@kjw47,
When Jesus ( was in the flesh ) you have to understand the Roman Empire had slaves dress no different then Nobles to "prevent and obvious uprising". The slaves being people from other lands captured, etc, etc. Israel ( Palestine ) in religious text to historical events had an extreme population of Jews. Which was the Roman Empires target. As the death of Christ and resurrection gave many the means and wants to uprise against Roman Empire. which eventually caused new-Rome to be formed, and old-Rome to eventually give rise to Catholicism ( theatrics ) along with the little-ice age, dark-age, and Mid-evil-times to establish Christianity as a dominate religion, where people "would accept Christ" however the ultimate reality is that this is a war against
Roman_Empire v. Jews
For all those who just wanted to put Rome down it was
Roman_Empire v. people that Rome has conquered and forced into Empire.
Further more post Roman_Empire the many
30 years
60 years
100 years
Wars that consumed so many lives was all about destabilizing the Catholic Church. The most known form of Christianity. While the main reason was the formation of Lutherism and Protestant. Along with other branches like Greek Orthodox, and a few others ( which escapes my mind ).
If you know what the "Holocaust" is then you could call the slow downfall of the Roman Empire and all those wars based on religious reforms ( but really allowed various people to take power ). and much more mindless fighting the mass murder of Christians. While we could all call self-mutilation it was clear it had a lesser known motive in the act itself.