Hippocratic Diagnosis, Solomonic Therapy, Roman Amulets: Epilepsy, Exorcism, and the Diffusion of a Jewish Tradition in the Roman World

Two contrasting portraits of exorcism in the Roman period for patients with symptoms consistent with epilepsy, drawn by Josephus (A.J. 8.45–47) and Lucian (Philops. §16), illustrate a substantial albeit contested diffusion of that ancient technique from the Jewish tradition to a wider Mediterranean public. The process is reflected in a similarly complex traditional background and textual composition of a group of inscribed Greek amulets for epilepsy. A sidelight on attitudes towards the practice of exorcism, on its way to wider popularity, and the conception of epilepsy is cast by these amulets, which have not yet been studied as a group. Their texts witness the application of precise Greek medical terminology, yet to an end, and in a compositional company, that authors in the Hippocratic tradition would have rejected. More generally, the artifacts offer a cross-section of amuletic practice and its diversity in the Roman and late ancient periods.

Beyond Symptoms

The four classic diagnostic validators of psychiatry are appraised: symptoms, course, genetics, and treatment response/biological markers. Of these, course of illness is seen as the most important and the most neglected. The non-specificity of treatment response and the inadequacy of symptoms is emphasized. If symptoms are not the primary target for drug treatment, as the Hippocratic tradition teaches, then diagnosis becomes extremely important for the practice of clinical psychopharmacology. The role of genetics is important, but it is limited to highly genetic diseases. Related to DSM-5 and its predecessors, the application of these diagnostic validators demonstrates that most DSM diagnoses are not valid.

Reception of Jesus as healer in Mark’s community

This study traces the manner in which the evangelist Mark presents Jesus as a healer. While this is the primary focus, I am also interested, from an identity perspective, in why Mark is keen to present Jesus as the best physician. Healers during the 1st century were varied. Cities had professional healers with great knowledge of the Greek Hippocratic tradition. The entire empire had famous temples of Asclepius and Apollo. Common people had diverse knowledge about various illnesses with remedies varying from herbs to exorcisms. Amidst all this and located in southern Syria in the northern regions of Galilee, Mark presents Jesus as a healer. The study concludes that Mark presents Jesus as an efficient healer with great power and authority. Though Mark is mute regarding other healers such as Asclepius and Apollo, near whose temples patients would sleep for days waiting for healing, he wants to remind the adherents of Jesus’ movement that they are following a great physician. A few selected stories from Mark’s gospel illustrate this argument.

A “Boa Morte” de Bacon

Euthanasia or “good death”, in the early seventeenth century, became part of the field of medical ethics through the English philosopher, Francis Bacon. He advocated that euthanasia, as “sweet and peaceful death” of the sick, should be sought by the physicians, with their care, and disapproved the abandonment, as determined by the Hippocratic tradition. The word euthanasia underwent a change in its Baconian sense, in the nineteenth century, when it came to mean death inten­tionally provoked as a way to achieve “good death.” Palliative medicine, however, represents the realization of current medicine regarding the commitment not to abandon the terminally ill, and to the effective search for a good death through care, as Francis Bacon defended.