This is interesting:
Back in the days of early Rome, the numbers of Christians were increasing daily and the Jews couldn't understand why these Christians were no longer Jews. Christians presented a problem to the Roman empire. The secrecy with which they surrounded their worship made people fear the worst. Christianity came from the East, thus they were immigrants that formed a sect and that was viewed as dangerous to the status quo. The persecutions of Christians began. Anti-Christian writings have come down through Christians who used them to refute them.
1. There were three main accusations against the Christians:
a. They were atheists! They did not take part in the traditional or imperial worship. It was assumed that they had no religion. This mind set was unheard of in these ancient times. It threatened the stability of the city. They people thought that their rejected gods would come to destroy the empire through floods, earthquakes, plagues and invasions by hostile tribes. Christians were thought to worship some sort of donkey or a crucified thief.
b. Christians practiced incest! When they got together for their evening meals, it was only to indulge in orgies, and the worst kinds of wickedness between 'brothers and sisters'.
c. They were cannibals! The flesh and blood which they consumed was that of a child victim of ritual murder.
While the gossipers continued to spread the rumors about Christianity, the intellectuals began to refute this new religion on intellectual grounds. Celcus, in the second century and Porphyry in the third, launched their attacks in three directions.
a. Ignorant and Pretentious Poor--they recruited from the socially inferior classes of people. They concentrated on women, children and slaves. Christians sapped both marital and parental authority.
b. Bad Citizens--they did not participate in the empire's worship. They rejected military and magistracy service. Caesar was currently fighting the Germans on the banks of the Danube and if all citizens acted like Christians there would have been no empire.
c. Christian doctrine was unreasonable--the incarnation is nonsense. God who is perfect, unchangeable, would never allow himself to become a tiny baby. The resurrection was nothing but a monstrous lie. The four accounts of the passion of Christ contradict themselves. (still valid argument today, the gospels do not agree on what exactly happened) Christian ceremonies were immoral. Even if interpreted allegorically, the Eucharist was still a cannibalistic ritual. Even Christian sects condemn each other for the other's practices.
"There is a new race of men born yesterday, with neither homeland nor traditions, allied against all religions and civil institutions, pursued by justice, universally notorious for their infamy, but glorying in common execration: these are Christians. Their injunctions are like this. 'Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by us to be evils. But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, let him come boldly. By the fact that they themselves admit that these people are worthy of their God, they show that they want and are able to convince only the foolish, dishonorable and stupid, and only slaves, women and little children "
"The assertion that some God or son of God has come down to the earth as judge of mankind is most shameful, and no lengthy argument is required to refute it. What is the purpose of such a descent on the part of God? Was it in order to learn what was going on among common men? Does not he know everything? If then he does know, why does he not correct men, and why can he not do this by divine power, without sending some one, specially endowed for the purpose ."
"If Christians refuse to worship in the proper way the lords in charge of them, then they ought neither to come to marriageable age nor to marry a wife, nor to beget children, nor to do anything else in life. But they should depart from this world leaving no descendants at all behind them, so that such a race would entirely cease to exist upon earth. But if they are going to marry wives, and beget children, and taste of the fruits, and partake of the joys of this life, and endure the appointed evils, then they ought to render the due honors to the beings who have been entrusted with these things "
- Celcus, 170 AD