We are so accustomed to "knowing" that Rome persecuted ancient Christians that we can fail to see how odd, unprecedented, and anomalous such a persecution, in such a society, actually was. Pragmatic religious pluralism had long characterized ancient Mediterranean kingdoms in general, the Roman Empire in particular. (No one wanted to have to deal with an angry god.) To understand the sources of this unhappy social innovation—the invention of religious persecution—we need to recall what concerned ancient people when they engaged in what we think of as "religious" activities. Ethnicity and antiquity; the standing obligations to one's own gods; the importance of communal cult acts, of showing and being seen to show respect; the premium placed on maintaining the pax deorum, the concordat between heaven and earth that guaranteed the well-being of city and empire: These are the considerations that mattered to them. Cult, the ancients assumed, made gods happy; and when gods were happy, humans flourished. Conversely, not receiving cult mad gods unhappy; and when gods were unhappy, the made people unhappy.
The problem with gentile Christians, then, in the view of the pagan majority, was not that these people were "Christian," but that they were "gentile," or rather that they were still "pagan"...Gentile Christians became the objects of local resentments and anxieties precisely because they were deviant pagans, refusing to honor the gods upon whom their city's well-being depended. In consequence, when things went wrong—as things tend to do—gentile Christians were easily, readily blamed...Divine anger would affect everybody. In brief, ancestral obligation, not particular beliefs—what people did, not what they thought—was what mattered.—pages 86-87
<idle musing>
I fear I might have cut too much out. I hope that makes sense to you. Atheism is what Christians were accused of—not in believing in no god, but in not honoring all gods!
</idle musing>
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