Were the early Christians anticat, as has sometimes been alleged? Not at all, though they did, as noted elsewhere, oppose the sacrifice of cats and other animals. One thing that Christianity inherited from Judaism was the hatred of idolatry—that is, worshipping anything but God, who is invisible. To both Christians and Jews, bowing down to an animal, or a statue of an animal, was a terrible sin, for only God deserved to be worshipped. So, naturally, Christians were appalled at the honor paid to cats in the worship of goddesses like Bast, Artemis and Isis. They were antiidolatry not anticat. Regrettably, in time the antiidolatry attitude would show itself in displays of genuine cruelty to cats. Read on.
