Healing the Social Leper in Gregory of Nyssa's and Gregory of Nazianzus's “περí Φιλοπτωχìας”

Abstract

The history of what constitutes a “cure” in a given society is a history of that society's values: for the rhythm of the cure shows what is acceptable as a plausible way of giving form, and so the hope of resolution to … the nebulous and intractable fact of suffering.

Awaking to Mutual, Reciprocal Need in Plague and Epidemic Disease: The Origins of Early Christian Health Care

“…Through contact with society’s untouchables, he was drawn from his misery into healing and communion with Christ: “the physical leper becomes the essential means by which the spiritual leper may find a mediator to wipe away his own polluting spots of greed and passion. Here the leper, once set apart for his pollution, becomes a symbol of all that is now ‘set apart’ for God” (Holman 1999, 298). Under this framework, the physically healthy man was obligated not to avoid, exclude, or even eliminate the sick not just because the early Christian Church demanded it, but because close contact with disease, previously viewed as a death sentence, was the pathway to spiritual restoration (Aquilina 2017, 97).…”

“…Nevertheless, their writings were also influenced by their own familiarity with the sacrifice of wealth and with the experience of need. Basil, for example, distributed his family’s riches and embraced voluntary poverty (Sundberg 2017, 25), and each preached about poverty in the wake of a severe famine that ravaged Cappadocia between 368 and 369 AD (Holman 1999, 284). These unique and shared experiences shaped their understanding of human need not merely as a motivation for philanthropy but as the essential and defining feature of every human person, a concept that ultimately motivated the early church’s conviction that engaging in healing activities was a central, nonnegotiable mark of a genuine Christian life.…”

“…Under this framework, the physically healthy man was obligated not to avoid, exclude, or even eliminate the sick not just because the early Christian Church demanded it, but because close contact with disease, previously viewed as a death sentence, was the pathway to spiritual restoration (Aquilina 2017, 97). Commenting on the transformation which contact with the sick achieved for the healthy man, Susan Holman (1999) argues that it is not a coincidence that “the Greek verb that [Gregory of] Nyss[a] used for contagion, μεταδίδωμι, was commonly employed as a positive expression implying sharing or distribution. It is precisely this capacity for sharing that both Gregories describe as the leper’s greatest gift to their audience” (p. 302).…”