Did you know? Some facts of the early Christian church

First-century apologists attempting to defend Christianity sometimes argued with a uniquely Roman mind. Clement of Rome, who died in 97, for example, tried to prove the resurrection of Jesus by comparing it to the story of the phoenix -- a mythological bird alleged to be reborn from its ashes every 500 years.

Christianity often appropriated pagan sites for its churches. Christians simply "attached" a church to the Temple of Artemis in Sardis, in what is now Turkey. The Church of Santa Pudenziana in Rome is named, not for a martyred Christian, but for the Roman senator, Pudens, who owned the land.

Roman Emperor Nero found several inventive ways to martyr Christians, including hanging them on crosses and then covering them with branches and burning them. He killed the Christians because they would worship only their God and not make an annual public sacrifice to the emperor, who was worshiped as a god.

For more than 150 years Christians met in private homes. They had no churches or public places of worship.

At the end of the second century nearly every popular religion -- especially Mithraism -- aligned itself in some way with solar monotheism. Thus Christians often talked of the similarities and differences between the sun god and the Light of the World -- Jesus.

By 300 Christians were a majority in most North African cities.

From its inception Christianity had to defend itself against the charges that it was a cannibalistic faith, because members met in private homes, had meals together and talked of "eating" the flesh of their savior. The problem came from the eucharist phrase "This is my flesh."

By the time Roman Emperor Diocletian began harassing Christians in 303, they had become too numerous and respectable for persecution to succeed. In his capital at Nicomedia (in modern Turkey), the Christian church stood in full view of the imperial palace, as if a legitimate part of society.