(16 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)
Loading...This will be the last of my posts on this thread, connected with what I hope is my next book, that I’m calling tentatively, The Creation of Charity: How Christianity Transformed our World. Here I talk about one of the lesser-known aspects of early Christianity – a surprising one to most people.
Arguably the most important development in the Christian history of charity came in the institutionalization of giving, not on the governmental level but through extra-mural ecclesiastical organizations. Of these, none proved more historically significant than the invention of the hospital.
Most health care in the Greek and Roman worlds took place in the home, with families bearing the responsibility of nursing the sick. That, of course, is not the most effective mode of health care, but even simple nursing often produces salubrious results. Certainly, there were doctors trained in medical science who attended the sick, but these were private initiatives and as a rule benefited only with those of means. Doctors worked as individuals, out of their homes or through home-visitations to those who could afford their fees. There were no public institutions dedicated to health issues, let alone any that did so without charge. Hospitals – defined as buildings or building complexes that provided both outpatient and inpatient health care by professionally trained doctors and nurses based on the most advanced medical knowledge of the day — were a Christian invention. The services they provided were free of charge.
There have been debates about
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In the ancient world, whether Christian or pagan or Jewish, was there any ethic of what we would today call social justice-as opposed to charity? At the risk of anachronism, I’m thinking of policies that would promote something like equal (or less unequal) opportunity. It might include breaking up large estates so that individual peasants had their own land, public education so that people could rise out of poverty, full employment, freeing slaves, positions and rewards open to merit, not discriminating against people based on family of origin, class, wealth, or religion, etc.
I can think of more or less isolated cases of these things but I doubt there were systematic practices or institutions. And I’m thinking there was little or no interest in women’s equality.
Yes, I think social justice issues are prominent in some of the prophets, such a Isaiah and Amos (read the first few chapters of Amos and you’ll see)
Dr. Ehrman: Is it not also true than in addition to the creation of hospitals, monks also preserved and translated most of the classical literature we have in exist at present? I was once told by one of my history professors that had it not been for western monasticism, practically none of the classical literature of antiquity would have survived. Any truth to this in your view?
YEs, that is right — although it comes from the later maedieval period.
This sounds like a very interesting and important book idea 🙂
Did pagan critics of Christianity argue that Mary was, if not raped by God, at least given no real choice in whether to become pregnant with Jesus and therefore a victim of some kind of sexual coercion—at least by our own contemporary standards? How far back in history does this criticism go? Or is it relatively recent? Is there a “classical” discussion of it?
Most pagan critics, I believe, do not think that Mary conceived by God; more often they think that the story of the virgin birth was invented by Christains to cover up the fact that she had conceived out of wedlock (e.g., by having sex with a Roman soldier named Panthera)
Dear Bart,
Do you know if Basil the Great knew or quoted from the Gospel according to the Hebrews? I ask because there is a particularly relevant passage found in ps-Origen where there is an interpolation at the Rich Young Man episode (although you assign it to the Gospel of the Nazareans):
“And the Lord said to him, “How can you say, ‘I have kept the law and the prophets?’ For it is written in the law, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ And look, many of your brothers, sons of Abraham, are clothed in excrement and dying of hunger while your house is filled with many good things, not one of which goes forth to these others.” (ps. Origen, Comm on Matt 15.14)
It seems to me that the “clothed in excrement and dying of hunger” saying describes a famine, as historical famines sometimes have desperate people rummaging through animal dung for undigested seeds to sustain themselves (Josephus even describes Jerusalem inhabitants raiding the public sewers in desperation during the siege). Perhaps the forthright view that those who love their neighbours should be generous with their wealth was drawn from this saying during the famine that Basil experienced?
He never quotes or refers to it. As to assigning teh fragments to one “Jewish-Christian Gospel” or another, as you know it’s an extremely convoluted business. Have you read A. F. J. Klijn’s book on the Jewish Christain Gospels. It’s a very good attempt to sort it all out.
Yes, I’ve read Klijn’s work very carefully and he was a tremendous scholar who did a great job at the technical level in examining the fragments. However, I felt he made some bald assertions at times and took some unjustified swings at Jerome (whilst I think Jerome was an unpleasant man, I wouldn’t let that get in the way of assessing his work).
