Thread

re: How the early church responded to a plague.

A few days ago I started reading *The Patient Ferment of the Early Church* by Alan Kreider. It's an interesting read for many reasons.
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One of the reasons he wrote the book was to answer the question, "Why did the early church spread in the first three centuries?"

In answering that question he looks at how the church in Carthage in the 250s responded to a plague. This plague is known as "the Cyprian Plague."
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Pontius was the biographer of Cyprian, who was the leading bishop in North Africa and it is because of him we know what Cyprian taught the people about how to live during the plague.
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Keep in mind that these people had just lived through an empire-wide persecution under the reign of Decius. The Christians themselves would have been blamed for the plague because they did not offer sacrifices to the gods.
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What did Cyprian say to the Christians?
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