Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians

Bibliographic Data

ID3293592
AuthorsAnn Ellis Hanson, Owsei Temkin
Year1992
Volume86
Issue1
Pages65
Publication date1992-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Classical World (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0009-8418 • E-ISSN: 1558-9234
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/4351239
OpenAlexW1580119967
LanguageEN
Citations received39

In Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians, Temkin shows how the perennial appeal of Hippocratic practice helped establish the relationship between scientific medicine and monotheistic religion. After the first century, Hippocratic medicine competed with powerful beliefs in religious healers from Asclepius to Jesus. Yet the ascendance of Christianity, Temkin explains, did not diminish the stature of Hippocratic science. Hippocrates, after all, saw nature as a divine and orderly power that caused growth and supplied health. Hippocratic doctors could easily exchange the cult of Asclepius for the worship of Christ. But they could not sacrifice their belief in nature as the basis of health, disease, and therapy without renouncing their science. In compromise, the Church accepted Hippocratic medicine with the proviso that the Christian physician shun all pagan or heretical interpretations of naturalism-he must not, for example, believenature to be divine, the soul a mere function of the brain, or himself the true savior of the sick

History of Medicine Studies

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub