David Suchet: In the Footsteps of St. Paul S01E01 - Early Life

In the year 40 CE, when Paul began his missionary enterprise, there were only about 1,000 Christians throughout the whole Roman Empire. But just 300 years later, there were more than six million.

In this first episode, David visits Jerusalem to discover Paul's early life as a devout Jew and his subsequent, life-changing, conversion to the new Jesus Movement. David journeys to Tarsus in modern Turkey where Paul was born, and learns he was a citizen of two worlds - Roman and Turkish. He travels to Antioch in eastern Turkey, where Paul set about his mission of converting the Gentile world to the new religion of Christianity, and to Ephesus, where Paul challenged the gods of Empire. In so doing, he was challenging the might of Rome itself.

On this journey, David's personal mission is to discover what motivated Paul. His aim is to work out how Paul triumphed over the Roman Empire and succeeded in leaving a legacy that endures to this day.