Quote:

Students at school are taught that the first Christians were a bunch of heros who risked their life for their faith
This is simply not true

The first Christians were mainly oppressed by the Jews. Paul himself being one of the cheif persecutors before his conversion...then of course kinji is right, the Romans persecuted us through various Ceasars, Nero and Caligula being some of the worst. CALIGULA's reign was 37-41 AD, NERO's reign was 54-68.

However, just to set the record straight, some of the "first Christians" were martyred by these regimes so people like Peter and John were part of that suffering. Im interested in this subject if anyone wants to explore it further.