When an epidemic hit the Roman Empire around 260 AD, it was horribly bad. The only thing people could do to avoid getting sick and dying was to run away, literally. Dionysius, a third-century bishop, wrote this about “the heathen,”
“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 treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spread and contagion of the fatal disease,”
Christians, on the other hand, took a wholly different approach, Dionysius wrote, “Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty … 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 … Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their deaths to themselves and died in their stead,”34
A key difference between Christians and those of other faiths is the expression of love and the willingness to love unconditionally, faithfully, no matter what.”
A major key difference between Christians and those of other faiths is the expression of love and the willingness to love unconditionally, faithfully, no matter what, In this final session, we will see how we are to love even as Christ has loved us.
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