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* The Christian message as taught by Jesus and the Apostles wasboth inclusive and exclusive. It was and is available to all but itexcluded all other philosophical or religious ways. The Romanreligion with its many deities was an institution of the state. AsChristians refused to participate in any pagan rites and ritualsthey came into conflict with the state and were seen as disloyal.
* The withdrawal of Christians from polytheism caused them to becalled “Atheists”. The early Christian worship did not requiretemples, statues, priests or sacrifices. Its simplicity fueled thischarge.
* Many who gained financially through the Roman polytheism stood tolose through the progress of Christianity. Priests, diviners, andimage makers all gained a living from so many gods and sought tospread slanderous rumors. Christians were blamed for all manner ofcalamities, wars, storms and diseases which were said to be ademonstration of the anger of the gods
* The ways of God are naturally offensive to non-Christians. “Butthe natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” (1Corinthians 2:14). The majority of the Romans, particularly therulers, were certainly not Christians at this time.
Source: Miller’s Church History, Andrew Miller, Bible Truth,Illinois, 1980. p 152 -154
Another View:
A biblical or religious answer is not necessarily an historicalanswer. Christians had problems from the beginning because theywere a sect of Judaism up to the end of the 1st Century BCE. Whenthe Jews were in disfavour, the Christians copped the collateraldamage and vice versa – each began to denounce and traduce theother to direct official sanctions to the other party, and as theJews had become an officially licenced religion under the earlyRoman emperors they had something of a headstart.
The other problem was their method of meeting and their rituals.The letters exchanged between Pliny, governor of Bythinia andemperor Trajan illustrate this. Here were people meeting in privatehouses, not going up to temples openly to sacrifice, but indulgingin hidden rituals involving eating of human flesh and drinkingblood. Revolutionaries habitually committed gross acts of sacrilegeto bind them together, and here were people evidently doing justthat. Like any exclusive group, it invited suspicion andretaliation.
However by Pliny’s time a more tolerant attitude was apparent withTrajan telling Pliny not to seek out Christians under his earlierrescript unless it was necessary for other (political) reasons. Hewas so supicious of plots he even forbade Pliny to raise a firebrigade in Nikomedia as it would turn into a political club.Persecutions were spasmodic and localised, usually sparked by somelocal event which was blamed on them, just as the Jews and witcheswere blamed for problems in mediaeval and modern times. Graduallytoleration edicts replaced intolerant ones, until Constantinebrought an edict which removed all restrictions in 313 CE, whichallowed Christians into the highest offices and influence.
When Christianity achieved ascendancy its intolerance went theother way with a ferocity as great or greater than that meted outto them (eg the fate of Hypatia and the priests of Mithraism). Onething about the official state religions of Rome, Greece, Persia etal, there was no religious war (as later within and betweenChristianity, Islam and Judaism), as they recognised that theirgods were the others’ gods by another name. The Romans weretherefore quite tolerant of normal-appearing religions, but clampeddown on religions (superstitio) which were alien and harmful. EarlyChristianity took quite a while to demonstrate to and persuade themthat it was not.
Additional Comments:
Note: the “eating of human flesh and drinking of blood” were purelymetaphorical. In fact, it was supposed to be Christ’s flesh andblood, which is not human. And, of course, it was represented bybread and wine, perfectly normal foods.
