Roman culture had no place for caring for those weakened by sickness. During epidemics, when sickness would spread through the entire city, people would flee from the cities in order to escape the mass panic and death. During one such epidemic in the 3rd century, Dionysus, a Christion bishop, wrote that the pagans would “thrust aside anyone who began to be sick, and kept [far away] even from their dearest friends, and cast the sufferers out upon the public roads half dead, and left them unburied, and treated them with utter contempt when they died.”
This was the standard of the age: like we said, every man for himself.
“Many of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of 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…Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead….The best of our brothers lost their lives in this manner.” - Dionysius (3rd Century Christian)
“I think that when the poor happened to be neglected and overlooked…, the Galileans [Christians] observed this and devoted themselves to benevolence…The Galileans [Christians] support not only their poor, but ours as well; everyone can see that our people lack aid from us.” - Julian the Apostate, Roman Emperor
Yet Jesus called out how important it was to serve the sick and the poor.
And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ - Jesus, Matthew 25:40
Because of what Jesus said, Christians founded the first hospitals for the general public
