CORONAVIRUS, AN ANCIENT CULT, AND COMPASSION.
MODERN HISTORY
We are living in the midst of a global pandemic. As I’m writing this, COVID-19 infections are nearing 3 million and have resulted in nearly 200,000 deaths. This is an outbreak of truly historical proportions, in modern history at least.
While this novel Coronavirus outbreak and resulting pandemic feels truly novel to us modern western folk, plagues and pandemics were not novel at all to ancient people and civilizations. And not only were plagues a part of life in the ancient world, they were much much worse than what we are experiencing now.
There has been so much fear and anxiety due to misinformation and lack of information about this Coronavirus, even despite our sophisticated and advanced modern medicine and technology. Now imagine living in a time and place where a plague was ravaging your city before the advent of modern medicine and an understanding of infectious diseases.
ANCIENT REALITY
Imagine what it would have been like to be around for the Antonine plague that hit the Roman Empire in 165 AD and lasted until around 180 AD, or living through what’s called the Cyprian plague that swept through a century later.
We are all losing our minds after 6 weeks of self quarantine, can you even fathom 15 YEARS of virtually unchecked carnage and death due to an infectious disease.
There’s been a lot of talk about infection mortality rate lately with people claiming COVID-19 results in death anywhere between 4% and 0.2% percent of the time.
But the death rate in the Roman Empire, due to what many experts believe was the first ever smallpox outbreak, was ultimately about 70 million people or ONE FOURTH to ONE THIRD of the population!!!!
And how did ancient people respond to this outbreak? They ran for the hills. Literally.
The famous Greek physician Galen, who provides detailed descriptions of the symptoms displayed by victims of the outbreak, notably fled to his home in the hills and provided medical care to no one.
The average citizens were not much different.
Dionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria during the cyprian plague described the typical response in Ancient times:
“At the first onset of the disease, they [pagans] pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease; but do what they might, they found it difficult to escape”….
Makes people hoarding toilet paper seem tame and petty in comparison doesn’t it.
EARLY CHRISTIAN RESPONSE
This neglect of the sick was the overwhelming default response in ancient times.
Except for one notable group of people.
CHRISTIANS.
These people were widely considered members of a bizarre, monotheistic cult, by their pagan polytheist neighbors and were often maligned, mistreated, and ostracized in their communities.
They were even persecuted by Marcus Aurelius and blamed for causing the plague because he believed they angered the gods by refusing to pay them homage.
Yet despite being attacked and blamed for the disease, they emerged as the only people who provided care and compassion to those who were afflicted.
Secular historian Rodney Stark writes this about the impact of Christian mercy and care on the ancient world in his book “The Triumph of Christianity”:
“Christians met the obligation to care for the sick rather than desert them, and thereby saved enormous numbers of lives! As William H. McNeill pointed out in his celebrated Plagues and Peoples, under the circumstances prevailing in this era, even “quite elementary nursing will greatly reduce mortality. Simple provision of food and water, for instance, will allow persons who are temporarily too weak to cope for themselves to recover instead of perishing miserably.” It is entirely plausible that Christian nursing would have reduced mortality by as much as two-thirds!”
He continues to expand on the dramatic effect this small group of people had on the greatest empire the world has ever known…
“What went on during the epidemics was only an intensification of what went on every day among Christians… Indeed, the impact of Christian mercy was so evident that in the fourth century when the emperor Julian attempted to restore paganism, he exhorted the pagan priesthood to compete with the Christian charities. In a letter to the high priest of Galatia, Julian urged the distribution of grain and wine to the poor, noting that “the impious Galileans [Christians], in addition to their own, support ours, [and] it is shameful that our poor should be wanting our aid.” But there was little or no response to Julian’s proposals because there were no doctrines and no traditional practices for the pagan priest to build upon…. Christians believed in life everlasting. At most, pagans believed in an unattractive existence in the underworld. Thus, for Galen to have remained in Rome to treat the afflicted during the first great plague would have required far greater bravery than was needed by Christian deacons and presbyters to do so. Faith mattered.”
FAITH MATTERED
I love that last line from Mr. Stark, who is not a believer himself, that FAITH MATTERED.
I agree.
Faith mattered then.
And it matters now.
You see Christians have a unique heritage and legacy of care and compassion for others that comes straight from the teachings, and ultimately self-sacrificial death, of our Savior Himself.
In John 13:34-35 Jesus gives this history forming command to all those who would follow him: “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
Sounds like the early Christians nailed this one.
In fact they nailed it to the degree that Stark’s ultimate conclusion in his book is that the care and compassion displayed by Christians during the plagues was one of the key components to the improbable explosion of Christianity in the ancient world.
And it was this compassion displayed in action that resulted in what was once an obscure cult becoming the official religion of the empire that tried to crush it.
DOES OUR FAITH MATTER?
For Christians, our ancient brothers and sisters proved to us the power of love, when love looks like action and finds its greatest opportunity in times of suffering and crisis.
The question for those of us who follow Jesus today is, “DOES OUR FAITH MATTER?”
Do our neighbors notice a significant difference in our care and compassion in comparison to the culture around us?
Are we willing to put others first, whether that means vigilance in scrubbing our hands, staying in our homes, or venturing out to care for those afflicted if needed?
Is there a creative way you can celebrate a graduate you know?
Is there an at risk person that you could go grocery shopping for?
Is there someone having a birthday that you could celebrate from a distance?
The Jesus Movement exploded in the ancient world due directly to the love of its members toward others.
I believe the same thing can happen, and is happening, in the modern world.