Prologue: Christ‘s commandments
“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors do the same, don‘t they? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than anyone else? Even the pagans do that, don‘t they? Therefore be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.“
Matthew 5: 46-48
“So I say to you, do not worry about your life – what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn‘t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your Father in heaven feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. Now if in this way God clothes the grass – which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow – will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?‘ or ‘What will we drink?‘ or ‘What will we wear?‘ For the pagans eagerly pursue these things; yet your Father in heaven knows that you need all these. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.“
Matthew 6: 25-34
“So in all things, do to others what you would want them to do to you – for this is the Torah and the Prophets.“
Matthew 7: 12
Pestilence in ancient times
The Catholic author Mike Aquilina in his book The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It does a great job in providing a very readable overview of the development of the roots of our modern medicine and hospitals in antiquity, at the time of the Roman Empire. One of the topics he gets into is how the ancient world dealt with waves of pestilence and plagues. He quotes from the writings of Pontius the Deacon about a plague that broke out in the Roman Empire in the middle of the 3rd century.
“Afterwards a dreadful plague broke out. As the people trembled, the excessive destruction of a hateful disease invaded every house, one after another. Everyone was shuddering, fleeing, shunning the contagion. They would impiously throw out their own friends – as if by keeping out the person who was sure to die of the plague, they could also keep out death itself. Meanwhile, all over the city, bodies were lying – well, not bodies, but carcasses. And all who passed by pitied themselves, seeing that they would soon suffer the same fate.“
Pontius the Deacon, quotation from Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 61-62
Pontius the Deacon gives us a first hint on how the pagan society of the Roman Empire reacted to existential threats like plagues: fear, mistrust, egocentrism – leaving the sick alone to die, everybody trying to save their own skin. Mike Aquilina describes for us the specific historic situation the Roman Empire found itself in prior to this plague:
“It was a sickness like no one living had seen before. But it was only the latest in a chain of disasters. It wasn‘t just the plague: the Roman Empire itself was sick. (…) A hundred years before, Rome had been full of optimism. To most people, it looked as though the Roman Empire finally had this civilization thing figured out. The whole world – or at least everything that mattered – was united under one very competent government. There were skirmishes on the frontiers, but in most of the world peace prevailed. There had been the occasional mad emperor in the past, but under the enlightened Antonines the empire thrived. Even the worrisome cult of the Christians could be mostly left alone, although every once in a while it was a good idea to round up a few of them and throw them to the lions just to show that the laws could be enforced. (…) And then came the first plague. It started in AD 165, and it didn‘t wear itself out until fifteen years later. It was a disease the teeming millions in the empire had never experienced – something that made eruptions all over the skin, accompanied by violent fever. The people of the empire had no immunity to it. Wherever it hit, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the population died. The historian William H. McNeill argues very persuasively that this pestilence marks the beginning of the long ‘decline and fall of the Roman Empire.‘ (…) It‘s probably no coincidence that the Roman Empire started to unravel after that devastation. The pandemic was over, but by the 200s, civil war was the normal state of affairs.“
Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 62-63
While the population of the Roman Empire was declining and chaos with struggles for power was spreading, the Church grew in numbers. In the year 250, the antagonism between the pagan Roman Empire and the Christian religion led to one more round of persecution of the Christians – the first empire-wide persecution, in fact. It was easy to blame those Christians – those “atheists“ not believing in the pagan gods – for all the trouble the empire was experiencing. The emperor Decius therefore forced everybody without exception to sacrifice to the gods “in front of a local bureaucrat, who would provide a certificate of compliance“ (p. 65). In the case of non-compliance, torture and the death penalty would follow.
“Countless Christians, used to their comfortable lives, decided it wasn‘t worth being Christians if torture and death were the price they had to pay. But an amazing number were willing to pay that price. (…) The bishops of Rome, Antioch, and Jerusalem died – three of the most important apostolic sees. (…) With the examples of the martyrs bright in their memories, the really committed Christians stood up to Decius‘ inquisition. They wouldn‘t sacrifice to the gods. Not even when it was so easy – just a pinch of incense, and the incense already provided for them! They wouldn‘t even bribe an official to issue the certificate without a sacrifice. Yes, they even refused to corrupt a bureaucrat! What was wrong with these people? It got worse. Some of the Roman officials found themselves having to torture children and little old ladies, which seemed kind of wrong, or at least gauche. (…) After a year or so, the persecution ground to a halt in most of the empire (…) Decius, meanwhile, was killed fighting the Goths in 251.“
Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 65-66
The plague Pontius the Deacon mentioned in his writings on the life of Saint Cyprian quoted above is known as the “plague of Cyprian“, because Saint Cyprian‘s letters give us a lot of information about it. He was at the time the bishop of Carthage in Africa. While the pagan authorities were always ready to blame the Christians for outbreaks of pestilence, Saint Cyprian replied to them, that, if anyone, they themselves were the cause of it.