Klijn accused Jerome of being a fantasist (p.33), presumably because he believed (as many did in the 90s) that Jerome wasn’t literate in Hebrew or Aramaic and lied about translating the Gospel according to the Hebrews (herein: GHeb) from Hebrew. However, as Michael Graves showed in his 2007 work on Jerome’s Hebrew Philology, Jerome had an excellent grasp of Hebrew and a basic understanding of Aramaic (Graves proves the former by carefully analysing Jerome’s commentary on Jeremiah).
Klijn dates GHeb 50 years prior to when Clement first quotes from it in 200 (p.30), rather than 50 years prior to when he accepts that Hegessipus was using it (c160), which seems inconsistent. His interpretation of what gospel Eusebius says Hegessipus used also seems flawed; εὐαγγελίου is genitive singular, but Klijn thinks it’s used to describe multiple gospels.
Yup, it can be problematic. BUT, Jerome really is a mess when it comes to these Gospels…
Yes, Jerome is incredibly confusing, especially in the early years, but Klijn is very helpful in charting the chronology of GHeb fragments used by Jerome – it’s just a pity he mishandled the data in his conclusions.
There does seem to be a breakthrough after Jerome translated GHeb 391/2. It takes him a few years to come to his conclusion, but by 398 he thinks GHeb is Matthew’s original. I disagree that Matthew composed GHeb, but I do think that GHeb is the base text for the Greek gospel of Matthew, probably composed by the Jerusalem Church during the Claudian famine. This is a radical idea that I don’t think will find many supporters, but it does seem to be where the evidence points to.
I also think that the infancy narrative was missing from GHeb and the original Greek version of Matthew, but was added later in the early 2nd C – which would probably garner some support, but I don’t think you’re convinced for understandable reasons as there’s no manuscript evidence that it was missing. However, if GHeb did not have it and was used as the base text, then I propose early versions of GMatt also lacked it.
Bart , what is your opinión about Jerome’s lines in “Of illustrious men” in relation to James the Just :
“Now the Lord, when he had given the linen cloth unto the servant of the priest…My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen from among them that sleep”
Do you think these lines are really from the Gospel of the Hebrews as Jerome himself states?
They represent an early tradition (perhaps before the synoptics) or a later development?
I found these lines very (VERY) interesting in many ways ….
They are indeed very interesting. Jerome is quite complicated when it comes to citing his sources of information, especially with the Jewish Christian Gospels. But it’s certainnly possible that these lines come from the Gospel of the Hebrews. They are usually seen as a legendary accretion to teh sayings of Jesus. (It seems unlikely that earliest Xns would have thought Jesus gave his burial cloth to the servant of the priest… The whole account is usually judged legendary.
It seems unlikely that earliest Xns would have thought Jesus gave his burial cloth to the servant of the priest…
I agree but it is also weird that Joseph of Arimathea, “a prominent member of the COUNCIL” (!!) was the one that ”bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock”
Is there some hidden link ?
And what about
“Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the SERVANT of the high PRIEST”
Another hidden link?
“He took the bread, blessed it and brake it and gave it to James the Just and said to him: My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of man is risen from among them that sleep”
“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take it; this is my body “
The linen cloth,the servant of the priest, the broken bread, somebody had changed things , were the Hebrews of it was Mark???
Well, you might be able to see how someone later trying to come up with a new story would *make* the links.
Yup, but I remember one of your articles about Christology in Luke,you said that sometimes Luke appears to include elements that could be traced to the very early steps of christianity.
I strongly agree with this view, in another recent article by you about Luke 22:17-21, you wrote:
“[Luke] does not interpret the cup and the bread to represent his shed blood and broken body”.
Well … perhaps this is because he knew about the same tradition recorded by Jerome !!!
In “How Jesus became God” speaking about Acts 13:28–2 you wrote “here it is not a single member of the Sanhedrin who buries Jesus, but the council as a whole…Does this pre-Lukan tradition represent an older tradition than what is found in Mark about Joseph of Arimathea?”
Well, another VERY interesting observation, perhaps Jesus was somehow related to the council in ways the NT gospels did not develop… maybe part of this is reflected in the story of Jesus and the servant of the priest,maybe Hegessipus did not exaggerate in that James the Just “ was permitted to enter the holy place” ,maybe Jesus was part of the Jew establishment and not just an outcast from rural Galilee …
There is another way in which I think that text from Jerome could reflect a pre-gospel different tradition.
