I. Christian Impressions of Asclepius
I. 3. Latin Authors: Tertullian and Arnobius
The early Latin church fathers repeated the depiction of Christ as the supreme physician, often evoking the competition with Asclepius along the way. In his treatise
78 Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 49 (PG 25, 184C; A Religious).
79 Ibid., 44 (PG 25, 173C; A Religious).
80 Ibid., 43 (PG 25, 172C; A Religious).
against Marcion, Tertullian of Carthage continued along the similar argumentative framework as Justin by referring to Old Testament prophecy as predicting the supreme healer Christ: “How Christ was fore-announced by Isaiah as a preacher, ‘For who is there among you,’ says he, ‘that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his Son?’ And likewise as a healer: ‘For,’ says he, ‘He hath taken away our infirmities, and carried our sorrows.’”81
Arguably, no early Christian writer expressed more hatred towards idolatry than Tertullian, calling it “the principle crime of the human race” and placing it at the top of his list of primary sins.82 Included in Tertullian’s understanding of idolatry was any worship of a deity other than the one true God. Tertullian made his hatred of Asclepius abundantly clear deriding him as a bastard, saying that he “was said to have restored the dead to life by his cures. He was the son of Apollo, half human, although the grandson of Jupiter, and great- grandson of Saturn (or rather of spurious origin, because his parentage was uncertain…”83 Tertullian exhibited a great familiarity with Asclepius and the corpus of writings concerning the foundation of the cult. In To the Nations and his Apology, he cited the poet Pindar as popularizing certain sentiments about Asclepius: “Pindar, indeed, has not concealed his true desert; according to him, he was punished for his avarice and love of gain, influenced by which he would bring the living to their death, rather than the dead to life, by the perverted use of his medical art which he put up for sale. It is said that his mother was killed by the same stroke, and it was only right that she, who had bestowed so dangerous a beast on the world should escape to heaven by the same ladder. And yet the Athenians will not be at a
81 Tertullian, Against Marcion 3.17 (CSEL 47.405; ANF 3.336). Tertullian was also against Hercules in this text.
82 Tertullian, Idolatry 1.1 (CSEL 20.30; see ANF 3.61): “The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry.” And Against Marcion 4.9 (CSEL 47.441-442: “idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, fornication, false-witness, and fraud”).
83 Tertullian, To the Nations 2.14.42 (CSEL 20.127; ANF 3.144).
loss how to sacrifice to gods of such a fashion, for they pay divine honors to Asclepius and his mother amongst their dead.”84
In his Apology, Tertullian referred to Pindar again, chronicling the avarice of
Asclepius who made improper use of his healing skill and was justifiably killed by Jupiter.85 The charge of greed was often levied against Asclepius in order to explain his death at the hands of Zeus.86 Tertullian did not mince words regarding Asclepius; he was a beast, a bastard, and his cult was a problem for Christians. A follower of Asclepius was in league with the demons, and Tertullian further discredited the efficacy of their healings, saying
“First, they injure; then, they teach remedies new or contradictory to the point of miracle;
after that they cease to injure and are believed to have healed.”87 Anyone that followed such a cult, “your great Asclepius, discoverer of medical arts…if they do not confess they are demons…” would face divine judgment.88 Tertullian was struggling against the followers of Asclepius who filled his temples searching for cures. Tertullian devoted attention to
slandering the cult of Asclepius among others, and other Latin authors exuded a similar effort to construct the metaphorical and allegorical symbol of Christ the Physician as an alternative.
Arnobius of Sicca, a fellow North African writing a century after Tertullian in the early fourth century, spoke of Asclepius in a similar detrimental way and advanced the image
84 Tertullian, To the Nations 2.14.45 (CSEL 20.127).
85 Tertullian, Apol. 14.4-6 (CSEL 69.38): “Est et ille de lyricis, Pindarum dico…”
86 The same story from Pindar that Tertullian related twice was also cited by Clement in his Exhortation to the Greeks: “You have also a doctor, and not only a brass-worker among the gods. And the doctor was greedy of gold; Asclepius was his name. I shall produce as a witness your own poet, the Boeotian Pindar.” Clement of Alexandria, Ex. 2.25-26 (PG 8, 101B).
