Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Reformation. Revised and Updated ed. Vol. 1. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Kindle Electronic Edition.
Ch. 5, “First Conflicts with the State.” Loc. 778-924
Reasons for persecution of Christians have changed from one time and place to another. Gonzalez explores the first persecutions carried on by a state. The earliest Christians were proclaiming the fulfillment of the Jewish faith (Gonzalez 2010, Loc. 789). Jewish persecution was based on a belief that the Christians were wrongly going against their historic faith (Ibid., Loc. 801). By the time of Nero the Christians were seen as separate from the Jews, thus not protected from the demand to worship the emperor (Ibid., Loc. 825). After the fire of Rome in 64 the Christians, whose portion of the city had not been destroyed, were blamed for all sorts of evil, according to Tacitus (Ibid., Loc. 855). The local persecution of Nero died out with him, but some years later, under Domitian, Jews and Christians were fined, arrested, and killed more actively (Ibid., Loc. 893). Domitian’s reign did not continue long after the start of the persecutions (Ibid., Loc. 908). While he had a very negative reputation for some time he has since been seen in a more positive light. In any case, after Domitian, Christians were relatively obscure for some time.