The parabalani (parabolini) range throughout Alexandria from the plague times of the 3rd century AD to the 6th century of Justinian. Christian volunteers, the parabalini care for the sick, knowing they too might die. It's a noble premise.
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Much of the activity of the parabalani is obscure, partly because they don't quite fit a niche. Their origin is sketchy. The occasional historical mention is not flattering. They may be formed during the Plague of Cyprian, a pandemic in the Roman Empire c. 249 - 270 AD.
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The "volunteers" are the healthy poor and outcasts of society. Though ostensibly Christian, they take no clerical vows and join no orders. They're tasked with care of the sick, removal of corpses from the street and burial of the dead. Rome views this as a job creation project.
The plague is the second in as many centuries, the first being a world-wide epidemic in which it's said up to 2000 people die per day by the time it hits Rome in 189 AD. In 249 AD another deadly plague breaks out.
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Pope Dionysus the Great writes:
Now, alas! all is lamentation, everyone is mourning, and the city resounds with weeping because of the numbers that have died and are dying every day.
As Scripture says of the firstborn of the Egyptians, so now there has been a great cry: there is not a house in which there is not one dead - how I wish it had been only one!
The most brilliant festival of all was kept by the fulfilled martyrs, who were feasted in heaven. After that came war and famine, which struck at Christian and heathen alike
... but when both we and they had been allowed a tiny breathing-space, out of the blue came this disease, a thing more terrifying to them than any terror, more frightful than any disaster whatever...
The plague creates widespread food and military shortages, greatly weakening the empire. The modern name of the plague comes from St. Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, an early Christian writer who witnesses and documents the effects.
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According to Pontius of Carthage, biographer of St. Cyprian:
" ... excessive destruction of a hateful disease invaded every house in succession of the trembling populace, carrying off day by day with abrupt attack numberless people, every one from his own house.
All were shuddering, fleeing, shunning the contagion, impiously exposing their own friends, as if with the exclusion of the person who was sure to die of the plague, one could exclude death itself also.
There lay about the meanwhile, over the whole city, no longer bodies, but the carcasses of many, and, by the contemplation of a lot which in their turn would be theirs, demanded the pity of the passers-by for themselves.
No one regarded anything besides his cruel gains. No one trembled at the remembrance of a similar event. No one did to another what he himself wished to experience."
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The exact cause of the plague remains uncertain due to limited sources. Scholarly suggestions range from smallpox and measles to viral hemorrhagic fever (filoviruses) such as the Ebola virus.
When the parabalani are created, Rome is embroiled in a widespread event later called the Crisis of the Third Century (235–285 AD). Due to recurring foreign invasions, civil wars, plagues, famine and economic upheaval, the Empire staggers and nearly falls.
By 268, Rome splits into three competing states: the Gallic Empire (Gaul, Britannia and, briefly, Hispania); the Palmyrene Empire (eastern Syria, Palaestina and Aegyptus); and, between them, the Italian-centered Roman Empire proper.
The Cyprian plague ends in 270 AD. Between 270 - 275 AD Emperor Aurelian brings the Empire back under control in Italy and Rome, by defeating the two splitter states. With disaster barely averted, what's to become of the parabalani?
The parabalani are considered members of the clergy despite no specific orders joined. Although they come from the lower classes of society, they enjoy the same clerical privileges and immunities as an official religious functionary.
They are however forbidden by law to attend public gatherings or theaters, as they are reputed to cause riots and bring "terrors" upon a town. At times they take an active part in ecclesiastical affairs.
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In Alexandria, besides mercy work they also take up mercenary work as a bodyguard for the Bishop. They take vows before the Bishop and are officially under his control, due to their religious affiliation.
However, in their military role as bodyguard they are legally under command of the praefectus augustalis, the imperial governor of Roman Egypt. In 416, after the brutal murder of Hypatia, the law restricts the number of parabalani in Alexandria to 500.
Hypatia is an esteemed philosopher and teacher of Neo-Platonism, who schools Christians and pagans alike. She gains power and influence in Alexandria until she's tortured and killed by a mob of Christian parabalani in 415 AD, probably for political reasons.
She's an advisor of Orestes, governor of the diocese of Egypt. He feuds with Bishop Cyril of Alexandria, for whom the militant parabalani work. The Church spreads rumors that she stops Orestes from reconciling with Bishop Cyril by means of evil magic.
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The murder of Hypatia not only alarms philosophers, who are supposedly protected, but stirs up paranoia among the elite. If these men can drag a woman from her carriage into a temple in broad daylight and savagely rip her to shreds, what might they do to others?
By 418 the number of parabalani in Alexandria grows to 600. In Constantinople, however, the number falls from 1100 to 950. At the time of reforms by Byzantine Emperor Justinian (r. 527 - 565 AD), the parabalani are known to be "a problem". Eventually they're phased out.