The Ancient Christians Founded the First Hospitals?

How St. Basil's crazy idea in the 4th century went viral!

This article is dedicated to all healthcare workers, including my own mother and many other brothers and sisters in Christ who work tirelessly to bring the warm touch of our Lord to patients every day. (Here is my short video over this article if you prefer watching or listening over reading; if not or you want to keep your mind sharp, please keep reading!)

Like so many others, It wasn’t until the Pandemic that I realized how much I took our healthcare system for granted. In the first few days of the shutdown, we all had to deal with the anxiety of its possible collapse. 

What if too many sick people showed up? What if all the nurses and doctors became too ill to help us? What if we run out of global medical supplies? Who chooses who receives care and who does not?

There was a time, though, when people had to live with this anxiety daily. Why? There was no hospital system yet! Though the elite had their resources in the ancient world, most ordinary people, and particularly, the poor and outcast, did not have access to healthcare. All of this changed once the ancient Christians came on the scene and began spreading throughout the Roman empire. They had a different mindset. Whether Jew or Gentile (ethnicity), male or female (gender), or rich or poor (socio-economic status), everyone was called to be a part of the family of God and receive the care of the Great Physician for both their body and soul. (See Galatians 3:28).

Here are 5 groups the ancient Christians targeted with their medical ministry (1st, 2nd, 3rd century) and emerging hospital system (4th century & beyond):

1. A Mobile Medical Unit for Plague Victims- While the pagans fled out of fear of plagues sweeping through the cities, the Christians stayed to care for the sick and the dying. Not fearing the ‘sting’ of death because of their hope in heaven, the Christians became mobile nurses of plague victims. This effort not only revealed the radical love of Christ, but it also caused the Christian movement to grow even more rapidly. Historian Rodney Starks comments on this phenomenon: “Indeed, the impact of Christian mercy was so evident that in the fourth century when the emperor Julian attempted to restore paganism, he exhorted the pagan priesthood to compete with the Christian charities. In a letter to the high priest of Galatia, Julian urged the distribution of grain and wine to the poor, noting that ‘the impious Galileans [Christians], in addition to their own, support ours, [and] it is shameful that our poor should be wanting our aid.’ But there was little or no response to Julian’s proposals because there were no doctrines and no traditional practices for the pagan priest to build upon…. Christians believed in life everlasting. At most, pagans believed in an unattractive existence in the underworld.” (Rodney Stark, The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion (New York: HarperOne, 2011), 114-119). 

2. A Hospital System for the Poor & Working Class: St. Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea in the 4th century, also helped plague victims, but he began to realize that there was a permanent need to alleviate the ongoing suffering of so many people, and so he began fundraising for the first hospital campus outside of the city. Although he found great support, he also experienced opposition from the jealous elite and even the Emperor himself. (See https://orthochristian.com/117122.html) Eventually, though, his dream of a paradise for the poor was realized. At St. Basil’s funeral,  St. Gregory Nazianzus preached a sermon of this new reality: “Go a little way outside the city to see a new city, the treasury of piety, a common treasure room of those who have possessions where superfluous wealth . . . is stored. . . . In this institution diseases are studied, misfortune made blessed, and sympathy put to the test.”(https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/basils-house-of-healing)  The hospital became a primary way for the ‘preaching of the pulpit’ to be put into radical practice: The Lord has visited us in the Incarnation and the sick and ill can still feel the warmth of His touch! Later on, St. John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, also started a hospital. One biographer writes of him, “They never forgot his care for the poor and miserable, and that in his first year he had built a great hospital with the money he had saved in his household…” (https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm). 

3. A Quarantine Unit for Lepers: Leprosy in the ancient world was an automatic death sentence, and in some ways, worse than death. Not only was it a slow march to the grave filled with physical suffering, but it was also extremely contagious, which meant that you could not be anywhere near your family and friends. You lost your job and livelihood. You lost your worshiping community. You were sent to go exist in a living hell outside of the city. Some Biblical scholars have conjectured that Lazarus died of leprosy and that he, Mary, and Martha were all living in a leper colony outside of Jerusalem, when Jesus befriended them and eventually brought his old friend back from the grave. Like Jesus, the first Christians saw this ‘place of the living dead’ outside of the city and transformed this desolate place into a paradise, a new city, and a New Jerusalem. St. Basil added a ‘quarantine unit’ at his new hospital and, like so many other Christians, risked his health in caring for the lepers. He “bandaged and washed these patients, and not only that, he directly spent time with them, embraced them, seeing in everyone the Image of God” (https://orthochristian.com/117122.html). 

4. Housing & Advancement for Orphans: Many children were made orphans from the plagues, and so St. Basil was inspired to build something that went beyond simply a hospital. In the middle of the campus, there was “a magnificent church, and around it there were structures, guest houses/hotels, schools, orphanages, homes for the poor, and the hospital itself” (Ibid).  The complex was completed in the year 372 AD, and there was nothing comparable in the ancient world. The nearest example were monasteries who had infirmaries that took care of other ill or elderly monks, which could be found in places like India. St. Basil went far beyond that model and built a new city with an entirely new way of life for all people, but especially the outcast. He even began leading a medical department himself since he had “ seven diplomas of education—one of them being a diploma of medical education” (Ibid).  

5. Spiritual Counseling for Mental Health:  Lastly, the ancient Christians provided care that treated the “whole person” in body, mind, and soul. Ancient people, just as modern people, could be overwhelmed with depression and despair as well as crippling anxiety and addictions. Physical medicine could reach a physical wound, but how do you reach the soul and the mind where a deep, spiritual sickness can reside? 

For St. Basil, the only way to open up souls for healing was to give them the way of Christ as found in the life of the Church. Ancient Christianity provided people with spiritual fathers and mothers who opened people up to regular spiritual counsel and confession where shame and vice could be overwhelmed with forgiveness and virtue. The church also recommended the medicine of regular worship and reception of the Eucharist or Holy Communion, which becomes mystically and truly, Christ’s Body and Blood. Lastly, seasons of fasting and repentance (such as Advent & Lent) and feasting and celebration (such as Christmas & Easter) provided a stable order and rhythm to life that would also help people heal. Modern studies have shown that trauma victims are most helped by rhythm, order, stability, and deep, spiritual friendship built on real trust.

St. Basil’s model of medical care truly changed the world. Many bishops throughout the Roman empire quickly implemented this hospital system. Eventually, the whole world took notice and embraced this new vision for humanity.

What is the Relevance for Today?

Sadly today, many Western governments have forgotten this Christian story. An existential threat against Christian hospitals is growing because of the “dictatorship of relativism” that betrays basic Christian principles about what it means to be human. Euthanasia, abortion, and even some forms of infanticide are being forced upon Catholic hospitals throughout Europe, Canada, and parts of the United States (see Minnesota’s new law where babies can still be killed after birth due to a failed abortion attempt: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253535/bishop-barron-says-minnesota-s-new-abortion-law-is-the-worst-kind-of-barbarism ). The very principles that first started the hospital would have to be betrayed in order to remain open. This means 1) some Catholic hospitals will close, 2) some will compromise (and already have), or 3) some may find a temporary shelter under state protections, but who knows how long it will last. Hopefully, the endgame is not the Church being dictated by aggressive regimes and morally decaying societies, but instead, the Church returning to its primordial call to redeem and save human civilization until He comes again. We can only do this by embracing radical love, forgiveness, and grace that comes by picking up our cross daily and following the footsteps of our Lord just like St. Basil long ago. 

St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom, Founders of the First Hospitals, Pray for us!

Kyle A. King