313 A.C. – 380 A.C. In such a short space of time the Church undergoes the greatest transformation in its history: from persecuted it becomes the persecutor. The seventy years which have shaped the history of the West.

Only a little more than seventy years separates the edict of Constantine of 313 – which allows Christians (until then martyrs and persecuted) the freedom to worship – to 380 when Theodosius declares Christianity the only official religion of the Roman Empire and sets in motion the persecution of other religions, until then freely practised in Rome. The cross, once the symbol of the humiliation of Christ and of his redeeming death, changes within a few years into a powerful political image. How did this change come about?

Giovanni Filoramo tells the extraordinary story of how the Christians, from being martyrs, became persecutors. A story of ever more violent clashes between the followers of pagan cults and Christians, of internal divisions between the various Christian sects in the Middle East, Europe and Africa and of the growing strength of relationships between the leaders of religion and political power. Until the time when the Catholic Church becomes itself an instrument of power and creator of institutional and hierarchical order, a model destined to shape the western world and Italy until the present day.