IOur Christmas images feature ancient symbols such as pine trees, mistletoe, holly and ivy alongside the baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary, angels and shepherds. This mixture of pagan and Christian traditions reminds us that Christmas was superimposed on many older midwinter festivities. But if it weren’t for a devastating pandemic that swept through the Roman Empire in the third century AD, the birth of Jesus probably wouldn’t feature at all in our winter solstice celebrations.
If the New Testament is to be believed, Jesus managed to fit a lot into his short life. But for all his wise words, good deeds, and miracles—not to mention the promise of eternal life—Christ was nothing more than the leader of an obscure sect of Judaism when the Romans destroyed him in 33 AD. crucified.
The Bible tells us that Jesus had 120 followers on the morning of his ascension. Peter’s preaching increased the number to 3,000 by the end of the day – but this exponential growth did not continue.
After the Jews in Palestine failed to convert en masse, Jesus’ followers turned their attention to the Gentiles. They made some progress, but the vast majority of people throughout the empire continued to pray to the Roman gods.
According to Bart D. Ehrman, author of The Triumph of Christianity, in the year 200 there were approximately 150,000 Christians spread throughout the empire. This amounts to 0.25% of the population – comparable to the share of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Britain today.
Then, toward the end of the third century, something remarkable happened. The number of Christian burials in the catacombs of Rome increased rapidly. This also applies to the frequency of Christian first names in papyrus documents preserved by Egypt’s arid desert conditions. Christianity became a mass phenomenon. By the year 300 there were approximately 3 million Christians in the Roman Empire.
In 312, Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Sunday was a rest day. Public money was used to build churches, including the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem and Old St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Then, in 380, Christianity became the official faith of the empire.
At the same time, paganism suffered somewhat Edward Gibbon called a “total extermination”. It was as if the old gods, who had dominated Greco-Roman religious life since at least the time of Homer, simply packed up and left.
If the Romans had not embraced Jesus so enthusiastically in the third and fourth centuries, it is difficult to imagine an alternative route by which Christianity would have become a world religion. To understand what caused this momentous change, we must consider why Roman society at the time was so receptive to throwing off its old belief system and adopting a new religion.
At its height, the Roman Empire stretched from Hadrian’s Wall to the Red Sea and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea. The Imperial Capital had approximately 1 million inhabitants. The population of Alexandria was about half that, and that of Antioch and Carthage was just over 100,000.
Goods and people moved back and forth across the Mediterranean, although merchants ventured much further afield. Size, connectivity and urbanization made the Roman world remarkable; but it also created the perfect conditions for the spread of devastating pandemics.
The Plague of Cyprian was first reported in Egypt in 249. The pandemic struck Rome in 251 and lasted for at least the next twenty years. Some historians argue that it caused the period of political instability and economic dislocation known as the Crisis of the Third Century, which nearly caused the empire to collapse. For other historians, the Cypriot plague was just one aspect of this age-old polycrisis.
We cannot be sure about the identity of the pathogen. Bishop Cyprian of Carthage, who gave his name to the pandemic, described symptoms such as high fever, vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding from the ears, eyes, nose and mouth. Based on this account, a viral hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola is the most likely candidate. According to one chronicle, the pandemic was at its peak killed 5,000 people a day in the capital. The population of Alexandria is estimated at fell from about 500,000 to 190,000. Even if we exaggerate, it was clearly a terrifying pandemic.
When your friends, family and neighbors die, and there is a very real prospect that you will soon die too, it is only natural to wonder why this is happening and what awaits you in the next life. The historian Kyle Harper and sociologist Rodney Stark argue that Christianity boomed in popularity during the Plague of Cyprian because it offered a more comforting guide to life during this unsettling time.
Greco-Roman gods were capricious and indifferent to suffering. When Apollo was angry, he strode down Mount Olympus and indiscriminately fired arrows of plague at the mortals below. The pagans offered sacrifices to appease him. Those who could, fled.
Paganism offered little comfort to those afflicted with illness. The old gods did not reward good deeds, so many pagans left the sick ‘half dead on the road’, according to Bishop Dionysiusthe Patriarch of Alexandria. Death was an unappealing prospect, as it meant an uncertain existence in the underworld.
In contrast, Jesus’ message offered meaning and hope. Suffering on earth was a test that helped believers enter heaven after death. Eternal life in paradise is quite a reward, but Christianity also provided another, more tangible benefit.
Christians were expected to demonstrate their love for God through acts of kindness toward the sick and needy. Or as Jesus said, whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me.
Encouraged by the promise of life after death, Christians stuck around and got stuck in. Dionysius describes how, “without regard to danger, they took care of the sick and provided for all their needs.” The early Christians are said to have saved many sick people by giving them water, food and shelter. Even today, hydration and nutrition are important elements of the World Health Organization Guidelines for the treatment of Ebola.
As Stark and Harper note, the fact that so many Christians survived, and that Christians managed to rescue pagans abandoned by their families, provided the best recruiting material any religion could wish for: “miracles.”
Without these miracles, the Romans would not have embraced Jesus’ message with such enthusiasm, and Christianity would likely have remained an obscure sect. In this alternate reality, it is likely that we would still decorate our homes with evergreens to symbolize nature’s resilience and vitality in the dead of winter. However, the Christmas story would be lost in the dustbin of history.