60 Hippocratic Corpus and Diocles of Carystus
growth, and that theprophasiesare mentioned because they are simply the
external starting-points of this process, which set the mechanism in motion.
It turns out that neither of the two interpretations is completely free from
difficulties. Yet it seems that the problems involved in the first are more
numerous and compelling than those inherent to the second; moreover,
the second is closer to the wording of the text. Therefore, it is preferable to
conclude that according to the author ofOn the Sacred Diseasediseases are
divine in virtue of having a nature, and that the supposedly divine status
of theirprophasieshas nothing to do with it. But in any case, as far as the
question of the ‘theology’ of the treatise is concerned, it suffices to say that
on both views the divine character of the disease is based upon natural
factors.
3 reconstructions of the author’s theology
On the basis of either of these interpretations, or a combination of them,
scholars have tried to reconstruct the author’s theology or religious thought.
These reconstructions have resulted in a conception in which ‘the divine’
(to theion) is regarded as an immanent natural principle or natural ‘law’
governing all natural processes and constituting the imperishable order
within the ever flowing natural phenomena. It is sometimes stated that this
‘divine’ is identified with nature and thatto theionis equal toh ̄e phusisorto
kata phusin.^38 As a consequence, it is claimed that the author ofOn the Sacred
Diseasedoes not believe in supernatural divine intervention within natural
processes and human affairs. For the practical interest of the physician this
conception has two important implications. First, diseases are no longer
regarded as concrete effects of deliberate divine dispensation or as god-
sent pollutions; second, for the treatment of the disease an appeal to the
healing power of the gods (as made in temple medicine) is unnecessary or
even useless, since the cure of the disease can be accomplished by ordinary
natural means.
Both implications seem to obtain for the writer ofOn the Sacred Disease,
for he explicitly denies the diseases are god-sent in the traditional sense ( 1. 44 ,
6. 362 L.) and he claims that the disease can be cured by means of dietetic
measures ( 18. 3 – 6 , 6. 394 – 6 L.). In this way his positive theological statements
might be viewed as providing the general philosophical framework on which
his aetiological and therapeutic views are based.
(^38) Lloyd ( 1979 ) 31 ; Ducatillon ( 1977 ) 202.