Baptizing Alternative Medicine: A Guide for the Curious But Cautious Christian

Sometimes we pretend, and this is really what the issue is: Basically in order to remedy what happened way back when in the Garden of Eden. But in the meantime, human history has these two lines: In our sin, we like to pretty ourselves up, we like to pat ourselves on the back, we like to justify ourselves because we wanna be right, we wanna be good, we wanna be thought well of.

Likewise, we can do that in lots of ways. We can take things that God made as good and then we can misuse them. I admittedly am not well versed in the history, but is that indeed the case? Did most of the stuff arise from pretty much zero background in a belief in the Christian God or any form of historic Christian theology? Yeah, I mean part of the research that would be interesting to do is, and there has been Christianity in the East so at least tradition says that after the ascension of Jesus, the apostles scattered, basically across the world. Jesus told them go in all the world, baptizing the nations, discipling the nations, teaching them the Gospel, teaching them to walk with God through Jesus.

And so tradition said that some of the early apostles and Christians went east and made it into places like China and so forth. I think that one thing that I will say is, as a Christian, I have a supernatural view of the world. The Bible invites us to believe that the world is more than just matter. God is immaterial, God the Son became man but we see evidence of miracles, angels, demons, evil spirits, the Holy Spirit, and so one of the things, of course is that I staunchly believe in the supernatural world and in supernatural realities.

Now related to that, energetic medicine like meridian therapy, and kinesiology, and therapeutic touch, and a lot of these are really focused on balancing or releasing energy in the body for the advancement of health or the treatment of disease. Can we say that invisible energy forces are something that would be acceptable or okay in terms of fitting in to a Christian world view?

So the Bible tells us in James 5, for example, that people who are sick should call the elders of the church over and that they should ask the elders to pray over them, to anoint them with oil, and that they should confess their sins and that you should expect that God will be at work in that prayer to bring healing.

One that definitely falls into a woo-woo form of healing, right? Dumping oil on your head and praying. Well I take that back though, because you look at essential oils for example or aromatherapy and we definitely do find some examples that there are things like frankincense for example that does indeed have a physical or a physiological effect on the body in terms of both the effect on the brain and the nasal passages and also the effect from an anti-inflammatory standpoint.

You take a bath in lavender and it actually increases the activity of your parasympathetic nervous system. Correct, at the same time the thing that I would point out is that the Bible also gives us examples of evil spirits having certain kinds of powers in the world too. And so I do believe that there are spiritual forces in the world, I believe that some of those spiritual forces are evil and wicked and that we should be at war with, and there are also good spiritual forces that work in the world, supremely the Holy Spirit himself, the spirit of the living God. And there are warnings in the Bible about, the Israelites in particular in the Old Testament, are warned against not having anything to do with evil spirits.

And even in Star Wars, right? How do you approach that? Right, so again I think a Christian needs to be someone, who first of all, immersing himself or herself in the Bible.

Acupuncture | Christianity | Live Oak Acupuncture

God gives Moses the staff, sends him into Egypt. Egypt is the greatest civilization in the world at this time, right? This is like an old man with a stick going up to the door of the White House. Moses throws his staff down, it turns into a serpent. The first plague, Moses strikes the water in Egypt and it turns to blood, and when he does that, it says that the magicians of Egypt could do the same thing with their secret.

I’m a Christian — Is Acupuncture Against My Religion? Part One

So again, which powers are we using, are we using the powers of the Living God, are you authorized by God to use that power or are you drawing off of evil powers, dark powers in the world. By that standard, the Bible is out coz the Bible has a lot of weird stuff in it.

Moses was a wizard. And I think we really do have to be careful with that. It replaces 50 year-old antiquated air-cleaning technology including heap filters with an extremely cool and high-tech innovation in air purification. It destroy the full spectrum of indoor air pollutants including those x smaller than what a hepa air filter can catch, which means that it not only makes an extremely meaningful effect for asthma and allergy sufferers, but for guys like me who just wanna breathe the cleanest of air with an extremely clean design and a very high quality experience.

They have replacement filters that they can send to your doorstep right when you need them, and they make breathing clean air very easy; very seamless. Very simple, go to Molekule. This thing really is amazing and it looks good too, so check it out; Molekule. This podcast is also brought to you, speaking of cool things that look amazing, an electric toothbrush, who thought those could be sexy.

And basically it cleans your teeth, makes your breath smell better, and an electric toothbrush, because it vibrates, does a much better job getting a lot of the nasties out of the teeth and in between the teeth than a regular toothbrush. As silly of an analogy it may seem, you have this energy, right?