“For these things happen not, as your false complaining and ignorant inexperience of the truth assert and repeat, because your gods are not worshiped by us, but because God is not worshiped by you.“
Saint Cyprian of Carthage, quotation from Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 68
This plague of the time of Saint Cyprian of Carthage and of Saint Dionysius of Alexandria put the two opposing worldviews of paganism and of Christianity on display. The thin outward covering of “philanthropy“ wears off when push comes to shove, in times of crisis and misery, while true love of neighbor with thick roots in one‘s heart sticks around. About the way the pagans dealt with the plague and the sick and dying masses we can read in several accounts by their Christian contemporaries. Saint Dionysius of Alexandria tells us,
“For they thrust aside any who began to be sick, and kept aloof even from their dearest friends, and threw the sufferers out on the public roads half dead, and left them unburied, and treated them with utter contempt when they died, steadily avoiding any kind of communication and intercourse with death – which, however, it was not easy for them to avoid, no matter how careful they were.“
Saint Dionysius of Alexandria, quotation from Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 69
Pontius the Deacon writes,
“No one regarded anything but his cruel gains. (…) No one did unto others as he would have others do unto him.“
Pontius the Deacon, quotation from Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 70
And we find this description in Saint Cyprian‘s Address to Demetrianus, the proconsul of the province of Africa:
“You reproach plague and disease, while by plague itself and disease the crimes of individuals are either detected or increased, while mercy is not shown to the weak, and avarice and rapine are waiting open-mouthed for the dead. The same men are timid in the duties of affection but bold in the quest of impious gains – shunning the deaths of the dying and craving the spoils of the dead. It makes it look as if the wretched must be abandoned in their sickness for this reason – so that they won‘t escape by being cured. For someone who grabs the estate of the dying so eagerly probably wanted the sick man to perish.“
Saint Cyprian of Carthage, quoation from Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 71
And the Christians? They were the ones reacting differently to the challenge. Mike Aquilina once again quotes from the writings of Saint Dionysius to give us an impression of the distinct Christian way of handling a plague:
“A great many of our brethren, in their overflowing love and kindness, did not spare themselves, but kept by each other, and visited the sick without thought of their own peril… And many who had thus cured others of their sicknesses, and restored them to strength, died themselves, having transferred to their own bodies the death that lay on the others… Yes, the very best of our brethren have departed this life in this manner, including some presbyters and some deacons and among the people those who had the highest reputations. Considering their distinguished piety and steadfast faith, this form of death seemed to be in no way inferior to martyrdom itself.“
Saint Dionysius, quotation from Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 73-74
Christians were the ones visiting the sick and taking care of them, providing the basic nursing that is necessary to give someone a chance on surviving the disease. They did this not only for their own Christian brothers and sisters, but for anyone in need. And they buried the dead. Neither the living nor the dead did they ever just abandon and forget like the pagans in their desperate attempt to escape the death they feared so much. The behavior of the Christians in those times of crisis in the crumbling Roman Empire not too surprisingly led to many conversions. Their deeds testified to their bullet-proof faith in the one true living God. As Mike Aquilina writes,
“Imagine yourself a pagan who knows nothing of Christianity. When the plague comes, you learn one thing: all your best friends, all your closest family members, deserted you, but the Christians are willing to risk their lives to stay by your side until you get better – or until you died – even if it kills them. If you do recover – and the Christians‘ cares makes that outcome a lot more likely – you‘re going to be thinking good thoughts about Christians. You‘re going to want to know more about them. And you‘re quite likely to decide that the Christians have the answer the whole Roman world has been looking for.“
Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 76
The Church at this time “had already built up a system of institutional charity like nothing the pagan world had ever seen (…) to serve Christians and pagans alike“ (p. 72). Just like the origins of our modern hospitals can be traced back to the activities of the Church and to the Christians‘ religious duty of unrestricted hospitality, so even with the service provided by those we call “paramedics“ today. It was in ancient Alexandria that the Church ran the first ambulance corps, the “parabalani“. Their job was
“to care for the sick in the streets where they found them, and to transport the ones who were in bad shape to some place where they could be cared for.“
Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 75
Epilogue: Medicine in a post-Christian world
In reviewing the vital differences between the pagan and the Christian worldview in their effect on attitudes toward disease and sick people, as shown throughout the book, Mike Aquilina makes this remark at the very end of his book:
“I do not believe a post-Christian society can sustain institutions such as the hospital; but neither can post-Christianity itself sustain a society.“
Mike Aquilina, The Healing Imperative. The Early Church and the Invention of Medicine As We Know It, Emmaus Road Publishing, p. 167
If a post-Christian society sustains institutions such as the hospital, it will most certainly not be the hospital as we, the lucky heirs of the great humane achievements of Christendom, still know it up until now.
Both ancient pagans of the Roman Empire and the post-Christian neo-pagans of today‘s empires due to their closed horizons with no living God in the picture fear disease and death way too much to be able to risk their lives out of love and compassion for both friends and strangers. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain. And any worldview bereft of the Judeo-Christian values will by default never be able to grasp the totally transcendent character of each and every human life from the moment of conception to death – the concept of life and death not at one‘s disposal and of life‘s invaluable and unusable character.
In a post-Christian world, love of neighbor, solidarity, and mercy will never mean and look the same again. Mercy will be translated into euthanasia and charity might present itself as robots – or as people just as aseptic, streamlined, and programmed as robots – taking care of the sick and elderly, as long as society still endures their existence in some sort of isolation centres where they are barred from reaching out to us.
And why is that? It is because death itself is a scandal to the pagan mind, just as suffering is. Whoever is marked with suffering or death or even remotely contaminated by it is a pariah or a walking virus which the sunshine philanthropy of a post-Christian world, that is – to speak with Neil Postman‘s famous dictum – “amusing itself to death“ in its continuous attempt to shun and ban what it seeks to deny, cannot tolerate and must eliminate to not be driven insane by reality itself. There is nothing post-Christianity will ever have to offer as an answer to these questions: When push comes to shove and the contamination with reality lingers in every corner and waits on every doorstep, why should I, with my own feet and hands, with the full reality of my mortal body, visit the sick, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty and bury the dead?
Every pagan worldview and way of life ultimately is one of despair: there just is no answer to this “why“ – why one should live and die alongside everyone else in the realms of reality beyond Eden and not rather keep oneself untouched in an artificial paradise. The Judeo-Christian way of life is death and resurrection, while the pagan way of life will forever be the carefully crafted illusion of immortality. True faith and piety will show themselves and set themselves apart from their counterfeit versions at these fault lines, as in ancient times so today.