Christianity was persecuted by Roman imperial authorities early on in its history within the greater empire. By the early part of the second century Christians are no longer viewed as part of a Jewish sect, but are considered as belonging to one of many foreign cults that infiltrated the Empire. They gradually become conspicuous by their absence from festival activities where ritual sacrifices for the health of the emperor and well-being of the empire take place, behavior that carried a "whiff of both sacrilege and treason".