most of all against Roman religion.”29 Failure to offer sacrifices and respect imperial images is precisely the accusation brought against Christians by the pagan critics Caecilius and Celsus.30 Although much of the evidence discussed derives from the second century, Christian antipathy to the imperial cults most probably goes back to the first century. It was impossible to ignore the imperial cults, since Herod the Great had ringed Judea with temples to Augustus before the time of Christ,31 and