Which aspects of social, cultural, and political life in early Roman Empire supported the growth of Christianity and which opposed it?

The Roman Empire was a highly hierarchical, bureaucratic, and authoritarian state where the elites lived comfortably while the urban and rural poor, including peasants, artisans, and slaves, were disempowered, heavily indebted, overtaxed, humiliated, abused, and often subjected to violence by privileged insiders, the wealthy, and especially soldiers and government officials. Chronic insecurity and the frequent arbitrary injustices of the imperial order contrasted with an imperial ideology purporting to benefit the public and support the common good.
In Roman provinces such as Judea, the wealthy and powerful enjoyed the support of the Roman authorities, while people of lower status experienced alienation and despair due to their routine mistreatment, the social fragmentation of local communities, and the growth of inequality. Jesus appealed to these abandoned, humiliated, impoverished, and marginalized masses of the Mediterranean population. Early Christian preaching supported horizontal social solidarity, mutual help, and the equality of rich and poor within new Christian communities that challenged the vertical certainties of the imperial order.
Christian belief in Jesus as the “Son of God” and the “Savior of the World” contradicted the emperor’s cult, which frequently employed similar terms for the divinized emperors. As the Christian message challenged the established powers and values, Christians became subject to persecution by the imperial authorities and the influential local elites. This persecution was sporadic, not continuous or systematic, however. New generations of Christian leaders came increasingly from the educated, urban-residing middle and upper classes; they stressed their loyalty to the ruling emperor and their readiness to abide by imperial laws as long as these laws tolerated their religious convictions.