Re: The Early Christians: In Their Own Words

However much they protested or proved their loyalty, though, the Christians

were misfits in society. The Jews were already an affront to society with 
their separatism and imageless wor****p of God, which made them a “second 
race.” The Christian faith in God went a decisive step further. It was 
divested even of the seeming national character of the “Jewish God” and
his 
temple and sacrifices. For the pagans, this explained the repulsively
novel 
life the Christians led: it was godless. Christians were looked upon as a 
downright monstrous “third race” and accused of intolerable atheism. This 
explains why at that time the Roman state fought against the Christians as

“criminals,” “desperate and forsaken people,” “public enemies,” “dregs of 
the nations,” and “monstrous phenomena.”