The Healing Christ in Pandemics: Then and Now

Abstract

The context of illness, plagues, and healing in early Christianity and late antiquity was a factor in the growth and expansion of early Christianity. The most prominent early images from early Christian art depict Christ healing. This essay will examine the historical context of plagues and the Christian response to show how the healing Christ affected the security of Christian ascendency. From this study, the essay offers insight into our present pandemic context of COVID-19 and evaluates the religious response.

Introduction

In 249 CE, a new and deadly plague entered North Africa. Known as the Plague of Cyprian, named after the bishop of Carthage, the only detailed records of the plague and its symptoms were captured in sermons by Cyprian. The bishop revealed the symptoms of the disease in his preaching in which he encouraged the infirm to embrace the pain of disease, just as the blessed martyrs embraced torture in the arenas. In the wake of the plague, after Emperor Decius died, Christian persecution was relaxed until the Diocletian persecution at the beginning of the fourth century. Outsiders took notice of the care Christians paid towards the sick and infirm, increasing their success in the mission field. Over a century later, the “apostate” emperor Julian derided his fellow polytheists, saying that the Christians take better care of the sick and poor than they do (Letter to Arsacius 429C). Thus, early Christians in late antiquity and beyond actively cultivated an identity bound to caregiving and healing.

The context of illness, plagues, and healing in early Christianity and late antiquity was a factor in the growth and expansion of early Christianity. It is unsurprising then to realize that the most prominent early images in the visual canon of early Christian art are of Christ healing. This essay will examine the historical context of plagues and the Christian response through textual and visual evidence and show how pivotal the notion of the healing Christ was in projecting Christianity in comparison to competing religions and health-care options. In the context of plagues in antiquity, there was an inclination to rely on religion for treatment. The healing Christ in text and art built upon this notion and had a galvanizing, community-building effect on Christianity in late antiquity. The healing aspect of Jesus bound the religious see together, healing fractures and eradicating schisms. By looking at the historical past, we can gain insight into our present pandemic context of COVID-19 and evaluate the religious response, perhaps realizing that the same model in antiquity could well serve the Christian community today.

Jesus and COVID-19

When the COVID-19 outbreak hit in the spring of 2020, many had little engagement with the notion of terms like “plague” or “pandemic.” There have been sporadic outbreaks of influenza and SARS in the recent past, but nothing prepared the general public for the onset of a global, worldwide pandemic in the age of advanced medicine and antibiotics. After studying epidemics in history, it was startling to realize how the past came so close to the present in those early weeks of COVID. Amidst fear of the dawning of a new reality of quarantines and masking, many communities grappled with the notion of a global plague by asking religious questions. Within Christianity, COVID became a battleground where newfound church and state issues were waged, on whether church congregations could continue to meet or be banned in the interest of public safety. Lines began to be drawn between Christians and the non-religious, as well as within Christianity itself. Questions included: Would Jesus wear a mask? Does the Eucharist protect partakers from COVID? Would Jesus be pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine? With vaccination mandates at workplaces and colleges around the country, religious exemptions to vaccines became commonplace. Jesus was invoked as both pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine in different contexts at different times.

In the midst of the recent COVID outbreak, an image of Jesus circulated online that was seemingly geared towards outreach and unity. The image depicted a typical Western, Warner Sallman-type Jesus holding a patient who was wrapped in different flags of the world. ¹ Noticeable in the image is the stethoscope around Jesus’s neck. ² This image of Jesus evokes the Physician Christ and recalls the healings of Jesus in the gospels.

There is a long history of images of the healing Jesus in text and art in early Christianity. The Gospel of Mark introduces Jesus as an iatros, a “physician,” like worldly physicians but greater since “Dr. Jesus” is always effective and heals free of charge. In the grips of a global pandemic, this image attempts to unify Christians around the legacy of a healing Jesus and push Christians towards outreach. The image of the healing Jesus still influences modern debates among Christians during times of healthcare crises.

The healing Jesus has a particular context in its emergence in early Christian discourse. Christianity has a long history in dealing with plagues and outbreaks. At this time in our recent struggles with a new pandemic, it might be beneficial to witness how Christians at different moments engaged with illness and pandemics, and how those moments can inform our contemporary context.