One of the ways to answer that question would be to ask questions about two principles in Scripture. So Ten Commandments-type stuff. So adultery is off-limits, fornication, sex outside of marriage is off-limits. Stealing is off-limits; so these are lying, Ten Commandment stuff. Do any of these therapies, do any of these practices require you to do anything that would be disobedient to the God of the Bible.

Right, and that was actually a situation where I had something really uncomfortable happen to me. I read up on and did a lot of research on transcendental meditation and its effect on allowing you to get by on less sleep, its effect on being able to replicate a deep map, its decrease in salivary cortisol; all these effects that it had. So I went and took a TM course, and the very first thing when I walked in was they were like, you bring fruit and flowers and burn incense in front of the photograph of the guy who invented TM.

The Bible teaches for example that God invented the idea of wine, God invented the idea of beer, and he made grapes so that if you smash them and leave them long enough, they turn into this amazing juice, this amazing drink called wine. But the Bible also prohibits drunkenness. The Bible says do not be drunk with wine. Right, which actually is almost like a tough call because as you probably know, that glass of wine at the end of the day can relax you and I think that again, you have to be logical about some of these things. For example, there can be no cold without heat, no shadow without light, no dryness without moisture, no activity without rest, no male without female.

In the human body there is both yin qi and yang qi, just as in nature water can exist both in the form of ice yin or steam yang. In the human body as well as in families, communities, and eco-systems health is defined as a dynamic balance between yin and yang. Everything in nature can be described in terms of relative proportions of yin and yang. Nowhere is Yin and Yang better expressed than in the ultimate race — the race of sperm to egg. It is difficult to think of a more Yang substance than sperm: Yang lives fast and dies young.

Eggs, however, are the archetype of Yin: They are so passive that they just lie there waiting for sperm to penetrate them, completely incapable of deciding which sperm will succeed. Yin barely lives but lasts forever. The Spark In the Machine. You will occasionally hear someone claim that the concept of yin and yang is inherently non-Christian because it implies that good and evil are equal and interdependent forces.

This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the way in which yin and yang are applied in Chinese medicine. Yin is not evil and yang is not good any more than female is evil and male is good or summer is good and winter is evil. In Boolean logic which is the basis of modern information technology and computing there are two possible values: In the same way, when Chinese medicine talks about yin and yang, it is simply describing natural phenomena in a completely value-neutral way.

Answering this question thoroughly is a tall order and would make for an awfully long article, so I will approach this topic in a three part series: In this part I will discuss the Christian call to relieve suffering, answer the question of whether acupuncture is magic or sorcery, and give a thumbnail sketch of Qi, Yin, and Yang and address the common concern that they are Eastern religious concepts that Christians should avoid. In part three, I will compare and contrast the role of doctor and patient in Western versus Eastern medicine and explore whether it might be argued that Chinese medicine takes an approach to health and healing that is more compatible with the Christian worldview than that taken by conventional Western medicine.

Qi Qi is understood to be the intrinsic, dynamic, self-regulating and self-maintaining power of the organism. See Avalos for a comparison of temple healing in Greece which he largely restricts to Asclepieia , Mesopotamia and Israel. There was an ancient theory, picked up by a few modem scholars but rejected by most, that medicine originally arose from the collected wisdom of inscriptions such as these found in the sanctuaries of Asclepius.

In the extant medical treatises there are relatively few disease names attached to symptomatic descriptions, for example, as healers and their patients were concerned less with nosology Behr provides the best introduction to and translation of the text of The Sacred Tales.

See also Horstmanshoff He used to spend very many nights in the temple of Asclepius, both on account of the dreams that he had there, and also on account of all the intercourse there is between those who are awake and converse with one another, for in his case the god used to converse with him while awake, and held it to be a triumph of his healing art to ward off disease from Antiochus. The Empiricists accepted dreams as a form of experience. See Oberhelman , and Behr In Letter 17 of the Hippocratic Pseudepigrapha, which may be dated as late as the first and second centuries AD, Asclepius appeared to Hippocrates in a dream.

It was with some pride that Galen reported his success in medical prediction, such as on the following occasion: We had already discussed this in the evening, and when you arrived next morning, you heard a summary of my prediction. I am convinced that I am already fully fit: Compare Hippocrates, Pseudepigrapha, Letter He, who is my ancestor, declares the diseases that are and that will be and he heals those on whom sickness is coming and has come.

