What have Christians taught during past plagues and pandemics? Christians have lived through many major plagues, epidemics, and pandemics over the past two thousand years. Some of the most severe pandemics were the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death, both of which are estimated to have possibly killed up to half of the population of Europe. There were also many smaller localised epidemics of plague, measles, smallpox, and others.

What did Christian pastors and ministers teach during these times, to encourage and reassure their congregations?



This is a special open-ended question that would not normally be allowed here, but during this current pandemic we feel it could be helpful. For more, see this Meta discussion.

Lets please restrict this to past plagues, epidemics, and pandemics. Right now every man and his dog has something to say about COVID-19, and while some of it may pass the test of time and be recognised as inspired Godly wisdom, most won't.
Martin Luther writing to Johann Hass:


  Use medicine;
  take potions which can help you; fumigate house, yard, and
  street; shun persons and places wherever your neighbor does
  not need your presence or has recovered, and act like a man
  who wants to help put out the burning city. What else is the
  epidemic but a fire which instead of consuming wood and
  straw devours life and body? You ought to think this way:
  
  “Very well, by God’s decree the enemy has sent us poison
  and deadly offal. Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what
  he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either
  my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs
  me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go
  freely, as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.


The whole letter is available online and is worth reading.