\00:22:54.27
It was the time of
the third horseman,
00:22:54.27\00:22:55.94
the dark horse of Revelation 6.
00:22:55.94\00:22:58.47
The church made some of
the biggest compromises,
00:22:58.47\00:23:00.91
the biggest mistakes
in Christian history.
00:23:00.91\00:23:03.48
Instead of behaving like Jesus,
00:23:05.88\00:23:07.48
we started to behave
like a Roman conqueror,
00:23:07.48\00:23:10.39
even putting each other to
death for matters of conscience.
00:23:10.39\00:23:13.42
We began to sell influence
and create a social hierarchy
00:23:13.42\00:23:16.49
borrowed directly from
the world of the Romans.
00:23:16.49\00:23:19.73
Eventually, if you differed
00:23:19.73\00:23:21.46
with the empire's
official version of the faith,
00:23:21.46\00:23:23.80
you found yourself
marginalized or worse.
00:23:23.80\00:23:27.67
Everyday Romans
began to flood the church
00:23:27.67\00:23:29.57
because of the social benefits,
00:23:29.57\00:23:31.14
because of the
favor of the emperor,
00:23:31.14\00:23:33.58
and the church
stopped changing the world,
00:23:33.58\00:23:36.18
and the world
started changing the church.
00:23:36.18\00:23:39.18
It leads to the darkest
chapter of Christian history,
00:23:39.18\00:23:41.75
the most embarrassing
stories because, well,
00:23:41.75\00:23:44.55
they're so unlike Jesus.
00:23:44.55\00:23:46.82
Torture chambers, inquisitions,
00:23:46.82\00:23:48.56
the death penalty, the
Jews driven out of Europe,
00:23:48.56\00:23:51.49
heretics put to
death at the stake,
00:23:51.49\00:23:53.66
all in the name of Jesus.
00:23:53.66\00:23:55.80
The original mission of the
church came to a grinding halt,
00:23:55.80\00:23:58.33
replaced with an agenda of
political conquest and war.
00:23:58.33\00:24:02.57
It's the time of the pale horse,
00:24:02.57\00:24:04.64
a time when the
church is practically dead.
00:24:04.64\00:24:07.98
[pensive music]
00:24:09.04\00:24:11.78
[pensive music continues]
00:24:18.32\00:24:21.89
[pensive music continues]
00:24:28.10\00:24:31.87
But of course,
00:24:38.44\00:24:39.87
we know that Christianity
didn't actually die.
00:24:39.87\00:24:43.58
Somehow it
survived the Dark Ages.
00:24:43.58\00:24:46.31
Now there's no doubt
those who still wanted
00:24:46.31\00:24:48.72
New Testament Christianity
00:24:48.72\00:24:50.65
were driven to the
margins of the church
00:24:50.65\00:24:52.62
and eventually pushed out.
00:24:52.62\00:24:54.79
So the question
is, where did they go?
00:24:54.79\00:24:58.76
The sack of Rome
was, in many ways,
00:24:58.76\00:25:01.03
the beginning of the Dark Ages.
00:25:01.03\00:25:03.26
The invading
barbarians didn't care
00:25:03.26\00:25:05.27
about the learning of the ages.
00:25:05.27\00:25:06.80
They smashed classical artwork
00:25:06.80\00:25:08.60
and they burned down libraries.
00:25:08.60\00:25:10.97
The monuments of civilization
00:25:10.97\00:25:12.61
were quickly torn
apart after 410 AD,
00:25:12.61\00:25:15.48
and the western empire
ultimately collapsed in 476,
00:25:15.48\00:25:19.51
when the last
emperor was finally deposed.
00:25:19.51\00:25:22.88
The lights were going out
all over the western world,
00:25:22.88\00:25:26.29
and with them the
writings of the Christian faith,
00:25:26.29\00:25:29.16
including the Bible.
00:25:29.16\00:25:31.39
After Constantine,
the riches of Christianity
00:25:31.39\00:25:33.86
had been concentrated
in the city of Rome,
00:25:33.86\00:25:37.00
and now that Rome was crumbling,
00:25:37.00\00:25:39.10
what was left of
the church was in danger
00:25:39.10\00:25:41.64
of disappearing forever.
00:25:41.64\00:25:44.34
Except that Jesus had promised,
00:25:45.54\00:25:48.01
lo, I am with you always,
even until the end of the world.
00:25:48.01\00:25:51.78
The collapse of
Rome must have seemed
00:25:51.78\00:25:54.12
like the end of
the world to Christians
00:25:54.12\00:25:55.38
living in the 5th Century.
00:25:55.38\00:25:57.19
But in hindsight, we
can see that it wasn't.
00:25:57.19\00:25:59.79
The world is still here,
and so is the Christian Church.
00:25:59.79\00:26:03.69
So when the world went dark,
00:26:03.69\00:26:06.09
where exactly did the church go?
00:26:06.09\00:26:09.03
As much of the
Christian religion
00:26:09.03\00:26:10.50
tragically rode the path
of Constantinian compromise
00:26:10.50\00:26:13.67
right into the
depths of darkness.
00:26:13.67\00:26:16.37
How did the original
faith of Jesus survive?
00:26:16.37\00:26:20.21
The answer is astonishing.
00:26:20.21\00:26:23.04
The Book of Revelation
tells us in chapter 12
00:26:23.04\00:26:25.51
that the woman, a prophetic
symbol for God's church,
00:26:25.51\00:26:28.78
she had to go into
hiding in the wilderness,
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take out a map of the
ancient western Roman empire,
00:26:32.79\00:26:35.02
and find a point as far
away from Rome as you can go,
00:26:35.02\00:26:38.56
and you will discover that the
prophecy literally came true.
00:26:38.56\00:26:42.60
The woman really did
flee to the wilderness,
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because as the world
of Rome was collapsing,
00:26:45.17\00:26:48.17
suddenly, way off in
Hibernia, the land of winter,
00:26:48.17\00:26:52.67
a ruthless
barbarian tribe of Celts
00:26:52.67\00:26:54.51
somehow becomes highly literate,
00:26:54.51\00:26:58.18
and very Christian.
00:26:58.18\00:26:59.68
The very people
who first sacked Rome
00:27:00.82\00:27:02.68
were the ones who
saved the Christian Church.
00:27:02.68\00:27:05.99
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As a well-known author puts it,
00:27:11.46\00:27:13.13
it was the Irish
who saved civilization.
00:27:13.13\00:27:15.93
In fact without them,
00:27:15.93\00:27:17.40
it's highly doubtful that Luther
00:27:17.40\00:27:18.93
would've ever
stepped onto the world scene.
00:27:18.93\00:27:21.50
This is a story
you have got to hear,
00:27:21.50\00:27:24.17
because it might
just change the way
00:27:24.17\00:27:26.24
you think about Christianity.
00:27:26.24\00:27:28.24
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[soft music continues]
00:27:39.12\00:27:42.42
[soft music continues]
00:27:46.29\00:27:49.66
- [Announcer] This
has been a broadcast
00:27:52.07\00:27:53.50
of the Voice of Prophecy.
00:27:53.50\00:27:55.90
To learn more about
how you can get a DVD copy
00:27:55.90\00:27:59.07
of "A Pale Horse
Rides" for yourself,
00:27:59.07\00:28:01.91
please visit
PaleHorseRidesDVD.com,
00:28:01.91\00:28:05.98
or call toll
free [844] 822-2943.
00:28:05.98\00:28:10.35
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00:28:11.19\00:28:13.66
[soft music continues]
00:28:21.36\00:28:24.80