Barton 1 a provides a relatively succinct overview of ancient astrology in general, while Barton 1 b examines medicine, astrology and physiogonomy as sources of knowledge. Sextus Empiricus, Adversos mathematicos Against the Mathematicians 5. See Barton I a: The frequent expulsion of astrologers from Rome did not reduce the intense interest in the subject; the Astronomica of Manilius, a didactic poem of which only five volumes are extant, for example, was written during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius.

Belief in astrology, like belief in magic, did not fall into lines of class or education. Plutarch, for example, found nothing incongruous in the fact that Varro believed in the prophetic nature of the heavens and that he asked an astrologer to compute the natal day of Romulus by casting a horoscope in reverse. The Empiricists would also have noted astronomical aspects in their empirical observations. Roman Health The final section of this chapter will take a brief look at the concept and practices of health in the Roman world.

The goal of health stands at the core of any medical culture, although the question as to what health actually is is more easily posed than answered. Modem attempts at definition demonstrate some of the challenge: Diction apparently reflected reality, as many astronomers, such as the second-century Ptolemy of Alexandria, found meaning in both activities: The four elements, the four qualities, and the four humours were related to the twelve signs by division into groups of three.

Helen King, in her preface to Health in Antiquity, argues that twenty-first century western culture embraces two contrary definitions of health: They will be considered in reverse order. Constitution of the World Health Organization as of October Accessed on-line at www. The last definition has been singled out by other researchers, who have tracked the aggressively virtuous aspect of modem, particularly North American, attitudes towards health: See in particular Conrad and Williams It more usually signifies soundness of body and good health, but in certain situations it must be translated as its opposite, that is, as ill health.

The word may also be used neutrally to indicate the general state of bodily health, although a qualifying adjective often is added for exactitude: The etymology of valetudo is less complicated: Sanitas was fonned from the adjective sanus from which comes also the verb sano, to heal. Sanitas itself can best be understood as soundness of either body or mind.

Salus is the most wide-ranging of the three words both in meaning and in application. According to the OLD, salus may be translated variously as personal safety, physical well-being, health, refuge, deliverance, or a means of safety. It may also refer to security, both for the individual as a citizen or for the state as a whole. Salus is found as well in common greetings: Good- This is perhaps best exemplified in Juvenal, Sat.

Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano One wishes for a sound mind in a sound body. Note the Latin Vale! It also makes appearances in idiomatic and formulaic phrases, such as salute nostra, bona salute and quod cum salute eiusfiat. Salus designated health in its most fundamental sense for the Romans. The Roman impulse to identify a numen for every facet of life designated Salus as that power which governed human safety and health. Salus governed the welfare of both the state and the emperor, as well as that of the individual.

The initial impetus of the cult of Salus was the welfare of the state Salus publica , which eventually extended itself during the empire to the welfare of the emperors and their families Salus A ugusti.

Baptizing alternative medicine : a guide for the curious but cautious Christian

At some later point but probably well before the mid-second century BC, the cult of Salus came to represent as well physical health, the equivalent of the Greek healing cult of Hygieia. It involved the integrity of physical or virtual boundaries as well as the power and strength needed to maintain that integrity. Plutarch reported, for example, that Marwood Celsus was one Latin writer who did define health, and he did it largely in functional terms: He gave a similar definition in Thras.

He was referring to acute disease, as elsewhere he argued that disabilities such as blindness or chronic illness do not preclude participation in public life. He noted that the Epicureans avoided civic life but were none the healthier for it. Consequently, a healthy person had to watch himself continuously, he had to subject himself to minute rules, he had to guard against any deviation from the prescribed regimen.

Only thus could he be healthy and live long, he was told. Healthy and sick bodies, he contended, benefited from the same art of medicine which corrected both, by introducing what they lacked. The difference was that healthy bodies were corrected constantly by a supervisor who took care to replace what was lost on an on-going basis, while sick bodies had lacked that continual attention. It was a distinction of the amount, not the nature, of the corrective.

These medical personnel were seldom called upon to attend when illness struck, but instead advised upon the daily regimen of diet, exercise and bathing. One Hippocratic text in particular disputed the belief that health was the natural state of human beings; in Med. I was given over to the regimens of health. Galen indeed composed at least three works which were devoted entirely to the topic of food and its place in both the maintenance and restoration of health, but he also frequently discussed diet in many of his other works, as did the other writers on regimen.