Pandemics in Early Christianity

In early Christianity and late antiquity, individuals were greatly concerned about their health and wellbeing. The fragile nature of existence became apparent when illness or injury struck. Remedies were sought with a fervor that bordered on fanaticism. With limited medical technology in the cultural world of late antiquity, the promise of miraculous cures was very pervasive. Medicine and miracle were frequently linked, because healing was so closely associated with religion. The pervasive belief in supernatural cures naturally rose from belief in the unbelievable.

Care was difficult to procure, not always effective, and occasionally expensive. In general, a sick person seeking treatment had four options. The person could (1) go to a physician, (2) use homeopathic, self-administered remedies, (3) seek the aid of a magician or employ magical incantations, or (4) visit a temple of the local healing cult. While all four options never lacked practitioners, the healing aspect of religion was the most popular in the first four centuries. Moreover, physicians acknowledged the healing cult, because the priests treated chronic illnesses such as paralysis or blindness. The divine healing option often provided more individual attention to such chronic ailments. Even if the effect was “care” more than actual “cure,” the treatments of the healing cult were often considered to be successful. ³ Though greatly ridiculed in some quarters, with few other options, many people turned to religion.

The most famous physician in the Roman world was Galen of Pergamum. Galen was born around 129 CE and was situated perfectly to study ancient medicine, particularly the Hippocratic Corpus, as well as observe the vibrant temple cult of Asclepius in the city. Asclepius, the god of healing, enjoyed a popular observance in Pergamum particularly and in the wider Empire as well. The cult’s observance in the early centuries positioned itself as a direct rival to a nascent Christianity. Galen enjoyed the study of anatomy, but also understood the role of religion in convalescence. ⁴ Galen treated gladiators in Pergamum, dissected animals to learn the art of anatomy, traveled to Alexandria to further his study, and eventually made his way to Rome. Galen came to Rome during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and began to understood the etiology of disease outbreaks in urban areas. Galen would have a front row seat to what some historians call the first global pandemic, the Antonine Plague of 166 CE.

Outbreaks of disease would become common in cities of the empire, usually marked by symptoms of fever, rashes, or vomiting. Galen observed patients that were covered head to toe in black rashes that resisted treatment. He noted that the humor, or substance, of black bile was often in excess, leading to fever and the manifestation of pustules on the skin. Historians know much about the Antonine Plague due to the notes of Galen in the Method of Medicine, leading some to suggest this was the first known plague of a smallpox variant. Galen survived the plague because he escaped the city of Rome and waited out the plague in a remote villa.

Some people turned to religion for an explanation of the Antonine Plague. Apollo, credited as a god of healing (he was Asclepius’s father) was either responsible for the plague (as revenge against apostasy), or he was invoked to help rescue believers from illness. Inscriptionary evidence reveals invocations in Latin or Greek calling upon the god during the time of pestilence. ⁵

Asclepius and his cult enjoyed a resurgence in devotion during the plague. Aelius Aristides, a wealthy orator almost succumbed to the disease. Aristides was a prominent rhetorician from Smyrna who became incapacitated by illness. Aristides’s descriptions of divine treatments (including attempts to balance the humors and bloodletting) provide some revealing detail about the cult of Asclepius and the relationship between healing and religion. Aristides described the visitation of Asclepius in his dreams and his prescriptions, including one that ordered him to bathe in an icy river during winter. ⁶ Aristides was not against medicine or physicians. In fact, he consulted physicians as well as the cult of Asclepius. Galen’s teacher, Satyrus, was summoned to examine Aristides, and the patient heeded his advice, as long as it did not conflict with the divine prescription. Satyrus advised that the bloodletting cease and a plaster be applied to treat his abdomen. Aristides replied that he “did not have the authority to do one thing or the other,” but “while the god commanded the letting of my blood, I would obey whether willing or not, or rather never unwilling. Still, I did not ignore Satyrus’ prescription, but took and kept it. It was no cornucopia.” ⁷ Aristides implied that the divine treatment was preferable.Aristides also describes appearances by the familiar healing deities from Egypt, Sarapis and Isis. ⁸ He recounted his personal experience with the healing power of Asclepius in almost embarrassing detail, calling the god a “great magician.” ⁹ This is not meant as an accusation, but rather as a testament to the miraculous results affected by the god. For Aristides, Asclepius was the “gentlest and most generous of gods.” ¹⁰ Asclepius healed Aristides when human doctors could not. Aristides’s fierce devotion stemmed not only from the incidents of divine healing, but from the conviction that Asclepius now guarded over his life. Aristides notes that Asclepius looks out for human welfare, and leftover sacrifices were given to the poor.

