chapter 1
The ‘theology’ of the Hippocratic treatise
On the Sacred Disease
1 introduction
The author of the Hippocratic treatiseOn the Sacred Diseaseis renowned
for his criticism of magical and superstitious conceptions and modes of
treatment of epilepsy. He has been credited with attempting a ‘natural’
or ‘rational’ explanation of a disease which was generally believed to be
of divine origin and to be curable only by means of apotropaeic ritual
and other magical instruments.^1 One interesting point is that he does not
reject the divine character of the disease, but modifies the sense in which
this disease (and, as a consequence of this conception, all diseases) may be
regarded as divine: not in the sense that it is sent by a god, for example
as a punishment,^2 and is to be cured by this same god,^3 but that it shares
in the divine character of nature in showing a fixed pattern of cause and
effect and in being subordinated to what may perhaps be called, somewhat
anachronistically, a natural ‘law’ or regularity.^4
On the basis of these positive statements on the divine character of the
disease various interpreters have tried to deduce the writer’s ‘theology’ or
religious beliefs, and to relate this to the development of Greek religious
thought in the fifth century.^5 The details of this reconstruction will concern
us later; for the present purpose of clarifying the issue of this chapter it
suffices to say that in this theology the divine is regarded as an immanent
This chapter was first published inApeiron 23 ( 1990 ) 87 – 119.
(^1) On the various possible reasons why epilepsy was regarded as a ‘sacred’ disease see Temkin ( 1971 )
6 – 10.
(^2) On the moral and non-moral aspects of pollution by a disease see Parker ( 1983 ) 235 ff.
(^3) On the principle that ‘he who inflicted the injury will also provide the cure’ (
),
as on other details of this belief, see Ducatillon ( 1977 ) 159 – 79. The identity, claims and practices of
the magicians have also been studied by Lanata ( 1967 ); Temkin ( 1971 ) 10 – 15 ;Dolger ( ̈ 1922 ) 359 – 77 ;
Moulinier ( 1952 ) 134 – 7 ; Nilsson ( 1955 ) 798 – 800.
(^4) On the meaning of the word ‘divine’ (theios) and on the divinity of diseases see section 2 below.
(^5) Edelstein ( 1967 a) 205 – 46 ; Kudlien ( 1977 ) 268 – 74 ; Lain-Entralgo ( 1975 ) 315 – 19 ; Lloyd ( 1975 c) 1 – 16 ;
Lloyd ( 1979 ) ch. 1 ; H. W. Miller ( 1953 ) 1 – 15 ; Nestle ( 1938 ) 1 – 16 ;N ̈orenberg ( 1968 ); Thivel ( 1975 );
Vlastos ( 1945 ) 581.
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