In these lines James the Just plays a very central role, just as in Paul’s Galatians , Josephus (who did not write a line about Cephas/Peter but mentions James the Just and his killing )and Hegessipus who reported that James (and not Peter) was the leader of the Jerusalem church after Jesus’ execution. Moreover, James the Just was in the scene just after the resurrection and we can infer from (“James had sworn that he would not eat bread …”) that he was with Jesus during his ministry (or at least his passion).
But where is James the Just in Mark ???
We have two James among the original 12 apostles but none of them is “the Lord’s brother”.
We may infer from Mark 6:1-5 that James the Just remains as a non-believer totally out of the scene.
Strangely, James the son of Zebedee along with Peter (first) and John forms an inner circle of Jesus’s disciples that remains Paul’s “three pillars” in Galatians with the order reversed (in Galatians James clearly is the number one).
I just think that Mark deliberately downplayed James the Just role…
As a rule it is very difficult to argue that a tradition that does not begin to appear until the fourth or fifth century originated before the Gospels were written.
From the fourth or fifth century is Jerome’s reference, we don’t know how ancient the Gospel of Hebrews was, did Papias know it? Maybe.
As far as I know the first reference about the Didache is from Eusebius but probably was written in the first century.
Great post and very informative. I am always struck by the Monasteries of old and today, in the ascetic lifestyle they partake in. Mount Athos in Greece, is one of those. Established some 1000yrs ago, it is only admissable to monks. Built on the side of a rock(mountain) overlooking the sea. Like Basil, some have chosen to give up their worldly behaviour/riches and consecrate everything to a divine purpose. Do you think Prof. that this kind of commitment is evidence of the stories that originated in antiquity and carried forward,even today, a strong conviction of what the early people witnessed ? Thank you.
Yes, I certainly think both the medieval and modern examples stem from accepting the ancient traditions found in the NT; my sense is that at least today that kind of commitment is extremely rare. It was rare in all ages, of course, but surely never so much as now.
Great post Bart. A very enjoyable and informative read.
Thank you.
Thank you for the info: I’ve never heard of him. Fascinating once you understand how the Christian movement has come full circle both personally and in society.
Very interesting. Do you think the origins of the hospital and of the physic garden (and eventually the botanic garden) might be linked? After all, those early hospitals would have needed a steady supply of medicinal plants.
It’s a good question, but I don’t know.
Dear Bart,
I always enjoy reading your blog posts, I am also interested on the topic of charity in the ancient world for my own research. I am especially interested in the apologetic argument of an artificial division between Christians and non-Christians when it comes to charity, health, etc. Professor Runar Thorsteinsson, Troels Engberg-Pedersen and others debating the artificial division between Hellenism and Judaism have criticized the claim that Christianity was exceptional and all non-Christians were immoral. Professor Thorsteinsson for instance in his book Jesus as Philosopher sees ethics in the Gospels as being similar to that of Greco-Roman ethics, so I would like to know what was the difference? Jewish apocalypticism perhaps, but Professor Christopher Star has found apocalyptic ‘first shall be last, last shall be first’ in his book Apocalypse and the Golden Age: The End of the World in Greek and Roman Thought, 2021.
Yes, I completely agree that there are not two separate “essential” things, Hellenism and Judaism, that are separable: its way more complicated than that. Among other thins, most Jews in the early Christain period were Hellenistic. And the idea that pagans were immoral??? The Christian ethics were of course very very similar in many ways to what coudl be found in the wider environment. Tere were also unusual Christian views. Just as there were different views among other groups in various locations in the empire.
Have you read the books of Professor Peter Brown at Princeton, especially his book Through An Eye of a Needle 2012, pp. 59-60
“It has become a commonplace for scholars to talk of the “harsh moral climate of the Greco-¬Roman world. This is because, as we will see, classical socety did not invest acts of generosity to the poor with the same, high ideological charge as did Jews and Christians. But the contrast between pagan and Christian times is somewhat forced.
