How a Jewish movement became the religion of an empire.
§ I · Where Christianity Came From
Jesus proclaimed that God was about to redeem the world. Paul believed that all Israel would be saved. The first followers were Jews who expected the end within their own lifetimes. None of them imagined founding a new religion — let alone the official faith of the empire that had executed their teacher.
There was never just one Christianity. In its first centuries the movement splintered into dozens of rival communities — Marcionites, Valentinians, Montanists, martyrs and ascetics — each convinced it held the true gospel. The “orthodoxy” we inherited was not the starting point. It was the version that won.
This course traces how those changes happened: how a small Jewish sect navigated a Mediterranean world full of gods, why so many early Christian groups disagreed so violently, and how — by the fifth century — one Christianity came to teach that most of humanity was condemned, the Jews were damned, and only one God was allowed.
§ II · Course at a Glance
§ III · Course Themes
From a Galilean preacher to the fall of Rome, these are the worlds the church passed through on its way from sect to empire.
Theme I
The religious culture of the Hellenistic Mediterranean — Greeks, Romans, and the Jewish communities living among them. The crowded marketplace of gods, cults, and philosophies into which the first Christians were born.
1st century BCE – 1st century CETheme II
The historical Jesus, the movement that formed around him, and Paul — the apostle to the pagans — who carried the message beyond Israel and reshaped what it meant to belong.
c. 30 – 70 CETheme III
Marcion and the invention of the New Testament, Valentinus and the Gnostics, Justin and Irenaeus drawing the lines of heresy. The fierce contest over which Christianity was the true one.
2nd – 3rd centuryTheme IV
Charisma, prophecy, and martyrdom give way to power. Constantine’s conversion, the Council of Nicaea, and Origen’s fusion of scripture with Greek philosophy remake the faith into an imperial religion.
3rd – 4th centuryTheme V
Augustine’s City of God — divine justice, original sin, and the meaning of history — written as the Western empire collapsed. How a Christianity built for an empire survived the empire’s end.
5th century
§ IV · Your Instructor
Aurelio Professor of Scripture, emerita · Boston University · Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Paula Fredriksen is one of the most distinguished living historians of ancient Christianity. She is the William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture emerita at Boston University, and since 2009 has been affiliated with the Department of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2018. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Her books have reshaped how scholars and readers alike understand the period — among them Augustine and the Jews, Sin: The Early History of an Idea, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle, When Christians Were Jews, and the prize‑winning Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years (Princeton University Press), the book this course is built around. Few people can take you inside the late‑antique world — its gods, its arguments, its saints and heretics — with her combination of rigor, wit, and storytelling.
§ V · What This Course Offers
Paula Fredriksen brings the gods, heretics, martyrs, and emperors of the first five centuries into a single sweeping story — for anyone who has ever wondered how Christianity actually became Christianity.
Paul and the gospels, Marcion and the Gnostics, Justin, Origen, and Augustine — the actual texts the early Christians wrote, argued over, and condemned.
Paula Fredriksen has spent a career inside late antiquity. You get a specialist’s command of the period — not a survey skimmed from secondary sources.
From the arena of the martyrs to the throne of Constantine.
All twenty lectures available on demand. Lifetime access means you can absorb, revisit, and rewatch the whole arc as often as you like.
Rome and Carthage, Alexandria and Nicaea — the cities and empires where Christianity was forged.
No prior background in theology or ancient history required. Whether you’re a believer, a skeptic, or simply curious, the story is told from the ground up.
§ VI · Prepare to Rethink
Common Assumption
“Early Christianity was a single, unified faith.”
In fact
For its first centuries there were many Christianities — Marcionite, Valentinian, Montanist, and more — each certain it held the truth. Orthodoxy was the outcome of a long contest, not the starting point.
Common Assumption
“Christianity swiftly swept paganism aside.”
In fact
The Roman world stayed full of gods for centuries. Conversion was slow, uneven, and bitterly contested — and the old cults outlived far more emperors than we tend to remember.
Common Assumption
“The New Testament was settled from the beginning.”
In fact
It was Marcion — later branded a heretic — who first proposed a fixed canon. Which books counted as scripture was argued over for generations before the list we know was agreed.
Common Assumption
“Constantine made Christianity the religion of Rome.”
In fact
Constantine legalized and favored the church, but Christianity became the empire’s official religion only decades later, under Theodosius in 380. His role is one of the most overstated stories in history.
§ VIII · Full Schedule
All twenty lectures are available to watch the moment you enroll. Click any lecture to read its description.
§ IX · Included Bonuses
A full bonus lecture on how anti‑Jewish theology developed within early Christianity — through scriptural interpretation and the rise of ecclesiastical authority.
Four quizzes with answer guides plus PDF lesson guides for every session — to test your understanding and anchor the material as you go.
MP3 downloads and full transcripts of every lecture — listen on the go, search the text, or follow along if English is not your first language.
Enjoy the course at a fraction of the cost
$1,499 Value 20 university-level lectures by a leading historian (Princeton University Press). Comparable university seminars run $2,000–$4,000.
$295
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§ X · Frequently Asked
