MEDICINE AND PHILOSOPHY IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY

On the Sacred Disease 73

Laskaris and Jouanna prefer to keep the other reading$. According

to Jouanna, the author in the course of his argument develops the notion

ofprophasisin the sense of external catalyst (‘cause d ́eclenchante due aux

facteurs ext ́erieurs’) and in the end distinguishes it from that ofphusis,the

natural cause or ‘law’ determining the development of the disease (‘cause

naturelle et lois de d ́eveloppement de la maladie’). He concludes that there

is no contradiction, since both external causal factors and the internal ‘na-

ture’ of the disease are subject to the same natural laws and therefore divine

(‘Il n’y a aucune contradiction selon l’auteur entre une maladie divine`a

cause de saphusisou`a cause de saprophasis. Tout cela est de l’ordre du

divin dans la mesure ou tous ces ph́enomenes ob ́eissent`a des lois naturelles

qui sont les mˆemes aussi bien`a l’ext ́erieur de l’homme qu’en l’homme, lois

qui sont ind ́ependantes de l’intervention humaine’ ( 2003 , 130 – 1 )). I still

think that this does not fully address the problems I raise in my discussion

of this passage and reads too many elements in the text which are not ex-

plicitly stated (e.g. the notion of ‘natural law’), although I concede, as I did

in my original paper, that my suggestion to read-#Cis not free from

difficulties either.

I have discussed the relationship betweenOn the Sacred DiseaseandAirs,

Waters, Placesin van der Eijk ( 1991 ), arriving at the view that there is no

reason to believe that the two treatises are by different authors; similar

conclusions have been arrived at (apparently independently) by Bruun

( 1997 ); see also Jouanna ( 1996 ) 71 – 3 and ( 2003 ) lxx–lxxiv. I have discussed

the similar structure of the argumentation inOn the Sacred Diseaseand

in Aristotle’sOn Divination in Sleepin van der Eijk ( 1994 ) 294 – 5 (see also

Hankinson ( 1998 c) making a similar point). I have dealt at greater length

with the religious beliefs of the author ofOn Regimenin van der Eijk

( 2004 a).

On the question of ‘the divine’ in other Hippocratic treatises see

Lichtenthaeler ( 1992 )onPrognostic, and Flemming and Hanson ( 1998 )

onDiseases of Young Women.