In the context of the Antonine Plague, we see two different reactions: the physician Galen’s flight for survival and Aristides’s flight towards religion. Aristides gives religion the credit for his survival. Moreover, it is interesting to reflect on Aristides’s preference for divine treatment over medical treatment. We have encountered similar dialogues during the COVID pandemic. People have denied the administration of vaccines by invoking their religion or faith. The context of medicine then and now is undoubtedly different, but the rhetoric is remarkably familiar: some prefer religion over medicine in the face of pandemics.

After the Antonine Plague, when the next global pandemic arose, it was religion, namely Christianity, that received credit for people’s survival. Aristides’s proclamation of Asclepius as a “savior” perhaps influences a similar Christian response in the context of illness and healing.

Plague of Cyprian

Cyprian of Carthage is perhaps best known as the bishop that helped resolve a schism during the Decian Persecution of 249 CE. His treatises On the Lapsed and On the Unity of the Catholic Church were essential in crafting unity and centralizing ecclesial authority. ¹¹ In the fourth century, the group of Christians in Africa calling themselves Donatists would draw upon the writings of Cyprian to marshal their argument as the one true church on earth, bringing Augustine into perhaps one of the most pivotal debates of his episcopate.

Cyprian is also known for the plague that bears his name, an outbreak called the Plague of Cyprian that ravaged North Africa and parts of southern Europe, including Rome. Some reports suggest that at its zenith, the plague killed around 5,000 people a day in Rome. ¹² The pandemic is named after Cyprian because his account of the disease is the only surviving written description of the outbreak. Unlike the Antonine Plague, during which the physician Galen preserved an account of the pandemic, the Plague of Cyprian has a Christian bishop recording the symptoms, which also presents its own theological value.

Cyprian wrote his tract De Mortalitate (“On the Plague”) during the outbreak. Woven into his sermonizing are valuable descriptions of the symptoms of the disease. He writes of afflictions of the eyes, stomach, and bowels. He describes fevers, vomiting, and occasional loss of limbs through putrefaction. ¹³ Cyprian was not a doctor; he was bishop dealing with a fractious ecclesial see. And he was also writing during a time when martyrs and martyrdom were useful symbols to promote unity through suffering. This understanding is peppered throughout his account of the plague. His goal is not to catalogue symptoms of the disease but to encourage Christians that there will be a heavenly reward for their suffering. Cyprian compares those who died of the disease to the martyrs who suffered pains but were uplifted. He writes “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!” ¹⁴ The symptoms Christians suffer are merely proofs of faith, and while the disease may be a plague for “Jews and Gentiles,” for Cyprian, it is a “departure of salvation” for Christians. ¹⁵

Medical historians find Cyprian’s tract of particular utility because his catalog of symptoms reveals a hemorrhagic aspect to the disease that helps historians to try to identify it. Cyprian’s descriptions would differentiate the disease from the smallpox of the Antonine Plague and mark this plague as something new. Religious scholars, however, can find in Cyprian’s invective a marshaling of the language of martyrdom in a specific context of widespread suffering. In this light, Cyprian’s reinforcement of the pains of the disease as a positive mark of faith, aligning it with the martyrs, connotates the “good” of suffering but also suggests the inevitably of an eternal reward. Cyprian’s advice is to suffer nobly, since this world is finite, and the next world is infinite. ¹⁶ Moreover, Cyprian argues for the use of wine in the Eucharistic cup, deriding a practice or using only water in the ritual. In his Letter 63, Cyprian draws upon scriptural instances of wine use to support the use of wine in the Eucharistic ritual. He also employs language of the “health giving” cup, and that the drinking of the wine has benefits that drinking water does not. Cyprian uses the language of salvation to advocate for the use of the wine, but he also indicates that physically drinking the wine benefits the Christian. Reading this with the context of the plague in mind, one could witness the eternal benefits of wine use as well as the health giving benefits Cyprian argues for in his contexts when bodies are wracked with illness. ¹⁷

The Christian bishop’s positive spin on the plague was surprisingly effective in building solidarity and and growing Christian community. Cyprian gave reason and meaning to the pervasive suffering and illness. The connection of suffering to faith and to the martyrs gave Christians an “answer” to why they were suffering. By pointing out that non-Christians were doomed to perdition and destruction from the plague, Cyprian demonstrated that the plague had no lasting power over Christians, who would enjoy a heavenly reward. The Christian should not fear a plague-induced death, as death is not the end.

