In relation to power, the most important of Christian doctrines was: "We ought to obey God rather than man." ... Pagans were willing to acquiesce in the cult of the Emperor, even when they regarded his claim to divinity as wholly devoid of metaphysical truth. To the Christians, on the contrary, metaphysical truth was of the utmost moment: they believed that if they performed an act of worship to any but the one true God they incurred the risk of damnation, to which martyrdom was preferable as the lesser evil.
Source: Power, 1938.
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