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Old 12-01-2009, 01:11 PM
Jeffrey Jeffrey is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 5,178
Re: Why Did the Romans Hate Christians?

Rome was religiously all about pluralism. Worship whomever you want, but make sure you pay tribute to the Roman gods too. Christians would not even consider that.

People also knew the least about the Christians, except that the Jews hated them and repudiated them as brothers.

Also, ignorance only exacerbated other's contempt. "Christians kill children, they want to overthrow government, they are spies, they blaspheme our God and therefore our leaders, they are barbaric people," etc... There were strange rumors that persisted about the Christians that caused many to be suspicious. The Jews enjoyed peace with the Romans, for the most part. However, the Christians had no home to claim. The Jews denounced them and the Gentiles were not sure of them. Their liberality in certain areas ('women's rights' for example) and their conservativeness concerning morality in others was a threat.
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