87 Tertullian, Apol. 22.11; Rendall, LCL).
88 Tertullian, Apol. 23.6.
of Christ the Physician. Arnobius was a convert to Christianity and his major treatise,
Against the Pagans, was possibly an affirmation of his Christian beliefs instead of an apology.89 Arnobius was extremely useful in providing a consistent voice against the cult of Asclepius, and defending Christ as the supreme Physician.90 Because Arnobius was a fairly new convert at the time of his writings, it was not surprising that he relied heavily on his North African forebears for help. This influence was particularly evident when he attacked Asclepius.91 Arnobius employed the story from Pindar in order to depict Asclepius as greedy, a text that Tertullian and Clement also used: “That because of his greed and avarice, even as Pindar of Boeotia sings, Asclepius was transfixed by the thunderbolt.”92 Asclepius’ death was still useful in Christian polemic for it exhibited a case of a deified human being. Arnobius pointed out this hypocrisy, “And yet, you who laugh at us for worshipping a man who died ignominiously…have you not proclaimed the discoverer of medicines, Asclepius, the guardian and protector of health, well-being, and safety, after he suffered the penalty and
89 Arnobius was a difficult figure to interpret. His writings have been noted by scholars for their inconsistent theology, and the picture he painted of persecution-era North Africa was far from lucid. For further reading see Michael B. Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca: Religious Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995), 6-7, 236-240; H.A. Drake’s review in CH 66, no. 2 (June 1997), 305-307.
90 See Jerome, Chronicon (trans. by Malcolm Drew-Donalson; Lewiston, NY: Mellen University Press, 1996).
Jerome writes of Arnobius in On Illustrious Men 79, “Arnobius was a most successful teacher of rhetoric at Sicca in Africa during the reign of Diocletian, and wrote volumes Against the Pagans which may be found
everywhere.” See George E. McCracken’s trans., ANCW series, (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1949), who believes Jerome’s story of Arnobius’ motives should not be discounted (1.16). Also see Louis J. Swift,
“Arnobius and Lactantius: Two Views of the Pagan Poets,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 96. (1965), 439-448. And Mark Edwards, “The Flowering of Latin Apologetic,” in Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews and Christians, 197-221.
91 See Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca, 186. Arnobius did not relegate his vitriol to the god Asclepius; he was an equal opportunity slanderer of pagan gods. Arnobius reserved much space for the Saturn cult that was resurgent in North Africa at the time of the Diocletian persecution. See Fichtner, “Christus als Arzt,” 9: “Bei Arnobius, der der Lehrer des Lactanz gewesen sein soll, kommt es noch einmal zure offenen
Gegenüberstellung von Christus und Asklepios.”
92 Arnobius, Against the Pagans 4.24 (CSEL 4.161; McCracken). It is unclear whether Arnobius borrowed this story from Tertullian or from Clement. Arnobius undoubtedly was influenced by Tertullian, however George McCracken in his introduction believes Arnobius utilized Clement in this instance, see his 47-48. After Arnobius’ conversion, the works of Clement, Tertullian, and Minucius Felix’s Octavius would have been accessible in North Africa.
punishment of being struck by lightning.”93 Arnobius manipulated the various myths of Asclepius to his advantage, never letting his audience forget that the pagan pantheon includes mortals as well.
Arnobius painted Asclepius as a faulty healer whose temples “are filled with the wretched and the unfortunate,” as he diametrically compares them to the positive healings of Christ.94 He capitalized on the theological differences between Christ and Asclepius. Christ healed the sinners and the righteous, while Asclepius healed only the good, not the bad.95 Christ restored to health “a hundred or more afflicted with various weaknesses and diseases.”96 Arnobius emphasized the method of Christ’s healings as opposed to those procured at the temple or from a physician. He acknowledged that some recognize “other gods, who gave medicines to many sufferers and healed the diseases and sicknesses of many men.”97 Arnobius further detailed the difference between Christ the Physician and any other method of healing:
This only I desire to know: whether it was without adding any substance, that is, any medication, by mere touch, he bade the diseases to fly away from men; commanded or brought it about that the cause of the ailment ceased to exist and the bodies of the sick returned to their natural state. For we know that Christ, by applying His hand to the ailing part or by a single command, opened the ears of the deaf, removed blindness from eyes, gave speech to the dumb, loosened the stiffness of joints, gave power to walk to the paralytic, regularly healed with a word and cured by a command skin diseases, agues, dropsical diseases, and all other kinds of ailments…
93 Arnobius, Against the Pagans 1.41 (CSEL 4.27; McCracken). Here the Latin may be helpful: “nonne
Aesculapium medicaminum repertorem post poenas et supplicia fulminis custodem nuncupauistis et praesidem sanitatis valetudinis et salutis?” In this instance, Arnobius may be responding to Porphyry’s accusation that Christians worship a man who died an ignominious death, see Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca, 257.
