The Plague That Revealed the Church

In 250 AD, a devastating plague swept through the Roman Empire. The illness — likely smallpox or measles — killed as many as five thousand people a day in Rome alone. The historian Pontius recorded that panic gripped every city. Pagan priests abandoned their temples. Wealthy citizens fled to country estates. The sick were dragged into the streets and left to die, their bodies stacked outside city walls.…