Any pleasure in eating was secondary to the nutritive value of food. The importance of proper digestion was stressed repeatedly, for food which did not digest easily because of its quality or its quantity was believed to become corrupted and to rot in the gut, and thereby become a ready source of disease. Some reference was made by both authors to female physiology, but it is the male body and its daily activities which were the focus of attention.

Regardless of the method of digestion, if food did not digest, disease was produced. Ex his igitur qui bene concoxit, mane tuto surget; qui parum, quiescere debet, et si mane surgendi necessitasfuit, redormire; qui non concoxit, ex toto conquiescere ac neque labori se neque exercitationi neque negotiis credere.

Qui crudum sine praecordiorum dolore ructat, is ex intervallo aquamfrigidam bibere, et se nihilo minus continere. Anyone therefore of these [men] who has digested well may with safety rise early; if too little, he must stay in bed, or if he has been obliged to get up early, must go to sleep again; he who has not digested, should lie up altogether, and neither work nor take exercise nor attend to business. He who without heartburn eructates undigested food should drink cold water at intervals and none the less exercise self control. Recourse to vomiting was considered a preferable response to overindulgence than allowing excess food to remain in the stomach while awaiting eventual digestion.

He particularly recommended hunting, but in recognition of the fact that few had the resources for it, he endorsed a ball game which involved strategy and skill as well as physical effort. See also Celsus, Med. The condition of the athlete is not natural. Sed Ut huius generis exercitationes cibique necessariae sunt, sic athietici supervacUi. But whilst exercise and food of this sort are necessaries, those of the athletes are redundant. See also Plutarch, Mor. The body might be in a constant state of flux, but health depended upon gradual, not sudden, change.

Even the apparently seemly move from an unhealthy location to a more salubrious one needed to considered carefully and undertaken in the right season in order to avoid physiological danger. A man had the responsibility and the capacity to care for his own health through moderation and control, not only so that he might carry out his civil and social duties, but also so that his body might stand as a reflection of his character. The medical culture of second-century Rome as it is outlined in this chapter was not unique to the capital only but could be found in cities around the empire, including those of North Africa.

Although Carthage, the largest and most important of the North African cities, was less sophisticated than both Rome and many urban centres in the Greek East, it nonetheless contained a vibrant intellectual community, as did, to an obviously lesser extent, odes, mimes and other songs as a form of exercise. Presumably these would be performed aloud by the suppliants. See von Staden on reading as medical therapy. Fick examines the degree of Romanization and the intellectual life of North African cities and settlements. For the latter period the chapter will consider the evidence provided by material culture for both medicine and healing cults and will then turn to the writings of Macrobius, who was not a physician, as well as the texts of four North African medical writers who were physicians, namely Vindicianus, Theodorus Priscianus, Caelius Aurelianus, and Cassius Felix.

The chapter will conclude with a look at the medical aspects of Manichaeism, a faith to which Augustine was devoted for many years before he re-embraced Catholic Christianity. The possibility that North Africa was distinguished from the mainstream by the use of an African Latin dialect which represented a culture at odds with Roman society has been rejected by most scholars. Harrison, Hilton, and Hunink He later spent time in Rome in the early s, and he also apparently visited Samos, Hierapolis, Smyrna, Ephesus and Pergamum. He returned in the mids to North Africa, where it seems he remained for the duration of his life.

On demonstrations of his research, in this case ichthyology, Apol. I confess that I prefer to rework. There are many other works, some complete and others fragmentary in nature, which have been attributed to Apuleius and which have received divergent degrees of scholarly acceptance for that attribution. Treatises on agriculture De re rustica , astronomy De astronomica , political science De re publica , music De musica and history Epitoma historiarum , for example, are attributed to Apuleius. Compare Sandy and Harrison on the accepted bibliography.

The authorship of a particular hermetic text, Asclepius, still generates heated academic debate; see Hunink in favour of Apuleian attribution, with Horsfall Scotti in reply. Augustine was familiar with the Asciepius; see Hagendahi Apuleius is generally agreed to be the author of three extant philosophic works: On Libri medicinales, see Sandy Both scholars agree that this work was likely a compilation largely derived from Pliny, and Le Bohec See Hunink for commentary as well as a historical and textual introduction.

See as well the introduction in Harrison The excerpts from the speeches which constitute the Florida were made in Carthage in the I 60s. See, however, l-lijmans On causing fits, Apol. The charge of magic against Apuleius is discussed here in its contemporary context, without any modem semantic involvement. Non tam purgandi mei gratia in ea re, quam tu iam praeiudicasti neque culpae neque crimini conjmnem, quam Ut ne quid dignum auribus tuis et doctrinae tuae congruens reticuerim I will not do so in order to plead innocent on a charge you already declared inadmissible, but to avoid silence about a theme suitable to your ears and fitting to your learning.

