Amidst all the uncertainty and confusion surrounding the Coronavirus, the early Church can teach Christians today how to love during times of plague. Much like the pandemic that has afflicted the world since its outbreak in Wuhan, China in December of 2019, a plague struck the Roman Empire from about AD 249 to 262. As the death toll in Italy recently climbed higher than China’s known COVID-19 deaths, so in the third century plague 5,000 people a day were said to be dying in Rome. How did the early Christians respond? What can the early Church teach us about the current Coronavirus outbreak?
This plague that decimated the Roman Empire became known as the Plague of Cyprian. St. Cyprian (c. 200-258), bishop of Carthage, North Africa, lived during a period of aggressive persecution. He was born into a rich, pagan family sometime during the early third century. After his baptism, he sold entire estates and distributed his wealth to the poor. He had the testimony of pastoral strength and conduct during the Novatianist schism, the outbreak of the plague, and eventual martyrdom. In The Life and Passion of Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr, Pontius the Deacon wrote:
Still, if it seem well, let me glance at the rest. Afterwards there broke out a dreadful plague, and excessive destruction of a hateful disease invaded every house in succession of the trembling populace, carrying off day by day with abrupt attack numberless people, every one from his own house. All were shuddering, fleeing, shunning the contagion, impiously exposing their own friends, as if with the exclusion of the person who was sure to die of the plague, one could exclude death itself also.
There lay about the meanwhile, over the whole city, no longer bodies, but the carcases of many, and, by the contemplation of a lot which in their turn would be theirs, demanded the pity of the passers-by for themselves. No one regarded anything besides his cruel gains. No one trembled at the remembrance of a similar event. No one did to another what he himself wished to experience.
In these circumstances, it would be a wrong to pass over what the pontiff* of Christ [St. Cyprian] did, who excelled the pontiffs of the world as much in kindly affection as he did in truth of religion. On the people assembled together in one place he first of all urged the benefits of mercy, teaching by examples from divine lessons, how greatly the duties of benevolence avail to deserve well of God. Then afterwards he subjoined, that there was nothing wonderful in our cherishing our own people only with the needed attentions of love, but that he might become perfect who would do something more than the publican or the heathen, who, overcoming evil with good, and practicing a clemency which was like the divine clemency, loved even his enemies, who would pray for the salvation of those that persecute him, as the Lord admonishes and exhorts. God continually makes His sun to rise, and from time to time gives showers to nourish the seed, exhibiting all these kindnesses not only to His people, but to aliens also. And if a man professes to be a son of God, why does not he imitate the example of his Father?
Chap. 9, ANF 5.270.
“It becomes us,” said St. Cyprian, “to answer to our birth; and it is not fitting that those who are evidently born of God should be degenerate, but rather that the propagation of a good Father should be proved in His offspring by the emulation of His goodness.” The treatise of St. Cyprian, On the Mortality, bears witness to this devastating plague, also explaining how the true Christian overcomes the fear of death.
This trial, that now the bowels, relaxed into a constant flux, discharge the bodily strength; that a fire originated in the marrow ferments into wounds of the fauces; that the intestines are shaken with a continual vomiting; that the eyes are on fire with the injected blood; that in some cases the feet or some parts of the limbs are taken off by the contagion of diseased putrefaction; that from the weakness arising by the maiming and loss of the body, either the gait is enfeebled, or the hearing is obstructed, or the sight darkened;—is profitable as a proof of faith.
What a grandeur of spirit it is to struggle with all the powers of an unshaken mind against so many onsets of devastation and death! what sublimity, to stand erect amid the desolation of the human race, and not to lie prostrate with those who have no hope in God; but rather to rejoice, and to embrace the benefit of the occasion; that in thus bravely showing forth our faith, and by suffering endured, going forward to Christ by the narrow way that Christ trod, we may receive the reward of His life and faith according to His own judgment!
Assuredly he may fear to die, who, not being regenerated of water and the Spirit, is delivered over to the fires of Gehenna; he may fear to die who is not enrolled in the cross and passion of Christ; he may fear to die, who from this death shall pass over to a second death; he may fear to die, whom on his departure from this world eternal flame shall torment with never-ending punishments; he may fear to die who has this advantage in a lengthened delay, that in the meanwhile his groanings and his anguish are being postponed.
Chap. 14, ANF 5.472
St. Dionysius (c. 190-264), bishop of Alexandria also wrote about this terrible plague and the Christian response. After his conversion to Christianity, St. Dionysius joined the Catechetical School of Alexandria and was a pupil of Origen. He also defended the Holy Trinity and the deity of Christ when he wrote against Sabellianism and the heretical teachings of Paul of Samosata (c. 200-275). While the pagans fled the city in hope of escaping death, the early Christians risked their lives to fearlessly minister to the sick. Preserved in The Church History of Eusebius is St. Dionysius’ letter describing the early Christians’ acts of sacrificial love for the sick in contrast to the heathens who left their loved ones for dead.
After these things war and famine followed, which we endured in common with the heathen. But we bore alone those things with which they afflicted us, and at the same time we experienced also the effects of what they inflicted upon and suffered from one another; and again, we rejoiced in the peace of Christ, which he gave to us alone.
But after both we and they had enjoyed a very brief season of rest this pestilence assailed us; to them more dreadful than any dread, and more intolerable than any other calamity; and, as one of their own writers has said, the only thing which prevails over all hope. But to us this was not so, but no less than the other things was it an exercise and probation. For it did not keep aloof even from us, but the heathen it assailed more severely.
The most of our brethren were unsparing in their exceeding love and brotherly kindness. They held fast to each other and visited the sick fearlessly, and ministered to them continually, serving them in Christ. And they died with them most joyfully, taking the affliction of others, and drawing the sickness from their neighbors to themselves and willingly receiving their pains. And many who cared for the sick and gave strength to others died themselves having transferred to themselves their death. And the popular saying which always seems a mere expression of courtesy, they then made real in action, taking their departure as the others’ ‘offscouring.’
Truly the best of our brethren departed from life in this manner, including some presbyters and deacons and those of the people who had the highest reputation; so that this form of death, through the great piety and strong faith it exhibited, seemed to lack nothing of martyrdom.
And they took the bodies of the saints in their open hands and in their bosoms, and closed their eyes and their mouths; and they bore them away on their shoulders and laid them out; and they clung to them and embraced them; and they prepared them suitably with washings and garments. And after a little they received like treatment themselves, for the survivors were continually following those who had gone before them.
But with the heathen everything was quite otherwise. They deserted those who began to be sick, and fled from their dearest friends. And they cast them out into the streets when they were half dead, and left the dead like refuse, unburied. They shunned any participation or fellowship with death; which yet, with all their precautions, it was not easy for them to escape.
Bk. 7, chap. 22.5-10 (NPNF2 1.306-307.
During this historic time of the Coronavirus pandemic, the early Church reminds us that “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). According to St. Dionysius, this kind of love which the early Christians demonstrated in the third century plague was equal to martyrdom. Christianity grew rapidly during times of plagues because unbelievers observed the Christians who, instead of cowering in terror, demonstrated tremendous faith and compassion.
These saints of the early Church shine as examples of fearlessness and love in the face of the plague and death. Our Lord Jesus Christ said several times not to fear (Matthew 10:28, 31; Luke 12:32; John 12:15) and commanded us, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. . . . You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37, 39). May our Lord graciously assuage the fever of the sick, and strengthen those who care for them.
Endnote:
*In ecclesiastical usage, the term “pontiff” refers to a bishop.