Death and perdition on all sides
The above painting is of Martin Luther giving those dying Holy Communion. In 1527 Wittenberg was hit by the Bubonic Plague, but the Reformer rejected calls for him to flee and save himself; instead he remained in the city and cared for the sick and the dying. He paid with the death of his daughter Elisabeth for his refusal to flee.
But it was her death that caused Luther to write a brochure entitled “If one wants to flee from death” in which her clearly formulates the Christian reaction to the epidemic:
“We all die manning our posts: now neither can Christian doctors leave their hospitals, nor can Christian city administrators flee from their districts, nor can Christian pastors neglect their parishes. The plague does not free us from our obligations, but it turns them into crosses that we must be prepared to carry even unto death!”
(Excerpt from John Lennox’s book “Where is God in this world”, Daniel Publishing House)
On Wikipedia you can find the following information about another humanitarian catastrophe: “The Plague of Cyprian was a pandemic that afflicted the Roman Empire from 250-271AD. The agent of the plague is highly speculative because of sparse sourcing. Its modern name commemorates St Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, an early Christian writer who witnessed the plague and described it in 252. It seems to have broken out in Ethiopia in 250. At the height of the outbreak, 5,000 people a day were said to be dying in Rome. According to Aurelius Victor the Roman Emperors Hostilian and Claudius Gothicus died from it in 251 and in 270 respectively.
In his “De mortalitate” Cyprian describes the symptoms: “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.”
The historian Lyman Stone writes: “the Plague of Cyprian helped set off the Crisis of the Third Century in the Roman world. But it did something else, too: It triggered the explosive growth of Christianity. Cyprian’s sermons told Christians not to grieve for plague victims (who live in heaven), but to redouble efforts to care for the living!”
And Lennox continues: “Nor was it just Christians who noted this reaction of Christians to the plague. A century later, the actively pagan Emperor Julian would complain bitterly of how “the Galileans” would care for even non-Christian sick people, while the church historian Pontianus recounts how Christians ensured that “good was done to all men, not merely to the household of faith.” The sociologist and religious demographer Rodney Stark claims that death rates in cities with Christian communities may have been just half that of other cities.
In March 2020 European Embassies offered to evacuate all voluntary workers at Diospi Suyana on humanitarian flights to Europe. After careful consideration the 45 missionaries decided to stay in Curahuasi and fight the Pandemic alongside the Peruvians. The Donaukurier quotes Family Rottler: “We want to be here when the Pandemic wave hits. This is our place.” The missionaries are taking a real risk upon them. By middle of December every fourth international volunteer at Diospi Suyana has come through a Corona-infection. /KDJ