The term doctrina was used again in addressing Maximus at Apol. He attributes his interest in obtaining and dissecting particular fish not to the mysterious purposes of magic but to his research in natural history, both for its own sake and for the particular purpose of medical application. Quid enirn tandem, si medicinae neque instudiosus neque imperitus quaepiam remedia expiscibus quaero?

Ut sane suntplurima cum in allis omnibus rebus eodem naturae munere interspersa atque interseminata, turn etiarn nonnulla inpiscibus. An remedia nosse et ea conquirere rnagi potius esse quarn medici, quam denique philosophi putas, qui illis non ad quaestum, sed ad suppetias usurus est? Veteres quidem medici etiam carmina remedia vulnerum norant, Ut omnis vetustatis certissirnus auctor Homerus docet, quifacit Ulixi de vulnere sanguinern profluentem sisti cantamine. I am quite interested and competent in the field of medicine; so what if I am looking for certain remedies in fish?

Or would you argue that knowing and gathering remedies is typical of a magician rather than a doctor or even a philosopher, who is not going to use them for profit but for help? The doctors of olden days even knew incantations to cure wounds, as we are told by the most reliable authority of antiquity, Homer, who represents an incantation as stopping the blood from a wound of Odysseus. Butler and Owen In a similar fashion Apuleius would later differentiate between the magical and the medical arts at Flor.

Haec idcirco commemoravi nobilium philosophorum disputata, simul et libros sedulo nominavi nec ullum ex medicis autpoetis volui attingere, Ut isti desinant mirari si philosophi suapte doctrina causas morborum et remedia noverunt. I have recalled these subjects from the discussions of noble philosophers and also carefully mentioned their books without wishing to touch upon any of the medical writers or poets. This was to stop these people being amazed that philosophers on their own account know the causes and remedies of diseases.

The name, after Themison, the pupil of Asciepiades of Bithynia and one of the founders of Methodism, was a very popular one for physicians. It is entirely possible, therefore, that the designation medicus was bestowed to differentiate another Themison from his own slave; if more than one Themison was meant, it would indicate a stronger relationship on the part of Apuleius with the medical culture in his city of residence at that time, Oea. Apuleius is citing Timaeus 85a — b. Plato conjectured that epilepsy occurred when a pus formed from excess heat and mingled with black bile; the combined fluid then moved through the veins to the head, where it destroyed and confused the rational and divine aspects of the human being.

In his defence against the charge that he beguiled his wife into marriage by magic, Apuleius notes that in fact it was illness which caused his wife, then a widow of many years, to seek remarriage actively: On the slave with epilepsy, Apul. Gaide does not mention Celsus, but his description of the malady at Med.

Medicine formed a relatively significant part of his intellectual and philosophical life. It is highly probable, for example, that while in Rome Apuleius attended lectures and demonstrations of a medical nature, and there is even a hint that he himself also participated in lectures or demonstrations in his native North Africa on topics of natural history, potentially even on medicine, for he notes in the Apologia that he had earlier displayed the dissected fish which was at the centre of the current legal argument to colleagues: Hunc adeo pisciculum, quem vos leporem marinum nominatis, plurimis qui aderant ostendi.

Necdum etiam decerno quid vocent, nisi quaeram sane accuratius Well, I have shown this little fish which you called a sea-hare to many of those present. I cannot yet determine what it is really called until I have done some further research. It is almost certain that he was a priest of the cult of Aesculapius the Latin form of the name Asciepius at Carthage, as both Jean Beaujeu and J. Apuleius would have resided in Rome after Soranus but before Galen. That Apuleius held a priesthood is known from Augustine Ep.

• I’m a Christian — Is Acupuncture Against My Religion? Part One.
• GOD googled Me.
• The Quiet Gun (Edge: The Return Book 1).
• The Rescue Princesses: The Magic Rings.

The relevant passages in Apuleius are Apol. At the time he spoke this encomium he was newly recovered from a serious illness which had interrupted his journey to Alexandria; thus there is good reason to speculate that he himself may have found healing through appeals to the god. Later in life he dedicated a hymn and other prose works to the god; he tells his Carthaginian audience that his devotion to the god is both well-known and long-standing and that Aesculapius does not look unfavourably upon his priesthood.

