<P> By its very nature the exclusive faith of the Jews and Christians set them apart from other people, but whereas the former group was in the main contained within a single national, ethnic grouping, in the Holy Land and Jewish diaspora--the non-Jewish adherents of the sect such as Proselytes and God - fearers being considered negligible--the latter was active and successful in seeking converts for the new religion and made universal claims not limited to a single geographical area . Whereas the Masoretic Text, of which the earliest surviving copy dates from the 9th century AD, teaches that "the Gods of the gentiles are nothing", the corresponding passage in the Greek Septuagint, used by the early Christian Church, asserted that "all the gods of the heathens are devils ." The same gods whom the Romans believed had protected and blessed their city and its wider empire during the many centuries they had been worshipped were now demonized by the early Christian Church . </P> <P> Whereas the religion of the Jews could theoretically be contained within their own nation state and pose no threat to the wider Empire, it was not so with the early Christian community which was perceived at times to be an intrinsically destabilising influence and threat to the peace of Rome, a religio illicita . The pagans who attributed the misfortunes of Rome and its wider Empire to the rise of Christianity, and who could only see a restoration by a return to the old ways, were faced by the Christian Church that had set itself apart from that faith and was unwilling to dilute what it held to be the religion of the "One True God". </P> <P> After the initial conflicts between the state and the new emerging religion during which early Christians were periodically subject to intense persecution, Gallienus issued an edict of toleration for all religious creeds including Christianity, a re-affirmation of the policy of Alexander Severus . </P> <P> The first episodes started late in the reign of Constantine the Great, when he ordered the pillaging and the tearing down of some pagan temples . The first anti-pagan laws)) by the Christian state started with Constantine's son Constantius II, who was an unwavering opponent of paganism; he ordered the closing of all pagan temples, forbade pagan sacrifices under pain of death, and removed the traditional Altar of Victory from the Senate . Under his reign ordinary Christians started vandalizing many of the ancient pagan temples, tombs and monuments . </P>

When did the traditional roman religion become illegal in the roman empire