New religion

[Minimalist]

The aspect that I considered was that Christianity was strongly opposed by the religious leaders at the time

I'm going to take the chance that you are sincere and ask you "who?"

The evidence for systematic Roman oppression of xtians begins in the middle of the 3d century AD. The emperor Decius issued an edict.

Roman writers only seem to take notice of xtians in the late 2d century.

Prior to that we have only the brief report of Pliny the Younger ( c 110 AD) who came across a group which called themselves xtians but who don't seem to have been very dogmatic about it.

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/persecutions.html

The Roman Empire lasted more than a thousand years and persecuted Christians for fewer than twelve of them. The 'Christian Empire' also lasted more than a thousand years and persecuted non-Christians through all of them.