The sociologist Rodney Stark has argued that during the Plague of Cyprian, Christians not only endured, but they also ensured the growth of their religion. He argues that in the wake of the plague, Christian ascendency skyrocketed, in part because of how they engaged the plague and how they took care of the afflicted. He cites Cyprian’s fellow bishop Dionysius, who wrote glowingly of how local Christians nursed and cared for the sick, only to become infected themselves and die. ¹⁸ This, Dionysius wrote, is the “equal of martyrdom.” ¹⁹ It would be easy to discount the account of a Christian bishop describing how Christians took better care of their neighbors that others did. Romans certainly engaged in acts of charity, but as Stark points out, Roman religion had no doctrinal foundation like Christianity did to mandate care of the sick and the poor. Even the emperor Julian, known as the “apostate,” observes how attentive Christians were to the sick and the poor, ascribing it to their religion. ²⁰ According to Stark, it is this advantage that secured Christian supremacy in the fourth century after Constantine. Rather than running for the hills like Galen and letting the sick fend for themselves, Christians’ care of the sick allowed them to grow in large numbers in the wake of pandemics.

Stark’s argument is not without its flaws. Recently Bart Ehrman argued that Stark’s thesis cannot be trusted because so much rests on Christian testimonies that are certainly not unbiased. ²¹ Nevertheless, what both scholars point out is that in the aftermath of the largest global pandemic to date in the third century, Christian numbers grew rather than declined, and they grew exponentially. Whether early Christians were actively touting their actions as caregivers during plagues due to religious rivals is unclear at best, and the textual evidence is sparse. However, it does seem clear that early Christians found value in caring for the sick and the poor, and such actions gave them identity as caregivers visible to any outsider, including polytheists. Christianity would continue to be identified by insiders and outsiders as a religion of healing following plagues such as the Plague of Cyprian.

Visual and written evidence from the period supports the notion that Christian ascendency capitalized on emphasizing Christianity as a religion of healing. Out of a context of illness and death, the image of the healing Christ became prolific, assuring viewers of the rewards of heaven.

Images of Healing in the Wake of the Pandemics

The Christian house church of Dura Europos and the catacomb of Callistus in Rome both feature some of the earliest wall paintings in the Christian visual lexicon. Callistus dates from the beginning of the third century CE, about fifty years after the Plague of Cyprian, while Dura dates from the early to mid-third century CE. Both environments feature a portrayal of the story of the paralytic whose friends lowered him on a pallet, one of the earliest examples of healing images of Jesus. The healing of the paralytic is among the first miracles of Christ’s ministry in the Synoptic gospels (Matt 9:2; Mark 2:1–12; Luke 5:17). ²² In the artwork at Dura, Jesus appears at the top of the scene directing the action that takes place below, which features a figure holding an interwoven reed mat on his back (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Image of Jesus healing the paralytic. Mid third cent. CE. Dura-Europos synagogue, Dura-Europos Collection Archives, Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A.(Photo: Yale University Art Gallery).

Immediately adjacent to the scene of Christ’s baptism at the catacomb of Callistus is an image of the healed paralytic holding his mat (Figure 2). The solitary figure of the healed paralytic holds his pallet above his head in a manner that becomes emblematic of the healing act of Christ. The baptismal significance is also emphasized at Dura, where the earliest Christian baptistery was uncovered. Baptism was understood in light of Romans 6, that one is “dying and rising” with Christ, a suitable interpretation when health was precarious. Baptism would thus become essential for the “healing” of the resurrection.

Figure 2.

Image at the Catacomb of Callistus, Rome. Early third cent. CE. Photo: Josef Wilpert (Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1903).

