by Fr Gabriel-Allan Boyd
Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!
In past history, what did Christians do during times of plague? Did they behave any differently than their pagan neighbors? Did their behavior make any difference in the spread of the disease? Were Christians somehow marvelously spared from the evil destruction that those illnesses brought about? Around 250-270 AD, the entire Roman Empire suffered a terrible pandemic, which, historical epidemiologists speculate—based on the symptoms described—that the most likely culprit was a viral hemorrhagic fever…possibly Ebola. Thankfully, Saint Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, offered a historical account during that plague, noting that in the city of Rome alone, five-thousand people were dying each day. In this plague, sufferers experienced bouts of diarrhea, continuous vomiting, fever, deafness, blindness, paralysis of their legs and feet, swollen throats, blood-filled eyes and blood-stained mouths. More often than not, death resulted. It was unmanageably contagious, transmitted both by direct and indirect contact (including through clothing).
The plague coincided with the first empire-wide persecution of Christians under the emperor Decius. Since it fit their politics, Decius and others who hated the Church, scapegoated Christians for the pandemic, saying that this was all part of their plan to dismantle the civilization of the mighty Roman Empire. That claim was, however, undermined by two inconvenient facts: Christians died from the plague like everybody else, and unlike their pagan Roman neighbors, Christians cared for the victims of the plague, including their non-Christian neighbors.
On the Sunday of Pascha, in 260 AD, Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria praised the efforts of the Christians—many of whom had died while caring for others. He wrote:
“Most of our brethren showed immeasurable love and loyalty, never sparing themselves…thinking only of the other. Unmindful of the danger to themselves, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ…and with them departed this life in tranquil bliss; for they were infected by their patients with the illness, willingly drawing upon themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their agonies. Many, while nursing and curing others, transferred their patient’s death to themselves, dying instead of them. The best of our brethren lost their lives in this manner, a number of priests, deacons, and laypeople, whereby, dying in this way, their great piety and strong faith seems in every way the equal to martyrdom, winning the veneration of others.”
This wasn’t new—Christians had done the same thing during Galen’s Plague (also called the Antonine Plague) of either the measles or smallpox, about a century earlier, where five million people died as it ran its course. As sociological historian, Rodney Stark, wrote about in “The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries,” when the first symptom of the illness appeared, the victims were often thrown into the streets, where the dead and dying lay in piles. While pagan government officials and wealthy Romans—including their own doctors—made futile attempts to flee the dreadful effects of the illness by travelling to another country, Christians faithfully stayed behind in the pandemic infested cities, carrying living victims from the streets into their own homes, caring for anyone in need. Fifty percent of those who contracted the illness died from it. However, as to the fifty percent who lived, even though there was no known cure for the illness at that time, having someone there to feed you, keep you hydrated, wash you, offer you human contact, and be your advocate greatly increased your chances of living through the affliction.
When Christians risked their lives to help their pagan neighbors during the plagues, two things happened. Pagans who didn’t come into contact with Christianity were more likely to die, and pagans who received Christian charity were more likely to live…and to develop relationships with the Christians who saved them. A pagan saved from death may befriend the Christians who saved him, and he may have lost his previous friends from the plague. By saving pagans, Christians not only demonstrated the love of Jesus but also became the natural support network of those who had been abandoned by their pagan loved ones.
And thus, this plague that seemed like it would be the end of the world actually caused an exponential expansion of Christianity. By their actions in the face of possible death, Christians demonstrated to their pagan neighbors that living one’s life unified with the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, was something worth dying for, providing concrete evidence that their lives had been powerfully transformed by the Holy Spirit. They became heroic witnesses of God’s self-offering love to everyone around them. By God’s grace, Christians transformed themselves into an army of loving caretakers, and as such, that army of love only flourished and increased.
As time passed, Julian the Apostate in the late fourth century, exasperatedly observed that “the impious Galileans [his name for Christians who rejected the Roman gods] support not only their own poor but ours as well.” Why was Julian the Apostate so annoyed by this? Because, it unsettled his pagan worldview and also everyone else’s. It’s disconcerting to non-Christians when Christians take Jesus’ words seriously, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so also you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). Julian the Apostate had been raised Christian, but abandoned his Christian roots to embrace Rome’s pagan gods…and desiring a revival of paganism in the empire, he made great efforts to restore it to its former glory. But he failed. Why? Because, the Roman gods were unable to inspire the kind of self-sacrificial love and compassion that people had observed in Christians who cared for victims of Rome’s various plagues and who built hospitals and cared for the widows and the orphans left behind.
God—the God in whose image we were created—is a God whose self-giving love is spent on His entire creation between two thieves at the cross on Golgotha, conquering death by death. This means that for us to be true to the image in which we were created—to be truly human—we’re impelled to love all people in tangible (incarnational) ways, even if it means putting our own lives at risk. Throughout the centuries, Christians have failed terribly at times to live up to this God-given vocation…giving easy ammunition to those taking cheap shots at our Church. However, alongside such failures are stories, like the ones above, that tell how Orthodox Christians, as advocates of Christ’s Resurrection, went way beyond those in the world to show loving compassion to others, in unity with the One who never considered His own interests, but rather the interests of others. Which side of history will God find us on?