By the middle of the second century, pagan intellectuals began taking note of the Christians and attacking them in tractates written against them. These works not only portrayed the Christians themselves in negative ways. They also attacked the Christians’ beliefs as ludicrous (they claimed to worship the God of the Jews, for example, and yet refused to follow the Jewish law!) and maligned their practices as scandalous. On the latter point, it was sometimes noted that Christians gathered together under the cloak of darkness, calling one another “brother” and “sister” and greeting one another
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