Why Does Mankind Hate Christ?

In Matthew 10:16-25, Jesus warned his disciples that they would be maligned by everybody. And for what reason?

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you....But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.  (John 15:18, 21)

Arnobius asked his opponents some 250 years later (Book II, cap. 1) why they hated Christ:

[E]xplain to us and say what is the cause, what the reason, that you pursue Christ with so bitter hostility? or what offenses you remember which He did, that at the mention of His name you are roused to bursts of mad and savage fury? Did He ever, in claiming for Himself power as king, fill the whole world with bands of the fiercest soldiers; and of nations at peace from the beginning, did He destroy and put an end to some, compel others to submit to His yoke and serve Him? Did He ever, excited by grasping avarice, claim as His own by right all that wealth to have abundance of which men strive eagerly? Did He ever, transported with lustful passions, break down by force the barriers of purity, or stealthily lie in wait for other men’s wives? Did He ever, puffed up with haughty arrogance, inflict at random injuries and insults, without any distinction of persons?

Arnobius lays out Christ's character and asks at what point the Lord offended. Was it the ferocity of his troops, the nations he conquered and enslaved, the wealth he took greedily, the women he ravished, or the personal injuries afflicted without cause? No, but rather it was for daring this one thing:

And He was not worthy that you should listen to and believe He should not have been despised by you even on this account, that He showed to you things concerning your salvation, that He prepared for you a path to heaven, and the immortality for which you long.

The general public hate Christ (and by extension his followers) simply because he shows them the way to the very thing they seek. They simply will not accept the truth.