CHRISTIANS ARE CALLED TO RELIEVE SUFFERING

Nor is Apuleius the only North African example from his time who can be adduced: Tertullian had read the medical texts of Soranus and other medical writers, however; he names these authors in his vivid description of the surgical instruments and On the speech at Oea, probably given in , Apol.

On the hymn and a introductory dialogue, both of which were in Latin and Greek, Flor. On his devotion to Aesciapius, Apul. The association of Apuleius with the healing god apparently continued to be strong after his death. The names of forty-two physicians of a variety of social backgrounds and apparently from different parts of the Roman empire are included.

The majority of the inscriptions are from the province of Africa Proconsularis, with seven inscriptions from Carthage alone, and most date from the second or third centuries. Et quoniam beneficia salutis datae aliorum numinum comparatis, et Christi: And since you compare the other deities and Christ with respect to the benefits of health given by them, how many thousands of sick people do you want us to show you; how many suffering from wasting diseases whom the applications of no medicine restored, although as suppliants they went through all the temples; although they prostrated themselves before the faces of the gods and swept up the thresholds themselves with kisses; and when, as long as life remained, they wore out with their most piteous prayers and vows Aesculapius himself, the giver as they call him of health?

Amobius mentions Aesculapius on two dozen occasions in the treatise.. It is unfortunate that to date no mosaic evidence for the cult has surfaced. A later historian, Appian c. But for those North Africans who did, Aesculapius was revered both as a healing god and as a salvation god.

Attention may now be turned to the literary evidence. The exact identity of the Macrobius who composed the Saturnalia, an extended dialogue set over the three days of the winter solstice festival in Rome, is a topic of scholarly debate.

1. Acupuncture | Christianity | Live Oak Acupuncture;
2. Chiropractic in America: The History of a Medical Alternative - J. Stuart Moore - Google Книги;
3. Sanctification: Three.

It is generally conceded, nonetheless, that he had some connection with North Africa: See also Charles-Picard She also notes that the cult was found in association with hot springs and baths which provided healing waters for the sick. Those who argue that Macrobius was Proconsul of Africa in would opt for an earlier composition date. Great consideration was given to diet and the mechanisms of digestion and sensory perception. Gellius voiced a similar sentiment in the preface to Noctes Atticae. Northern Italy, particularly Ravenna, was an important centre for medical scholarship in the following century.

North Africa also produced the only extant, albeit fragmentary, Latin medical text from the third century, namely that of Gargilius Martialis, a native of Mauritania Sitifensis, who was a soldier and imperial official as well as medical writer. His main source was Pliny, although he also consulted Galen and other Greek medical writers. See Riddle and Maire Jerome offers a brief reference to a work of medical poetry by a late-third century, presumably North African grammarian, Flavius, who flourished during the time of Diocletian, but this work has been lost: The other three extant Latin medical writers of the late antique period were Quintus Serenus, on whom see p.

The surviving treatises of these writers are complemented by the recipe and antidote collections of the period, of which ten are still extant, one of them inaccurately attributed to Apuleius, as noted above. See Sabbah, Corsetti and Fischer for complete bibliographies for ancient Latin medical writers, including editions and translations. See also VUssing The slow pace of translation of medical texts into Latin in the Roman empire was likely a result of the authority which the Greek language conferred on medicine and its practitioners. Earlier in the empire, the use of Greek was generally considered to be a professional desideratum for physicians in the Latin West; it established their credentials and inspired faith in their therapeutics.

Of these North African medical writers, the central figure for the purposes of this study is Vindicianus, with whom Augustine was intimately acquainted. Before looking more closely at him, however, the lives and works of the other three medical writers—Theodorus Priscianus, Caelius Aurelianus and Cassius Felix—will receive a brief review. Biographical details for Theodorus Priscianus are somewhat sketchy: The Latin is garbled, but the meaning is clear in three of them: Theodorus Priscianus referred obliquely to the work of Latin writers in making public the art of healing as the Greeks had done; see Phaen.

As the title Logicus might suggest, Theodorus was a Dogmatist who drew heavily upon the work of other medical writers, especially Galen, although he also found much common therapeutic ground with Methodists, particularly its emphasis on speed of healing. The genre was essentially a medical vade-mecum for travellers or for those living in isolated areas. He repeats the phrase in logico opere again in the preface to the Logicus.

