Why did the Roman leaders distrust and disapprove of the early Christians?
At first, the early Christians were treated as a sect of Judaism and were generally exempted from worship of the Roman gods. However, splits soon developed between Christianity and Judaism, so that Christianity could no longer be portrayed as a form of Judaism. Even then, we have early correspondence showing that some Roman leaders preferred not to know about the Christian stance unless they made a public point of offending the gods.