When early Christians were developing their artistic palette, healing and miracle scenes were the themes most often chosen. Early Christians preferred depicting Jesus healing rather than images of Jesus’s crucifixion. While a crucified Jesus would become a prolific theme in later art, early Christians chose to depict Jesus as authoritative and powerful, not dying the death of an impoverished Jewish rebel. Why the Christians at Dura and the catacomb of Callistus chose to depict the paralytic rather than the earlier scenes of Jesus’s healing is curious. Particularly at Callistus, with the baptismal setting, a scene where Jesus heals the leper or casts out demons would be a logical choice. However, there are few depictions of such exorcisms in the corpus of early Christian art. The cleansing of the leper was not a depiction included in the catacombs, even though leprosy was similar to what people sufferered in the Plague of Cyprian.

The healing of the paralytic was a popular story due to its dramatic assertion that Jesus is the Messiah who had formidable authority to perform such miracles on the Sabbath. Jesus orders the paralytic to “Get up” (egeirō), which the King James Version translates as “Arise” (see Matt 9:6; Mark 2:11; Luke 5:24; John 5:8). Such language serves as a metaphor for resurrection, as does the proximity to baptism in the artistic examples. Just as the paralytic rises up, so do the Christian dead, particularly those who succumbed to illness and disease: the ultimate healing is resurrection. Within the recent context of the deadly Plague of Cyprian, the choice of the paralytic makes sense. The healing of the paralytic shows the authority and power of Jesus over any world malady. In the gospels, Mark and Luke ended the miracle narrative with the crowd exclaiming, “We have never seen anything like this” (Mark 2:12; Luke 5:26), reinforcing the novel standing of Christianity that sets them apart from their polytheistic neighbors. ²³

In these and other examples, the focus is the moment of Christ’s edict, before the paralytic takes up his mat and walks, proving the authority and power of Christ. In these scenes, Jesus often holds a scroll in his other hand, emphasizing his authority.

A few images of the healing of the blind man also have been discovered in the catacombs. ²⁴ In catacomb paintings (such as at the catacomb of Peter and Marcellinus), Christ is depicted touching the eyes of his patient while the man’s arms are raised up in the position of prayer. Other scenes render Christ touching the patient with his entire hand. The healing of the blind exhibits Christ physically encountering and healing his supplicants. This healing image is evident in other fourth century examples of Christian relief sculpture (Figures 3 and 4).

Figure 3.

Jesus healing a blind man. Marble relief. Mid fourth cent. CE. Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican Museums, Rome, Italy (Photo: Scala / Art Resource, NY).

Figure 4.

Jesus healing the blind and the woman with the blood issue. Marble relief. Mid fourth cent. CE. Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican Museums, Rome, Italy (Photo: Scala / Art Resource, NY).

The subject of Christ healing the blind man is the most frequently represented healing image in extant Christian relief sculpture. In the surviving Roman examples, it appears more often than any other healing scene. ²⁵ The scene portrays Christ touching the patient, emphasizing his power and his status as the supreme healer. The representations consist of the comparatively large figure of Christ touching the eyes or face of the patient, who is depicted on Jesus’s left or right. All of the canonical gospels include the story of Christ healing blind persons. Some accounts describe the events as predicated by the patients’ faith, as Christ affirms that their faith has healed them. Other accounts detail Christ’s healing touch as the catalyst of the event. ²⁶ In Christian relief sculpture, the representations of Christ healing the blind man follow the accounts that describe the power of Christ’s touch. That is, instead of emphasizing the healing power of Christ’s speech, as in the paralytic scene, the healing power of Christ’s touch is on display in the healing of the blind man.

Representative examples of the scene in relief sculpture from Rome offer insight into its significance. One example of relief sculpture now in the Museo Pio Cristiano includes the healing of the blind man along with a representation of the paralytic with his mat (Figure 3). The blind man is usually depicted much smaller than the figure of Christ, and he is shown holding a staff similar to the one the Jesus occasionally wields. Christ places his hand or fingers on the blind man’s face or touches the top of his head. The scene stresses Christ’s touch; his fingers upon the face of the afflicted are shown in detail, and occasionally in other examples the blind man’s sightless eyes are given definition. ²⁷

