tians that they should be exempt from disaster, and disappointment when
they were not spared. Dionysus seeks to address this issue by portraying the
dead Christians as paradigms of faith and heroic martyrs. We can also hear
echoes of a similar crisis in the taunts of a pagan critic of Christians, as
recorded by Minucius Felix:
Some of you, the greater half...go in need, suffer from cold, from hunger
and toil. And yet your god allows it, he connives at it, he will not or
cannot assist his own followers....You have dreams of posthumous
immortality, but when you quake in the face of danger,when you burn with
fever or are racked by pain, are you still unaware of your real condi-
tion? Do you still not recognize your human frailty? Poor wretch, whether
you like it or not, you have proof of your own infirmity, and still you will
not admit it. (Minucius Felix,Oct.12, emphasis mine)The word “danger” (periculo) can refer to a bodily illness or some kind of
external affliction. Like Dionysus, Minucius Felix counters this crisis by
portraying the afflictions of the Christians as a kind of testing (Oct.36). The
evidence suggests that the Christians’ superior survival abilities were not
always evident either to pagans or to Christians.
Was paganism deficient in dealing with illness and calamity? Stark
(1996, 156) admits that healing was a central aspect of both paganism and
early Christianity. Stark cites some secondary sources, but essentially leaves
this statement unexplained. Presumably, he is referring, at least in part, to
healing cults. This vital side of Greco-Roman religious life is left unex-
plored in Stark’s work.
We know that the Asclepius cult reached its peak in the second to
fourth centuries CE. The healing/mystery cult of Isis and Sarapis also was
extremely popular during this period (Kee 1986, 67–70; Avalos 1999, 49–53).
Apart from these large-scale healing cults, we have abundant evidence
that many gods, heroes, and daimons were propitiated in sacrifices and
votive offerings throughout the empire. Healing was foremost among the
benefits that people sought through these offerings. Further, we must keep
in mind that the people of the ancient world generally saw the gods as
being effective in dealing with illness, even plague. Such is the evidence of
thanksgiving inscriptions and ex votos, and the growth of the large-scale
cults bears out such an assertion. When plagues came, the usual response
was to step up the performance of ritual acts. Sacrifices, offerings, prayers,
petitions, hymns, vows, acts of purification, and special festivals were per-
formed regularly and lavishly. Oracles and magicians were busy during
plague periods, dispensing advice and amulets (Rouse 1902, 189–91; Gagé
1955, 69–83; Amundsen and Ferngren 1982a, 70–83; Beck, chapter 11).