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Diseases and epidemics were very common and often devastating in Antiquity. One of the most mortal epidemics that ravaged the Roman world is known as the “plague of Cyprian”, after the name of a bishop of Carthage who mentions it in his writings.
Roman medicine was one of the most advanced in the old world. The Romans had learned a lot from Greek medicine, and had a very good knowledge of human anatomy. However, as they didn’t know about the existence of germs, they were vulnerable to infectious diseases. The rich and powerful were hit by illness as well as the poorest. The worst of all epidemics, which ravaged the Roman Empire for 15 years, from 165 to 180, killed 10 million people, about one quarter of the population, including Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself.
Another epidemic, which lasted around 20 years, from 250 to 270, is known to historians under the name “plague of Cyprian”. It is estimated that over half the population of Alexandria, the first city to be affected, died. In Rome, at the peak of the epidemic, there were 5.000 deaths every day. We don’t know for sure what the disease was: maybe smallpox, measles, or a viral hemorrhagic fever like Ebola.
Cyprian of Carthage, the Christian bishop of the capital of Roman Africa at the time, wrote about this epidemic. The Christian community was just as hardly affected as the rest of the population, many Christians died. Also, the pagans were accusing them of being responsible for the plague, which they saw as a divine punishment for those who turned their backs on the Roman religion. However, the Christians’ attitude was radically different from that of their contemporaries: while all those who had the means were trying to flee the infected cities, the Christians chose to stay and take care of the sick, whether they shared their faith or not. In his book On mortality, Cyprian explains the reasons for this difference.
Cyprian gives a detailed description of the symptoms: “The bowels, relaxed into a constant flux, discharge the bodily strength; a fire originated in the marrow ferments into wounds of the fauces; the intestines are shaken with a continual vomiting; the eyes are on fire with the injected blood; in some cases the feet or some parts of the limbs are taken off by the contagion of diseased putrefaction; 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.”
So why did the Christians choose to stay? Because their faith had freed them from the fear of death: “laying aside the fear of death, let us think on the immortality which follows.” Also, this epidemic was an ideal opportunity for them to put into practice Christ’s first commandment to love their neighbor, by caring for the sick and for those who had lost loved ones, in the Christian community and beyond. Testimonies mention that the Christians were visiting the ill and taking care of them. Through their exposition to the virus, many of those visitors were probably immune – and their resistance to sickness might well have seemed miraculous for those who saw it!
In the same book, Cyprian also answers the question that always returns in difficult times: why does God allow all this suffering? “And further, beloved brethren, what is it, what a great thing is it, how pertinent, how necessary, that pestilence and plague which seems horrible and deadly, searches out the righteousness of each one, and examines the minds of the human race, to see whether they who are in health tend the sick; whether relations affectionately love their kindred; whether masters pity their languishing servants; whether physicians do not forsake the beseeching patients; whether the fierce suppress their violence; whether the rapacious can quench the ever insatiable ardour of their raging avarice even by the fear of death; whether the haughty bend their neck; whether the wicked soften their boldness; whether, when their dear ones perish, the rich, even then bestow anything, and give, when they are to die without heirs. Even although this mortality conferred nothing else, it has done this benefit to Christians and to God’s servants, that we begin gladly to desire martyrdom as we learn not to fear death. These are trainings for us, not deaths: they give the mind the glory of fortitude; by contempt of death they prepare for the crown.”
Christian and pagan sources both confirm that the Christian attitude during the epidemic impressed those who saw it and won many new believers for their faith.
