Plagues and purity

The Christian conviction that Jesus had defeated the powers and brought an end to old rites had major effects on early Christian social engagement, Gary Ferngren implies in his 2009 Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity .

“Before the advent of Christianity,” he says, “there was no concept of public officials to prevent disease or to treat those who suffered from it. Alex Scobie speaks of a ’ cynical acceptance of the state’s indifference to the lot of the urban poor.’” This is in part due to Greco-Roman beliefs about miasma and purgation: “The general acceptance of calamities as the retribution of the gods that indicated their displeasure was deeply rooted in Greek and Roman religion and remained a part of paganism until the end of antiquity. Plague was attributed to the gods, who punished men for having violated a taboo or incurred divine displeasure by bringing pollution on a city, whether intentionally or unintentionally – but not for moral offenses, since the gods imposed no ethical requirements. Only public sacrifice or purification could satisfy the anger of the gods” (pp. 116-7).