His emphasis on swift healing, a tenet of Methodism, received particular emphasis in the Phaenomenon: Quofit ut ignari homines elati saepe medicos fugiant, cum hos proventus incantationibus novis ac ligamentis adscribant autfortunae, cum quoties repentino nuntio laeti aut territi aegrotantes mutatione quadam corporis morbos exciudent, ye! For swift and acute diseases may be cured spontaneously, with the aid sometimes of chance and sometimes of nature.

And for this reason ignorant people often proudly avoid physicians and attribute these cures to new incantations or amulets or luck. Sometimes a patient who is suddenly made happy or frightened by an unexpected message will undergo a bodily change that will drive out the disease. Or in ignorance and desperation he will do something rash, which for some unknown reason will help him. Chronic or slow diseases, on the other hand, which are already in possession of the body by a previous crisis, can be heped only by a skilful physician.

For neither nature nor luck can effect a cure. Pigeaud notes that Caelius was comfortably bilingual and composed at least one work in Greek. The phrase has led the See Hanson and Green See van der Eijk on the epistemological paradoxes found in Caelius, which he attributes to the tensions inherent in Methodism itself. Hanson and Green Cassius, De medicina pref. The identification largely rests upon the use of the phrase omnipotenti deo by this second Felix, an archiater of Carthage the title designated a publicly-appointed and state-funded physician.

The specific reference is De miraculis sancti Stephani protomartyris 2. Given the mass of circumstantial evidence, Guy Sabbah for one is willing to give tentative agreement to this identification. On account of their elevated status, archiatri and former archiatri received particular tax immunities in addition to their public salaries; see forexampleC. He said that as a young man he had studied astrology himself, intending to make a living by it, and that if he could understand Hippocrates I need not doubt that he had been able to master these textbooks as well.

Although he does not specifically identify himself as a Dogmatist in his surviving works, both his detailed exposition of Hippocratic humoral theory and the medical leanings of his student Theodorus suggest that he was indeed strongly influenced by if not a self-identified member of that sect. Vindicianus also specifically mentioned to Augustine the works of Hippocrates when discussing his medical studies, however, at Conf 4. Somewhat surprisingly, however, interest in Vindicianus amongst modern scholars has been generally eclipsed by his fellow North Africans.



• Cache Canon.
• WHAT ARE MAGIC AND SORCERY?.
• Writing From Life: How to turn your personal experience into profitable prose?
• In And Out Of Love?
• WHAT ARE MAGIC AND SORCERY?.
• Si, Jesus: Introducción a las Doctrinas de la Gracia (Spanish Edition)!

The lack of interest in Vindicianus may be a product of the difficulty of gaining access to his texts, which are found scattered among editions of other Latin authors, such as Marcellus and Theodorus. Late in his professional career, possibly in , he was appointed to the exalted position of Comes archiatrorum, that is, as a physician appointed to work in Rome to care for the imperial family and the families of high officials.

He and I became better acquainted and I listened intently and without fail to what he had to say, for though he was not a gifted speaker, his lively mind gave weight and charm to his words. See, for example, W. Manichaeism was part of the variegated religious life of the Roman empire in late antiquity, in which state religious rites and the imperial cult functioned alongside the sanctioned or unsanctioned worship of imported deities such as Isis, Cybele, Mithras or Jesus.

Augustine was an Auditor that is, one of the lower- level initiates who supplied daily sustenance to the higher-level Elect in the Manichaean religion for almost a decade before his conversion, and he remains our chief informant for Vossing Re asserts further — that medical knowledge in North Africa was guarded and restricted, using as an example the exclusion of a household doctor from viewing an operation performed on by a group of consultant physicians, as described by Augustine in Civ.

This particular instance, however, was probably more a matter of education and social class—the household doctor was likely a slave, while the consulting doctors were no doubt better educated and possibly even Roman citizens—than an example of attempts to control knowledge of therapeutic techniques. Vindicianus mentioned a patient who productus est in medium conventum multorum spectantium medicorum was led into the middle of a meeting of a number of observing physicians , a phrase which suggests that medical demonstrations were not uncommon.

A Coptic Manichaean text, Kephalaion 38, for example, described the means by which Evil was able to trap divine elements in the anatomical Augustine was a Manichaean from nineteen to thirty years of age. Although Augustine was not one of the Elect, as an Auditor he nonetheless played a central role within the religion. It is essential to provide the caveat that our knowledge of Manichaeism is still limited: Manichaeism was practised over a considerable expanse of both time and territory; from its mid-third century beginnings in Persia, it spread throughout much of the extent of the Roman empire and beyond, to as far away as China, where it was still being practised in the eighth century, and thus it is necessary to exercise caution in extrapolating from, for example, seventh-century Chinese texts as evidence for Manichaeism as it was practised in the late fourth century in North Africa.

