Why Did Rome Start Persecuting Christians?
Religious persecution was not a common practice in Rome
Rome was known for many things but religious persecution was not one of them. While Rome had a state religion and an imperial cult it did not generally outlaw foreign religion or religious practice. Doing so would have been disastrous. At its peak the Roman Empire stretched from England to Persia, Gaul to North Africa. The Roman Empire had millions of citizens that held religious beliefs of all types. Persecuting religious minorities would have led to the persecution of a large section of Roman society.
Instead, Rome simply asked that you paid homage to the emperor and acknowledged the Roman gods before or during any of your personal religious ceremonies. A vast majority of the world was polytheistic at this point and throwing out some platitudes to another pantheon of gods was not that big of an issue. In fact, the only group of people who would have taken umbrage with the prevalence of polytheism were the Jews who got special religious exemptions from Rome for just that reason.
If Rome was so tolerant to foreign religions why did the empire start cracking down on Christians? Why did Rome start persecuting the new religion when they had not before?
