Ancient Rome placed great importance in “prodigia,” or unhappy omens from the Gods requiring some rite of redress. Following Rome’s defeat to Hannibal at Cannae, human sacrifices were made to earn back divine favor.
In 1066, the appearance of Halley’s comet was seen as an omen of doom for Harold Godwinson. The Bayeux Tapestry shows Englishmen pointing with fear as the comet streams through the sky, lending purpose to the conquest of William I.
Perceiving a bad omen, the great warrior Saladin never again returned to his conquered Egypt.
The mid-14th-century Black Death was blamed on God’s wrath rather than on rat-borne fleas, leading petrified peasants to engage in pogroms in order to win back God’s favor.
Even in our age of theological enlightenment, a surprising number of people describe the coronavirus as God’s punishment. Abandoning Abrahamic or Christian ideas of a just, loving God, these individuals prefer medieval and Millenarian (not to be confused with Millennial) superstition.
The list of those superstitions is long.
In the 1990s, Billy Graham suggested, albeit only temporarily, that the AIDS epidemic was God’s work.
Today, as applied to the coronavirus, the conspiracy theorists have varying foundations ranging from idiocy to malevolence. Kourtney Kardashian, for example, thinks that the Bible proves this is a message to repent from God. Similarly, Vanderpump Rules’s reality TV star Jax Taylor offered a sublime monologue explaining why this is “a punishment from the man upstairs.”
Televangelist Perry Stone said the coronavirus is God’s judgment over the legalization of abortion and gay marriage. A Bible studies teacher who apparently leads classes for some of President Trump’s cabinet, argues much the same. Capping off these Abrahamic faith fringes, Afghan street preachers have also jumped on the bandwagon.
Rick Wiles, an anti-Semitic fanatic, is apparently convinced that the coronavirus is “spreading in Israel through the synagogues. God is spreading it in your synagogues! You are under judgment because you oppose his son, Jesus Christ. That is why you have a plague in your synagogues. Repent and believe on the name of Jesus Christ, and the plague will stop.”
As the Jerusalem Post notes, various hard-line Rabbis also suggest this is an ordained punishment. One even suggested that “this creation is called corona, a crown,” because God is punishing us for undermining his crown of authority.
To be fair, not everyone is being so silly with this idea. Dolly Parton has a slightly more optimistic take, believing God is trying to bring us together amid the crisis.
But there’s nothing new about these superstitions. They reflect two things: the human desire to explain uncertain events and the penchant of idiots and frauds for finding new purpose in a moment of crisis.