Still the most detailed study of Manichaeism is Lieu , but a briefer, useful overview of Manichaeism can be found in Coyle Manichaeism arrived in North Africa by the end of the third century, and Decret argues that the religion benefitted greatly from the rifts among North African Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries. The authors have compiled English translations for all of the Manichaean texts from the Roman empire which have been unearthed to date.

See in agreement Lieu The dietary restrictions which were imposed upon both the Auditors and, to a much stricter degree, the Elect were designed not just to benefit the individual but the universe as a whole. The physiological processes of the body, including digestion, were outlined by Mani, and these explanations easily fit within the contemporary Hellenistic medical models, although with one significant difference: The relevant passage, Kephaliaon J he shall become for it [.

He shall release the th[ought of the soul] from the sinew; and s[oj bind the thought [of the sin in] the sinew. See also BeDuhn on human physiology in Manichaeism. Kevin Coyle argues that the texts indicate a disavowal of the medical arts except perhaps for the figurative medicine of prayer for the Elect with digestive problems , but he acknowledges that the evidence is ambiguous and that the figure of the physician, both literal and figurative, was prominent in the religion. In CMC , for example, Mani identified himself as a physician to a father who begs him to heal his ill daughter.

See Gardner and Lieu This chapter in particular has shown that in the years prior to his conversion Augustine, even as a resident of one of the distant provinces of North Africa, was living and working in the vibrant Roman intellectual culture which included medicine amongst its many interests. This would have presented him with opportunities to familiarize himself with the language and practice of contemporary medicine as well as the various other modes of healing. It has also been suggested here that the faith which he practised during this time employed medicine in its theology and its metaphoric language, and that this is an aspect of his medical culture which should not be overlooked.

The following chapter will consider more particularly how Augustine obtained his knowledge of medicine as well as the intellectual role which he assigned it. His use of medical metaphor will be explored in the next two chapters, but an example can be given here. In the following excerpt from De utilitate credendi On the Usefulness ofBelief , in which Augustine discusses the necessity of relying upon faith, he compares the Christian who wants to make Biographies and biographical studies of Augustine are legion and date back to the time shortly after his death when Possidius, the bishop of Calama, produced his Sancti Augustini vita.

Quid exhausto aegrotatione corpori accommodatius quam cibus etpotio?

UBC Theses and Dissertations

Videmus tamen convalescentes refrenari atque cohiberi, ne saturitati valentium committere sese audeant, cibisque ipsis agere, Ut ad ilium morbum, qui eos repudiabat, revertantur. What is more suitable for a body, exhausted by disease, than food and drink? Yet we see that convalescents are restrained and prevented from venturing to indulge in a satiety for which only strong men are fit, lest food may itself bring back the disease which caused food to be refused. A particular focus will be placed upon the means by which Augustine obtained his medical knowledge.

A survey of the medical authors and texts which Augustine cited will be made, but the argument will also be put forward that text was not the only means through which he would have gained an understanding of medicine. The influence of Galen will be given some brief consideration, and the chapter will conclude with a look at the stance which Augustine took in regard to medicine as an intellectual activity. Textual Sources for Medical Knowledge As noted earlier, the opportunity for acquiring even a basic knowledge of biomedical information would not normally occur at any of the stages of a typical Roman education, since scientific subjects were not actively promoted within the syllabus of studies.

The rigid and formalized method of grammatical education in late antiquity can be glimpsed in the work of Priscian, a grammarian of the early sixth century. His exposition of Book I, line 1 of the Aeneid provides a call-and-response for teacher and student, in which the grammarian explicates each line virtually word by word, noting first the number of nouns, verbs, prepositions and conjunctions, and then proceeding to a careful analysis of each individual word, starting with arma arms: Arma quae pars orationis est?

Quia omnia nomina, quae in plurali numero in a desinunt, sine dubio neutri sunt generis.

Why do you say it is neuter? Because all nouns which end in a in the plural are undoubtedly neuter. This style of teaching has many disadvantages, but the priority given to memorization would have the practical effect of sharpening the mnemonic abilities of students, a faculty of great use to Augustine. McLynn Conf 5. Augustine contrasts the astronomical knowledge to be learned from philosophical reading to the doctrines of the Manichaeans. Although Augustine makes a few general references to medical books, it is difficult to know precisely which works would have been available to him, particularly during the time he was residing in Carthage in the s and early s.