been violently destroyed after his death. Christians who refused to offer the divine worship the emperor demanded placed themselves outside society and indeed had to reckon with suffering and persecution. That Christians were considered strangers and outsiders who were distrusted in many ways was nothing new (1 Pet. 2:12*; 3:16*). The first major experience of this rejection occurred in the so-called Neronian persecution (A.D. 64) in Rome. The pogrom-like excesses and measures against Christians;