So, to my knowledge, the primary reason Christians were persecuted

Monotheism is incompatible with polytheism in most senses. The one you state is not the primary reason, but rather one of a multitude of reasons that caused their persecution.
Also consider that the relationship of the state with Christians was better or worse depending on the time period and the area, so not always was there a need to change anything.

The whole christian persecutiion stuff was largely later christian propaganda bullshit

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>>1879595
>Why didn't the Romans use this to their advantage and co-opt the Christian cult into one that would remain just as loyal to Imperial authority as a regular person?
Because they were paranoid, and it created a precedent, imo.
Christian Rome did that pretty well, though.
>Was is just that fun to have a scapegoat and unlimited supply of people to torture at caprice without being looked down on by the population?
The empire was in shambles a lot of the times.
A scapegoat is very useful then.

Why isn't there a HD Wallpaper of that skelly?

>>1879595
>So, to my knowledge, the primary reason Christians were persecuted was because they did not recognize the Emperor as a divine figure.

This changes depending on what period you're talking about. The persecutions by Nero were mainly just because Christians were a new, weird Eastern cult and Nero needed a scapegoat for how own unpopularity.

Under Decius, it was an issue but an unintended one. Decius wanted sacrifices to his name as proof of loyalty during a time of civil war. This was however prohibited by Christian belief. So there was a bit of a schism between those who did in fact give Caesar what was Caesar's and those who didn't and were persecuted.

>But Jesus preached subservience to the state, "Give to God what is His' and To the Caesar what is his'" etc.Why didn't the Romans use this to their advantage and co-opt the Christian cult into one that would remain just as loyal to Imperial authority as a regular person? Was is just that fun to have a scapegoat and unlimited supply of people to torture at caprice without being looked down on by the population?

You understand things like this weren't even settled during the time of Christian persecutions, right?

There was no 'official' teachings of jesus yet. Every Bishop taught their own brand of Christianity until Constantine forced through the Edict of Milan to hammer out one Christian faith with a continuous story. The Bible as we know it wasn't written yet and this was decades after the final persecutions under Gallerius ended.

Beside that most Christians weren't persecuted but instead just asked to pay a special tax, just like all of the other different cults and religions in the empire. Jews were the only religion that was exempt but they lost that after their revolts.

>>1879700
>Jews were the only religion that was exempt

Why were the jolly vendors given this privilege?

>>1879595
>"Give to God what is His' and To the Caesar what is his'"
That is a fucking ugly translation.

>>1879709
From my understanding, it was just because Romans really respected just how old the religion was. They knew, even if it was a false belief, it was an ancient one that predated Rome itself.

So they were just left alone to practice their weird one desert god shit. Then the revolts happen and they had to pay the tribute like everybody else because give jews an inch and they'll take all of your shekels

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>>1879734
>it was just because Romans really respected just how old the religion was

Genuinely cool fact desu.

>>1879700
Also I'm an idiot, I meant to say the Council of Nicea not the Edict of Milan.

>>1879736
Yea Romans really loved old shit. They had huge boners for Greece, Alexander, and Egypt for that reason.

It's kind of funny to think that Romans looked at the pyramids with the same wonder and awe that we do.

>>1879709
>>1879734
>>1879736

Probably had more to do with them being first allies then a client state before being absorbed into the empire. Places that were annexed "peacefully" as opposed to a traditional conquest tended to be better off as a whole in Roman society, often given leeway as "allies of Rome" and whatnot

>>1879762
This, also christians prozelitized like fucking mad meaning less roman pagans meaning less sacrifices to the gods meaning angry gods meaning the collapse of the entire empire