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A new era came about in the minds of the people. "Cogito ergo sum," "I think, therefore I am," wrote Rene Descartes and gave the European spirit a new direction. The universe now appeared as mechanical clockwork. Anyone who understood its laws could dominate it. In this system, God was just an improvable assumption, the church at best a moral institution for the ethical education of the citizenry.
The new ideas penetrated into the highest levels of the aristocracy. In Prussia and Austria enlightened monarchs took power. They advocated education and tolerance and forced back the influence of the church. In Frederick the Great's Prussia, it was decreed that "everyone should find his own form of happiness."
In 1789, the suppressed Third Estate raised its head. In a single decade the French Revolution swept aside the remainders of the Middle Ages. With agonizing labor pains, the modern national state was born. The priests were told to swear an oath to the constitution or be put to death. In 1804, the Corsican "summoned" the pope to Paris in order to crown himself before the pontiff's eyes, a gesture that mocked the claim of the papacy. In 1803, almost all ecclesiastical provinces were dismantled and church property dispossessed on a grand scale.
The Congress of Vienna attempted to turn back the clock. On the barricades of 1848 stood many individual Christians fighting for freedom of the press, human rights and democracy.
This series explores the archeology and origins of Christianity and how it came into the world. Filmed on location in actual historical and biblical sites, this series features many memorable, full-scale dramatic re-creations.
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