As Anneliese Parkin has put it, referring to gifts to the poor in the classical Roman world, “We can fight too hard to argue away every possible reference to almsgiving.” Beggars crowded around temples to receive coins and to eat their share of the offerings of food and the meat of sacrifices. But almsgiving was never the only form of giving favored among pagans—or, indeed, among Christians.”
Peter Brown also suggests in another book Treasure in Heaven 2005, that the poor were not the real poor but monks, preachers, and teachers. That some rich Christians ‘played’ at being poor like Saint Jerome.
There is more I could quote but these comments have become far too long as it is! I can’t wait to read your views on charity in your new book!
Stephen
Oh yes, I know that book, along with RAnsom of teh Soul and his other works, quite well! He is one of the most erudite humans on the planet!
Bart, who administered those hospitals in Rome, Ostia, Antioch, Constantinople, and Edessa? The church or the government?
Not the government, but church leaders.
Off topic. If six of Paul’s letters are authentic, does that mean Christianity is true?
I’m not sure I understand. To say a letter of Paul is “authentic” means simply that he actually wrote it. Just because Paul wrote something doesn’t mean that Christianity is true. He could have been completely wrong in what he wrote.
Thank you. I just get nervous about the possibility of Paul actually seeing a vision of the resurrected Jesus. In my mind, I think about the what ifs. So, I’m like what if Paul really did see a vision of the Jesus. It’s like why would he write these letters if he really didn’t see Jesus?
We can’t determine, of course, what *actually* happened, or what he really did see, if anything. But I think it’s pretty clear that he *thought* he saw Jesus.
Dr. Ehrman,
Paul George, an author, wanted his readers to explore ideas of Cicero.
Scipio’s Dream by Cicero informs us about some of the things Jesus, later, wanted his followers to know:
1) Love justice (righteousness) and have the kingdom of heaven.
2) Goal: make it to heaven.
3) Dishonoring the soul in this life leads to suffering and torment in the afterlife
Love justice and devotion. Such is the life that leads to [this paradise] heaven. The most splendid deeds you can do are those which serve your country. Those souls devoted to such deeds will find it easy to wing their way to this place which is the true and genuine home for human souls.
– Cicero, “Scipio’s Dream”
Did Scipio’s Dream make it into your history of the afterlife, your book, Heaven and Hell?
I was going to devote a section to it, but in the end decided it would be a bit too complicated, since I would have to explain the whole thing. It only made it into a footnote in my longer book Journeys to Heaven and Hell. But it’s a *terrific* and important work; doesn’t take long to read but is very interesting.
So cool! This is all new to me. Fascinating. I think this book is going to be one of your best, as well as sparking lots of delicious controversy!
When ancient jews sacrificed animals to obtain forgiveness of sin, did they imagine that they had completely made up for the sin, eg, that the scales of justice had been balanced or that things had been restored to something like the situation prior to the sin? Or was the sacrifice (mainly or in part) kind of a substantial token or sign that they had indeed repented–that God accepted it and then forgave the sin? The sacrifice may have cost them a lot but was it necessarily considered equal to all the punishment they deserved for the sin?
Likewise did the early Christians imagine that Jesus’s passion had completely made up for all of humanity’s sins, ie, suffered all the punishment humanity deserved for all their sins? It may have been seen as a perfect sacrifice or the greatest sacrifice possible, but was Jesus thought to experience all the punishment that humanity deserved?
The theology of sacrifice is difficult to reconstruct, but it certainly entailed the idea that hte sacrifice itself was a ritual act that had an effect on a person’s standing before God. It was not simpyl a sign of repentance. And yes, Jesus’ death was fully satisfying to God for the sins of others; but the early Christians did not speculate on whether his death was a billion times more horrible than all others (so that he experienced ALL teh punishment that was due to others. If that’s what you’re asking.
I think I’ve read something by a respected Catholic theologian that what was most important about a sacrifice was the blood of the animal (or Jesus) specifically—and not so much the suffering and death of the animal. Of course the animal-and Jesus-had to suffer at least a little, and then die, for the blood to be offered to God. I don’t really understand what he’s saying but it sounds like suffering and death were sort of incidental to the blood offering.
