Was Christianity started to control the masses and dictate poltical agendas

[Aegon]

What is considered "early Christianity"? It seems to me from the little I know the Romans scapegoated Christians like Hitler scapegoated the Jews (perhaps not to the same extreme though...) Didn't they blame the Great Fire on them, sometime around 60 AD?

Probably not.  They didn't even know wtf a christian -was- in 60 ad....they were still foggy on that 40 years later.   The position of subsequent emperors was "meh, fuck em, but don't go out of your way"..until .......*

Are we trusting Tacticus here? He wrote that Nero scapegoated the Christians for the fire.

Christian martyrs were a big deal early in the faith's history... it was part of why it was spread.

Mythical and/or legendary.

I don't doubt the specific accounts we know are largely fabricated, but for the same reason I believe Jesus existed I believe there were martyrs that inspired others.

And it was mainly the Roman Empire that oppressed them.

*.........there came a time....in 303ad.....by 380 it was the state religion and they turned that persecutorial bent inward.  The persecution produced mass renunciation of the faith, btw, hardly a bunch of stalwart martyrs going confidently to their deaths.

Large-spread persecution in the 300s. The oppression was fairly localized before that, though. In the same way the story of Jesus would have died without the apostles and the Gospels, the stories of many instances of persecution for a century were probably lost as well; one could argue, anyway.

It'd make more sense for the anti-Rome sentiment to disappear later on in Christianity's history, rather than early on. And I suppose saying that those who lived in Judea were Jews is oversimplification, since there was no such thing as a cohesive Judaism at that time. I know is that there were Jews who were quite wealthy and contributed to the oppression of the population, meaning that the rich Jews sitting pretty with the Romans were just as bad. Hence that time Jesus went beserk and fucked up that temple*. But there are several instances of Jesus, on behalf of the majority of the population, speaking out against both Roman rule and those who supported them.

*Excuse me, I meant cleansed the temple.

Tell me if I got any of that wrong.

Well, other than the fact that there's the christian story....and then actual history, you got it about right.  Tell me if you notice a problem with the christian narrative, up above, in those dates? When -was- "early christianity"......if early christianity was all about persecutions? 30ad..or 300ad?

Whatever Wikipedia tells me it is