Images that feature the healing touch of Christ have an underlying message. His touch demonstrates his curative power, because his healings were a result of real physical interaction between physician and patient. Asclepius’s remedies typically were provided remotely through the power of dreams. Temple priests would supply a prescription after the patient had slept in the Asclepieion. By contrast, an image of Christ healing through touch spread the message of his superiority, since his healing power was depicted as a tangible action taking place between healer and patient. In other words, Jesus healed his patients immediately and in the physical world, not belatedly and through the power of dreams. Such an emphasis on touch could also highlight the presence of Christians in the care of the sick. With the outbreak of the Plague of Cyprian not yet a distant memory, images that showcase the healing touch of Jesus illustrate the interaction and engagement Christians had with the sick. Christian art could lend some gravity to Rodney Stark’s argument that Christian numbers increased following the outbreaks of plagues. I have argued elsewhere that these images of Jesus could suggest a competition with Asclepius. I also think that it is plausible that the images also are meant to highlight the direct engagement Christians had with the severely ill that set them apart from others. The healing touch of Jesus certainly could remind viewers of the care and treatment offered to those suffering during pandemics. But that is not the primary focus of the multitude of healing images in early Christianity. Healing images emphasized the ultimate healing of the resurrection and eternal life, something that set Christians apart from their co-religionists. Such a message also could serve a population suffering from illness and disease and could explain the increase in Christian numbers in the wake of pandemics. Christianity was attractive during and after plagues mainly because it preached an eternity beyond any earthly suffering. The images of the healing Christ reinforced that belief.

While the power of Jesus is promoted in images featuring the physical touch of Jesus, the images also reveal the importance of the faith of the patient. This notion is on prominent display in the image of the woman with the blood issue. While the narrative of the woman with the blood issue asserts that the woman’s faith made her well, touch is still emphasized in the story, although the normal direction is reversed. The woman touches Jesus out of her desire to be healed. The story appears in all three Synoptic gospels (Mark 5:21–34; Matt 9:18–26; Luke 8:40–48). The scene of the woman with the issue of blood is depicted in catacomb art that emphasizes the healing power of Christ’s touch. At the catacomb of Peter and Marcellinus, the woman kneels below the figure of Christ, clutching the hem of his tunic (Figure 5). Christ is not touching the woman; the woman is touching him, recalling the moment when Christ realizes the healing power goes out from him. Christ gestures toward the woman with his hand, possibly in recognition of the event or in blessing. ²⁸ Christian relief sculpture, such as the Museo Pio Cristiano example, depicts the scene of the woman with the issue of blood in a way similar to the catacomb painting of Peter and Marcellinus (Figure 4). For example, the faith of the woman with the blood issue is indicated by Jesus as part of the healing process (“your faith has made you well” [Luke 8:48]), and the viewing audience would be reminded of the text by witnessing the image in a funerary context. In that funerary context, the connection between faith “making one well” in this world in the resurrection also can be realized visually.

Figure 5.

Jesus healing the woman with the blood issue. Fresco wall painting. Fourth cent. CE. Catacomb of Peter and Marcellinus, Rome, Italy (Photo: Scala / Art Resource, NY).

In the early healing and miracle working images featuring Jesus, he is often depicted using a tool or implement, touching it to the patient or object. Much has been written about the so-called “wand” of Jesus, associating Jesus with magic. ²⁹ As I have argued in the past, the “wand” is not a wand at all since any association with magic would be repugnant to many early Christians. Rather, the “wand” is meant to associate Jesus with Moses’s staff and to show Jesus as a worker of miracles like Moses. In the catacombs, the association between the staff of Moses and the staff of Jesus is clear, often due to the images’ proximity to one another. Jesus performing miracles with the staff recalls Moses’s staff, which is frequently portrayed nearby. On Roman funerary sarcophagi, Moses is featured striking water from the rock or crossing the Red Sea alongside Jesus performing miracles with the same type of staff. The close proximity connects the miracles of Moses to the miracles of Jesus.

There is one other figure that appears bearing a staff in early Christian art: the apostle Peter. Peter wields the staff in multiple scenes on early Christian relief sculpture. On the sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus as well as certain Vatican examples, Peter is depicted releasing water from the rock (Figure 6). ³⁰ These scenes recall a legend of Peter baptizing his Roman jailers before his martyrdom. The legend is not from the canonical gospels but from the apocryphal Acts of Peter. The story describes Peter striking the “rock” of his cell walls, which released water he used to baptize the Roman converts, Processus and Martinianus. The staff is meant to connect Jesus and Peter to Moses, and with the miracle of striking the rock, Peter is highlighted as a “new Moses” to a Christian audience. With the inclusion of Peter in miracle imagery involving staff-use, Christ allows Peter, the leader of his church (Matt 16:19) and feeder of his sheep (John 21;15–17), to inherit the symbol of his ability and carry the tradition forward.