Here is a key quote from this Catholic theologian: “ when they [blood sacrifices] were employed as a means of atonement, the death of the animal was entirely incidental. Blood in itself was regarded as a purifying and sacred element (Deut 12:23). Insofar as the shedding of Christ’s blood is clearly associated with the establishment of a new covenant (Heb 9:12-14); Mark 14:24; Mat 26:28; Luke 22:20), the allusion is always to the enactment of the Old Covenant on Sinai (Ex 24); namely, the blood of a ‘peace offering,’ not a sacrifice of expiation.”
He says that the ideas of ransom and redemption are used as metaphors rather than a literal description. I think his basic conclusion is “that the NT is trying to emphasize that the risen Lord’s life and death somehow served God’s salvific purposes in history” rather than give a precise description of what “caused” this salvation.
This seems like a more attractive understanding of Jesus’s death than atonement and expiation. My question is to what degree it’s consistent with critical NT scholarship. In particular what do you think of Jesus’s death as a peace offering in connection with a new covenant?
Interesting. Of course Paul talks about Jesus death as a “sacrifice for us,” and uses the term “expiation” (hilasterion).
At a rather crude level, I’ve always believed that the chosen “sacrificial lamb” had to be the thing that was most precious and valuable to the people offering the sacrifice, so they offer up the thing they least want to lose (or the thing they love the most), which shows God how committed the people are to their relationship with him, how committed they are to show their love for him, appease him etc. And as an extension of this, the idea of the atonement was the same i.e God giving up the thing he loved the most to show his love for his people etc. Does this sound about right ?
Thank you.
I don’t think the sacrificer’s feelings toward the animal every figure into the equation. This was a gift that was good to give to God, and it had to be “without blemish.” Often the lamb would have been purchased, not a favorite pet.
Thank you Bart.
Roman soldiers certainly had access to hospitals. In every permanent Fort excavated on Hadrian’s Wall, a large area in the centre of the Fort was given over to a hospital for sick and injured soldiers. I also thought of the cult of Asclepios where in various temple complexes wards were set up where the ill were believed to be healed by the gods. As well as sacrifice some basic medical treatment was available However I don’t know if people were charged to go.
That’s right. There are debates among experts about how influential the military hospitals were on Basel and his successors, as well as the shrines of Asklepius. There are highly significant differences between these phenomena and what we think of as hospitals. For the army — it was only for wounded soldiers, not for the population (let alone free to the poor!); for Asclepious there were not medications or doctors. It involved dreaming of the god. But these are the closest analogies to what Christians eventually set up.
Thank you Dr Ehrman. This post was a real eye-opener. I was aware that the (pagan) Romans had military hospitals (valetudinaria) and the Greeks had temples dedicated to Asclepius, the god of healing, which had facilities for ‘patients’. But I guess these were not comparable to modern hospitals, other than the military variety. But I usually find that in these ‘Who got there first?’ questions, it usually turns out to be the ancient Chinese. Any chance they invented hospitals before the Christians (or maybe it was Chinese Christians 🙂)?
Well, certainly not Chinese Christians… (!) But yes there are analogies elsewhere, including India. ANd yes, military hospitals are teh closes analogy. The Asclepeia not so much: no medicine or doctors there, only a god who would come in a dream or in some other manifestation.
Dr. Ehrman, I’ve heard similar claims about the first orphanages growing out of monastic Christianity. Can you comment on that?
Yup, it appears to be true as well!
In my native Iceland – Catholic monks arrived with the Vikings in about 700 CE. In 1000 CE Christianity was mandated by the King of Norway. Iceland was very poor so the monasteries set up care facilities and also educated children and priests. Women, pregnant with illegitimate children were also welcome and there kids educated. During the reformation the monasteries were mostly pillaged and burned.
Bart,
Is it not more accurate to say:
Christians invented Public hospitals in the West
than
Christians invented hospitals?
I once heard a Grand Rounds talk from Mt Sinai that indicated the earliest hospitals probably existed first in India and Sri Lanka. As well as the Roman Military hospitals mentioned here in the comments.
Isn’t the statement: Christians invented hospitals – which you repeat in your recent 4 lecture series Why I am not a Christian – stretching the truth? I would argue, and am here, that it is.
Isn’t a more accurate statement: Christians invented *Public* hospitals in the *West* ???
Which is also an amazing and wonderful thing…so do not see the need to stretch the point.
Thanks for the time,
SC