A.D. (miniseries) (1985)

A.D. (1985) is a British/Italian miniseries in six parts which adapts the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles. Considered as the third and final installment in a TV miniseries trilogy which began with Moses the Lawgiver (1974) and Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth (1977), it was adapted from Anthony Burgess's novel The Kingdom of the Wicked, which was itself a sequel to Burgess's book Man Of Nazareth, on which was based Zeffirelli's movie. The title is the abbreviation for Anno Domini (Medieval Latin, "In the year of the Lord"), as the events occur in the first years of the Christian Era.



^ Erickson, Hal. Plot synopsis for A.D. on Allmovie website.

Synopsis

The story tells the life histories about Saint Peter and Paul of Tarsus after the crucifixion of Jesus, and their individual fates in old Rome in the time of the persecution of Christians. Events in the New Testament Book of Acts by Luke and in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius are dramatized and interwoven with the contrasting histories of political intrigues in the public and private lives of the Caesars from Tiberius through Nero related in The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, together with the fictional drama of the lives of two Jews and two Romans: Caleb the Zealot and his sister Sarah, and Julius Valerius the Imperial Guard and Corinna the patrician woman who has chosen to be a gladiator.

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