Epidemics and Evangelism: the Feast of St Luke
Sunday 18 October 2026
Revd Kenneth Padley, Canon Treasurer
In the year 165 AD, a devastating epidemic swept across the Roman Empire. Medical historians speculate that it might have been the first outing of smallpox in the West. The effects were catastrophic: the contagion lasted for fifteen years and carried all before it, killing between a quarter and a third of Empire, even the Emperor himself. Nearly a century later, in the 250s AD, another mystery disease tore through the Mediterranean. This time it might have been measles. Not only were densely-populated and poorly-sanitised cities decimated, rural areas suffered appalling mortality rates as well.
This was a world in which Christianity was a minority sport. Believers in Jesus made up no more than two per cent of the Empire in 250AD. And that second epidemic in the 250s coincided with the first Empire-wide persecution of Christians as the authorities looked for a scapegoat to blame for the disease. And yet – remarkably – at the end of both epidemics, the Church found itself numerically stronger than it had been at the start. Why might this be so?
Two important documents have survived from the North African epicentre of the epidemic of the 250s which offer illuminating explanations as to why the Christian response to these epidemics proved more effective than pagan counterparts. What might these say to us as we celebrate this feast of St Luke, patron saint of medics?
The first piece of evidence comes in the form of an Easter Letter written by Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria. In it Dionysius notes the practical and social support offered by Christians in response to the disease that was plaguing his city. He goes on to argue that this support was qualitatively different from the response of pagans. Quote,
Most of our fellow-Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of the danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing upon themselves the sickness of their neighbours and cheerfully accepting their pains…
The heathens behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead, and treating unburied corpses as dirt.
Critical historians would treat Dionysius’ account with a degree of circumspection. It is propaganda that sets the Church in the best light and paganism in the worst. Nonetheless, it is reasonable to conclude that at least a modicum of what Dionysius claims is true because it is hard to see how he could have got away with asserting entirely fake news. In short, the Christian community disproportionately supplied basic medical care and this had the effect of slashing death rates because the sick received simple nourishment with the results that some victims were enabled to recover. In addition, these actions unwittingly built up herd immunity.
Underpinning this practical Christian response to the epidemic was spiritual confidence. Evidence for this can be gleaned from the second document I mentioned earlier. Further along the North African coast from Alexandria, Cyprian Bishop of Carthage wrote a treatise On Mortality. In this book Cyprian notes that Jesus did not promise a world free from man-made horrors or natural disasters. Cyprian was realistic that Christians had no magical protection from the epidemic that beset his city [§15]. Nonetheless, he argued that Christians could face trials in this world with the hope of the next because Jesus had passed through death to resurrection. This was a message which steeled the Christian community for the task in hand. Cyprian wrote of his congregations, ‘by contempt of death, they prepare for the crown’ [§16]. Such hope of eternal life was not replicated within their neighbours’ pagan belief systems.
To summarise so far, social support and spiritual confidence have been identified as the twin qualities which characterised the Christian response to the epidemic of the mid-third century. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic six years ago, we saw examples of similar gifts among people of many faiths and none. Streets and communities were networked by phone and internet. Shopping and other basic amenities were made available to the elderly and vulnerable. Worship went online and this reached many more than the congregations who otherwise would have bowled up to church. There was one Sunday in May 2020 when the volume of morning worship on Zoom temporarily crashed the internet.
Those twin threads of social support and spiritual confidence which characterised the Christian response to epidemics in times ancient and modern would have been very dear to the beloved physician St Luke. Indeed, they are embedded in his writings.
Firstly, a social heart. Luke was concerned with the welfare of all. This is often assumed to flow from his medical training. It is certainly prominent in his understanding of the good news about Jesus. Thus Luke’s account of the gospel preserves unique stories of care which are not found in Matthew, Mark or John. Among these are the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the tale of the loving father who restored his Prodigal Son, and the story of the shepherd who risks all for a missing sheep.
Luke had a particular priority for the poor, the oppressed and the marginalised. He viewed Jesus’ nativity from the perspective of the outcast shepherds – not the wealthy magi recorded by St Matthew. He celebrated inclusion within God’s kingdom, such as the penitent sex worker who wept at Jesus’ feet. And his heart went out to Zaccheus who struggled up a tree to see Jesus before having to make the even more difficult descent of repentance.
Given this, Luke emphasised the earthy daily tasks of Christians, working under God’s grace for the growth of the Kingdom. ‘Go and do likewise’ Jesus tells the lawyer at the end of Luke’s account of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. Dionysius of Alexandria witnessed just such service within his city two centuries later.
In addition to his social heart, St Luke also had spiritual confidence. He begins his gospel by describing the failure of the priest Zechariah to bless God’s people and he contrasts this at the end of his gospel with Jesus on the mount of Ascension lifting up hands to hallow the disciples. Luke is giving voice to his belief that the life of Jesus makes all the difference in opening a living way into the presence of God. It is his expression of the spiritual confidence which Cyprian saw flourishing within the Christian community of mid-third century Carthage.
Finally, it is worth remembering that Luke wrote two books, not one. Having finished his gospel, he went on to compile an account of the very early Church, the Acts of the Apostles. This second tome starts where Luke’s gospel finishes, at Jesus’ Ascension. In the account of the ascension in Acts, Jesus promises his followers the power of the Holy Spirit and commissions them to witness in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1.8). Note the concentric pattern: the Christian mission is to start in the holy city and then fan outwards. The remaining 28 chapters of Acts document this process. Or rather these 28 chapters start to document the process, because flowing from the Ascension, Acts is an open-ended account of social support and spiritual confidence, proleptic of the age of Dionysius and Cyprian, and – of course – our own.
Amen.