Some idle thoughts in seven tweets. Death has always been with us – so taking the long view might help us to understand more deeply some of the ethical questions raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. 1/7

When a plague swept across the Roman Empire between 249 and about 270, Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, instructed Christians to focus, not on grieving for the victims of the disease, but on caring for the ill and those in danger. 2/7

In so doing, Cyprian reaffirmed Christianity’s belief in fundamental human equality – the dignity of every human being, created in the image of God – and threw aside the civic distinctions that had hitherto defined Roman society. 3/7

At the height of the pandemic, individuals forged relationships that had nothing to do with kin or state as they performed acts of sacrificial love for others – both young and old. The appeal of Christianity then was this revolutionary vision of what it means to be human. 4/7

The challenge today is to find a new sense of what it means to live in a society in which we respect the inherent dignity of every human being, a society in which my wellbeing as an individual is completely bound up in the wellbeing of all my fellow human beings. 5/7

Cyprian was conscious of living in a ‘world grown old’ (senectus mundi), a world that had run out of ideas. As our own time of fundamental crisis opens up a window of opportunity for change, we need to start thinking differently about the kind of world we want to live in. 6/7

Could that be, for instance, a world where we don’t measure the value of life first and foremost in economic terms? As @JamesCarville almost said, it’s not just the economy... 7/7