“The earliest Christians in the Roman Empire are usually portrayed as eccentrics who withdrew from the world and were threatened by persecution. This is countered by the contents of the Basel papyrus letter,†said Sabine Huebner, professor of ancient history at the University of Basel in Switzerland.
I can't exactly speak to "
usually portrayed", but I've known for decades that violent persecution was intermittent. Nero (First Century) was pretty hideous. Diocletian (late 3rd Century) was pretty intense and sustained. Persecution may also have been somewhat regional. The time frame to which this letter is dated, 230 AD, was evidently fairly peaceful in Egypt as to persecution of Christians.
