According to the Gospel account, Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem two years before the death of Herod the Great - making the date 6 BC

Herod, according to the Gospel account, orders all newly born infants in Bethlehem to be killed

Saul of Tarsus, later known as St Paul, has a Greek-speaking Jewish father who is a Roman citizen

Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee, gathering disciples, preaching and healing

Voluptas quo cum mol

Jesus rides into Jerusalem with a crowd of followers, then attacks the traders in the courtyard of the Temple

Jesus, at the Last Supper, associates the bread and wine with his own body and blood, establishing the sacrament of the Eucharist

Jesus is brought before Pontius Pilate who reluctantly sentences him to death for blasphemy

Jesus Christ is crucified, according to the accounts of his followers, outside the city wall of Jerusalem

Peter becomes the leader of the small community of Christians in Jerusalem

Stephen is stoned outside the city wall of Jerusalem - the first Christian martyr

On the road to Damascus, where he intends to persecute the Christians, Saul sees a blinding light

St Paul, taking ship to Cyprus, begins the first of his great missionary journeys

St Paul, on his travels within the Roman empire, begins converting non-Jews (or Gentiles) to the new Christian faith

The Thessalonians receive the first of Paul's epistles - the earliest text in the New Testament, written in Greek

The leaders of the Christian church gather in Jerusalem to decide an urgent question - must Gentile converts undergo circumcision?

St Peter, believed to have come to Rome as leader of the Christian community, is subsequently considered the first pope

St Paul arrives in Rome a prisoner, but then spends two years freely preaching Christianity

Early Christian tradition states that both Peter and Paul meet death in Rome as martyrs, possibly as a result of the fire of AD 64

The Acts of the Apostles are written, probably by Luke – the evangelist and companion of Paul on his final journey to Rome

The earliest of the Christian gospels, that of St Mark, is written down - possibly in Asia Minor or Syria

On the order of Marcus Aurelius, Christians in Lyons are tortured to death - an instance of persecution unusual at this time

A house in Doura-Europus is adapted for Christian worship - the earliest surviving example of its kind

Origen, living in Caesarea, compiles the Hexapla, displaying versions of the Old Testament in six columns for comparative study

The Christians of Rome use the catacombs as tomb chambers, and decorate the walls with murals on New Testament themes