Jared Rogers is a Sacred Selections father, history teacher, and preacher. He shares a historical account of early Christians who were known for acting counter-culturally by caring for children who had been cruelly discarded or desperately abandoned by society. This practice changed the world and much of the common morality that has been spread through the world by Christianity’s influence over time. May we endeavor to have a similar reputation as those who shine God’s light and love in dark places where the rest of the world around us refuses to look, caring for those with the deepest needs.
In 368 AD a devastating famine struck the region of Cappadocia. According to Christian theologian Gregory of Nyssa, this famine was “the most severe one ever recorded. The city was in distress, and there was no source of assistance, or relief for the calamity.”[1] Cappadocia was hit particularly hard because it is inland and had limited access to ports where outside food could easily be brought. For four years, the region endured grueling suffering and starvation that exacerbated another tragic feature of ancient life: the abandonment to exposure of children.
The exposure of children was as horrific as it was common. Unwanted infants would be abandoned along a roadside or public area (if the parents wanted them found) or the woods or garbage dump (if they didn’t). Historian W.V. Harris further explains the role economic insecurity played in the practice when he writes, “no economic historian of antiquity would doubt that many children were born into subsistence conditions in which simply feeding another child would mean taking food from members of the family who were already hungry. And in an agrarian society a bad harvest rapidly puts these choices into stark terms…”[2] These children would be the target of exposure. The famine in Cappadocia only exacerbated preexisting horrors in the Roman Empire.
Into this horror stepped Christians. Gregory describes how his brother, Basil the Great, led the Christians there in feeding the starving. However, it is Gregory and Basil’s sister, Macrina the Younger, who turned her eyes toward the abandoned children.
From an early age Macrina recognized that discipleship involved the whole life lived. Gregory remarked on her childhood in his biography of his sister, The Life of Macrina. Their mother rejected the traditional tools for educating her daughter like poetry. Instead, Macrina fixated on the Scriptures and “especially [those] which have an ethical bearing.”[3]
In the biography of his sister, Gregory describes attending her funeral. What drew his attention was the sorrow of those present whom she served during her lifetime. Gregory recounted his experience:
Saddest of all in their grief were those who called on her as mother and nurse. These were they whom she picked up, exposed by the roadside in the time of famine. She had nursed and reared them, and led them to the pure and stainless life.[4]
During the Cappadocian famine, Macrina’s training in the Scriptures revealed itself in her countercultural action. Historian Tom Holland describes her faithfulness in that “when famine held Cappadocia in its grip, and ‘flesh clung to the bones of the poor like cobwebs’, then Macrina would make a tour of the refuse tips. Those infant girls she rescued she would take home and raise as her own.”[5] The children abandoned by their world found a new home with Macrina. They were given new life because a Christian woman was trained in the teachings of Jesus and thought those teachings should be lived out in the real world.
Could Macrina reverse the famine? No. Could she shift the ancient world’s endorsement and practice of child exposure? Not by tomorrow. That is a long-term project. Could she pick up the wailing, abandoned child left in the city garbage dump? Ah, yes. That she could do, and she did. The children’s, now grown, presence at her funeral is a testament to what God can accomplish in a hurting world through disciples willing to take risks in the service of the helpless and abandoned.
Though this practice continues in parts of the world, the United States does not witness widespread child exposure (Thank God!). So what do the actions of this devout Christian woman have to teach us?
- Immersing ourselves in the Scriptures is essential. It is the Scriptures that push us out of our complacency and confront us with the God who Himself condescended to our level in the greatest act of service. If we are not reminded and taught this, we will very easily slip into the normal, inwardly focused rhythms of life. Instead, the Scriptures remind us we were created to serve others.
- Living the Scriptures is non-negotiable. Macrina not only knew what the Scriptures said from her childhood, but also recognized them as providing the ethical guidance for her life. Jesus was serious when He says to love our neighbors and enemies. It is not enough to pass the doctrinal test if the doctrines we confess are not revealed in the life lived.
- We each have a responsibility to act. We must not close our eyes to suffering and need and wish for someone else to do something. Macrina did not and there were lives saved because of it. She could not solve every crisis, neither can we. However, she did what she could in her time and place. May each of us be given the strength and courage to accept such responsibility.
While there is likely not a famine and widespread child abandonment where we live, there are certainly vulnerable children who need support, guidance, sustenance, and family. May it be said of us, as it was of Macrina, “she had nursed and reared them, and led them to the pure and stainless life.”
[1] Gregory of Nyssa, “Oration 43.34,” https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310243.htm.
[2] Harris, “Child-Exposure in the Roman Empire,” pg. 13.
[3] Gregory of Nyssa, “The Childhood of Macrina”
[4] Gregory of Nyssa, “The Sisters Lament for Their Abbess” in The Life of Macrina, https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_macrina_1_life.htm
[5] Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (New York: Basic Books, 2019), pg. 143-144.
