EP 04 - The Real-Life Magisterium

Chariot races in church

- Episode 04 -

The Real-Life Magisterium: the secret history of the Roman Catholic Church

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Chariot races in church

5 November 2025

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The real life magisterium: the secret history of the ROMAN Catholic Church

EPISODE 4 - CHARIOT RACES IN CHURCH

The invasions of the Roman Empire AD100-500 of mainly ancient Germanic people

Climate change and the 3^rd Century crisis for the Roman Empire

We look at why, in the midst of a prolonged economic crisis caused by climate change, epidemic disease and a series of invasions, Roman Emperors began to court the tiny but growing Church. Could it possibly have something to do with its unique system of poor relief and the fact that it offered an alternative structure of local government?

Once the church was playing a significant part in local government, the leaders of secular society just took it over. They created a paid, professional cadre of church leadership that was indistinguishable from the rest of the local elite. One key tell-tale sign was that they now excluded women from leadership roles. Well, that’s the way it was in secular Roman society.

Roman patronage turned out not to be a good thing. The increasingly wealthy Church now offered an unrivalled opportunity for wealth and power and bishops lied, stole and committed murder to get their share. It transformed the church forever.

'As a child, I was unchurched, and when I began to study early Christian women, I noticed patterns in the data that scholars raised in the Church seemed to overlook. When I discovered that some early Christian authors had described Mary and other women with markers of liturgical authority, I felt that it was important to publish. I was really surprised by the amount of censorship, both ancient and modern, of women’s roles in the Early Church.' - Dr Ally Kateusz

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#116 Chariot races in church - Ep 4 The Real-Life Magisterium: the secret history of the Roman Catholic Church

The Martyrdom of Saint Agatha AD251 under Emperor Decius involved the removal of her breasts. By Sebastiano del Piombo, 1520s

The last and most serious persecution of Christians was a failure

The onset of climate change caused the first brief persecution of Christians from AD250-1 and AD257-60 – after all someone had to take the blame for the drought and disease.

Minne di Sant'Agata, a typical Sicilian sweet shaped as a breast, representing the cut breasts of Saint Agatha

But it was the fact that church leaders were taking roles in government that led to the worst persecution starting in AD303. Emperor Diocletian had worked hard to restore the Roman Empire to its former glory and surrounded himself with the mystical paraphernalia of a religious court. He declared himself the one great pagan god’s greatest servant.

It was Conservative factions at the imperial court, afraid of losing their power to Christians, who persuaded Diocletian to unleash the worst persecution the ancient church ever faced. Its buildings were razed and many of its books destroyed. The Church leadership was hounded, tortured and executed. The persecution continued until AD311 when Emperor Galerius ended the terror and issued an edict of toleration.

The persecution, however, had been a failure and it was to be the last. Christians had apparently become so embedded in local society that there was no appetite to get rid of them. Now there was no going back.

Chariot races in church. How did we get there? Climate change.

The Battle of Milvan Bridge by Giulio Romano, 1520-4

I have a dream

Why did a young military commander from the Danube area, a pretender to the Imperial throne, choose Jesus as his marching banner. Or did he?

The story goes that on 27 October AD312, Constantine was preparing to cross the Milvan Bridge into Rome, and attack one of the four co-emperors left by Diocletian to manage the Empire. The night before the battle Constantine dreams of Jesus and the words ‘in this sign (the cross), conquer.’ Constantine wins the battle. Declaring himself a Christian he now defeats the three remaining emperors and takes the imperial throne for himself. He declares Christianity the official religion of the Empire.

And yet he never did convert to Christianity, except maybe on his death bed. The symbolism on his victory arch in Rome is not in any way Christian. His Edict of Toleration, issued at Milan in AD313, did not establish Christianity as the Imperial religion. It simply added it to the list of all the others. ‘Let no one disturb another,’ is all he proclaimed. ‘Let each man hold fast to that which his soul wishes.'

He did build a number of basilicas. But most of them, for example six of the eight he built in Rome, had no specifically Christian elements. Indeed, the interiors of those six basilicas are built in the shape of miniature chariot race tracks, complete with even the slanting starting line.

Council of Nicaea with Constantine and bishops. Under their feet Arius whose writings didn't make the cut

Arius - heretic or rival?

A few years into Constantine’s reign there was a violent battle (on the streets of Alexandria) between the pope or patriarch of Alexandria (Alexander) and a leading theologian and priest, Arius.

The redacted and mistranslated story that later survived Charlemagne's destruction of any document that failed to justify his autocratic power, tells us that Arius was a heretic and didn’t believe Jesus was the son of God. It’s rubbish.

As historian James Corke-Webster (among others) has pointed out many at the time – including at least a third of the clergy in Alexandria – believed that it was the Patriarch Alexander’s views that were heretical. The violent feud was probably about a power struggle over who would be the next pope of Alexandria, one of the greatest and richest cities in the Empire.

Historian Peter Brown simply calls the whole thing a fake. With the pax Romana threatened, Constantine called a council of the Church at Nicaea to resolve the problem quietly, once and for all by agreeing a written set of required beliefs. It became a dangerous weapon in the hands of unscrupulous bishops.

Just as in a revolutionary sect or a religious cult, demanding agreement to a set of required propositions hands overwhelming power to those who decide what’s on the list, who’s in and who’s out. It changed the Church forever.

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