Figure 6.

Jesus healing. Marble sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus, Rome. 330–340 CE. Museo Nazionale Romano – Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome, Italy (Photo: Author).

The staff in the hands of Moses, Jesus, or Peter is not an empty symbol, the mark of a magician, or an example of the influence of non-Christian artists and workshops. Early Christian art depicts Jesus wielding a Christian virga, a staff of power and authority. Staffs in art certainly have non-Christian antecedents, such as the staff of Asclepius or the caduceus of Hermes. However, the staff of Moses, Jesus, and Peter, while evocative of the virga, is not channeling outside religion, per se. Rather, early Christians are adopting the virga as a symbol of power and infusing it with a Christian meaning in the development of their visual language. Moreover, the staff is is an indication of miracle-working and healing ability. As Christianity ascended in the wake of the Plague of Cyprian, there were certainly more plagues to come. The Plague of Justinian, named after the Byzantine emperor, would be particularly devastating in 542 CE, as it introduced the bubonic plague to Europe.

The church used art and material culture to remind viewers that the church is the locus of miracles on earth and of heavenly resurrection. Art and images of Jesus healing and collections of material relics and the cult of the saints also served this cause. Relics, such as the true cross or the bones of Stephen, boasted curative and restorative powers. Christianity advanced in their care of the sick and cultivated the notion of miracles wrought by relics, sparking pilgrimage to the reliquary sites. Healing images and relics allowed Christians to “see” their faith and contemplate heavenly rewards for their earthly suffering. The church flourished during plagues because it constructed an identity as the center of miracles on earth. This theology reinforced the promise of the resurrection. While art and material culture helped drive Christianity as an eternity-minded religion, Stark’s documentation and Julian’s critique seem to reveal that early Christians held fast to their call of care of the sick and the poor. In the fourth century, John Chrysostom vehemently preaches on attendance to the sick and poor, exhorting his communion to abandon riches to treat the person as if they were Jesus, “Do you make Him a cup of gold, while you give Him not a cup of cold water?” ³¹

COVID-19 and Christianity

The history of illness and plagues provides a reminder of how religions like Christianity benefited in growth and notoriety during catastrophes. The doctrines of the religion that are eternity-oriented provide comfort to the suffering. Amidst forced quarantines and lockdowns in 2020, religion entered into the discussion but in a different way than it did during then plagues of early Christianity and late antiquity. Some Christians propagated a divisive message that centered on “religious liberty.” Rather than uniting Christians during and after pandemics, the COVID religious landscape became more hostile, as different groups argued against mandatory lockdowns, defending church services and mass gatherings as “essential.” ³²

Recent discourse shows the divisions in our nation along political and religious fault lines. For Christians, it shows an ignorance of how early Christians reacted in times of plague and outbreak. In early Christianity, it was the Christian community that ministered to the sick, particularly since that was modeled after the life of Christ. Even in the face of transmission of the disease, Christians treated the ill, advancing the doctrine of the resurrection as a reward, something that Cyprian actively promoted in his episcopate. Pandemics served as reminders of the Christian mission to heal and serve others, rather than argue and debate over the right of assembly and liberty. It seems what is sometimes missing in the contemporary climate among both Protestant and Catholic communities is the activist call to care for the afflicted and most vulnerable. As in late antiquity, images of the healing Christ can still be effective in this regard, reminding of the long tradition of physical healing in Christianity. The internet image of a Physician Christ recaptures that tradition and invites viewers to “see” an integral component of the religion yet again. The image of the healing Christ in early Christianity and the ultimate healing of the resurrection inspired Christians to provide care and comfort for the sick. Today, images of Jesus in a post-pandemic world are more divisive, allowing viewers to be comfortable in their own particular silos. Recalling Jacob at Penuel in Genesis 32, we are reminded that religion is a struggle and serves as a reminder of the real physical struggles in a finite life; a life perhaps where one can see God face to face, not in an angelic wrestler but in a victim of disease.