What did the Romans think about early Christians?

@NativePortlander1970 Prior to Nero, Christians weren't persecuted by the Romans. What persecution there was came mostly from the Israelites. The Romans were far more progressive than other societies of the time on some matters. Their subjects were free to follow whatever religion they wanted. An exception tot his would occur if said religion told people to break the law, IE not pay their taxes. Hence the religious leaders trying to trick Jesus into saying you shouldn't pay taxes in Mark chapter 12. Those same religious leaders viewed Christianity as an apostasy from Judaism, which led to persecution.

Then Nero came along. Contrary to popular belief, the emperor's power was not absolute. To do certain things he still needed the approval of the senate. Nero wanted to demolish many Roman buildings and erect new ones to the greater glory of Nero. He couldn't get the senate to go along with that. So he had the buildings burnt down and scapegoated the Christians for it. Then Roman persecution started. This wasn't until 64 AD.

What started the persecution originally was followers of the same god labeling them as apostates. The Romans piled on for a few years because a criminal glory hound had essentially framed them as serial arsonists.

@NativePortlander1970 That's it? That's your entire reply to what I wrote? I would like to reply with something exactly as relevant, but will have to settle for something 100 times more relevant: The price of tea in China has gone up.

It is historical fact atht the Jewish religious leaders saw early Christianity as apostasy and sacrilege, and persecuted its adherents. It is historical fact that the Romans generally didn't give a rat's rectum about the religion of their subjects, but did begin to persecute Christians because Nero scapegoated them in 64 AD.

It is not historical fact that Yeshuah of Nazareth even existed, let alone Mark or Paul. Most historians agree that Jesus himself was real and said and did some of what's written about him, but it is not fact. All one has to do is read the canonical gospels with a little bit of common sense and without a mind that has been closed by church doctrine to recognize that they have much early apologetics in them. My referencing Mark was just showing an example of that.

Whether Jesus was real or not, whether he said not to pay or taxes or not, people were saying that he was. Mark constructed a narrative in which some folks tried to trick him into saying that and then failed.

Assuming he was real, all four canonical gospels were written too late to have been written by anyone who had met the man. In spite of this, John claims its author to be "the disciple Jesus loved." Parts of that same one read like transformative fiction based on the widely discredited apocryphal epic of Enoch. Matthew and Luke are clearly based on Mark, which is in turn based on the Q Gospel. The Q Gospel could have been written by someone who knew Yeshuah. Complete manuscripts have not been preserved, but we have enough to establish it as source material for Mark.

Mark could have been intending to write a fantasy story for profit, wanting his readers to enjoy it but not believe it. It doesn't matter. I made a brief reference to his book as an example because that part of the story demonstrates how important people of the time viewed Roman taxes. You could be a member of (monotheistic) Judaism, or a doomsday cult based on Judaism, or even the cult of Isis, the Romans didn't give a crap as long as you paid your taxes.