The scene bespeaks the ugliness of death, which Romans found anathematic and polluting. This dread shaped pagan views of Christians, who seemed to savour the de

The scene bespeaks the ugliness of death, which Romans found anathematic and polluting. This dread shaped pagan views of Christians, who seemed to savour the dead. They frequented burial grounds, celebrated death days, held up martyrs as role models (cherishing their body parts), and circulated stories of Jesus as a heroic figure because he could bring the deceased from the grave. This pursuit of intimacy with the dead repulsed pagans. They suspected that initiates to the new religion engaged in eating human flesh when, during the Eucharistic ritual, they consumed the body and blood of the dead Jesus. To pagans, Christian practices seemed mordant and cannibalistic.