Further, Christianity's therapeutic strategies were considerably more simple than those of the other systems. To its great advantage, Christian health care charged no fee while other systems did. The role of faith in the healing process and the availability of itinerant healers made the Christian health care system geographically more accessible than those systems requiring travel to a centralized shrine. Finally, unlike other systems where opportunities for healing were restricted to certain times, Christian health care was readily available at any time. Therapy was immediate.
Chapter Nine makes a comparative synthesis of the health care systems examined in the book.
Avalos sketches an interesting hypothesis about the importance of health care in the rise of Christianity. Page after page of this book make it clear that his hermeneutic scenarios are rooted in a culture other than that of the ancient, Mediterranean world. Thus, to talk about fees and economic advantages or disadvantages in these ancient Mediterranean health care systems fails to recognize that economics in that culture is not a free-standing or formal institution as in the modern West but rather embedded in kinship and politics. In similar fashion, the chapter reflecting on socioreligious frameworks fails to recognize that religion in ancient Mediterranean culture not a free-standing or formal institution as in modern Western culture. It was rather a substantive institution embedded in kinship and politics.