94 Arnobius, Against the Pagans 1.49 (CSEL 4.33).
95 Arnobius, Against the Pagans 1.37-46; 3.24 (CSEL 4.24-31; 4.128). Asclepius healed the boni, not the mali.
96 Ibid., 1.46 (McCracken).
97 Ibid., 1.48 (CSEL 4.32; McCracken).
What similar act have all these gods done by whom you say aid was borne to the sick and the critically ill? For if they ever, as the story goes, ordered by some to be given medicine, or certain food to be taken, or a potion of any particular kind to be drunk, or a poultice of plants and grasses to be laid on the places causing distress; or that persons should walk, rest up, or refrain from anything harmful: then it is clear this is no remarkable thing and deserves no respect at all. If you care to give it attentive examination, you will discover that physicians heal in this same way…98
Arnobius distinguished the healing action of Christ from any other method of healing, paying close attention to divine prescriptions procured in the healing cult. He was careful to point out that Christ healed with no added method, prescription, or instrument, only with the power of his touch and command. Arnobius added, “But it is agreed that Christ did all He did without any paraphernalia...”99 The healing prescriptions that may be procured in the healing cult; including medicine, alterations in diet, or exercise, were analogous to those that Aristides catalogues in his Sacred Tales.100 Moreover, a divine prescription was still a
prescription. Christ did not provide prescriptions. He provided relief from suffering
immediately. Arnobius was emphasizing that Christ eradicated the need for the prescription;
a critical element in the healings at the Asclepieion. Christ healed with the power of touch, while Asclepius healed through the use of prescriptions procured from sleeping in the temple. It seems clear that Arnobius was referring to the healing cult. He followed the list of possible prescriptions with the observation that these cures were not divine or
transcendent since they were not that dissimilar from those obtained from a mortal physician. For Arnobius, prescriptions from the Asclepieion or from the local physician were all subservient to the healing power of Christ. Arnobius was emphasizing that true health can only be discovered by turning to Christ. The health of the body was only one
98 Ibid, 1.48 (McCracken).
99 Arnobius, Against the Pagans 44 (CSEL 4.29).
100 Aristides, Sacred Tales 48.47-48.
part of the equation, by visiting the healing cult the health of one’s soul was in dire peril.
The health that Christ provides, and that Arnobius and earlier church fathers advocated, was the health of the soul in the final resurrection. According to Arnobius, healing cults were not only bereft of cures, good health could not be realized outside Christianity since idolatry could not provide salvation. Health could not be found amongst the unbelievers and could only be restored by Christ the Physician. Thus, Christ’s healings supplanted any other remedy. As one can discover in examining the visual art of the fourth century, Christ’s healing touch is clearly emphasized.
There were still barbs thrown at Asclepius in the fourth century by Christian writers.101 Arnobius’ pupil, Lactantius, followed his teacher in calling Asclepius disgraceful and a chief among demons.102 He credited Asclepius as the founder of medicine, remarking that he found any worship of him as ludicrous as worshiping the inventor of shoemaking.103 Lactantius followed his apologetic forebears in arguing that Asclepius deservingly died by the thunderbolt, for “he was a man, not a god.”104 Eusebius saved some poisonous words for Asclepius, saying that Asclepius “sometimes restored the diseased to health, though on the contrary he was a destroyer of souls, who drew his easily deluded worshipers from the true
101 See Arthur Stanley Pease, “Medical Allusions in the Works of St. Jerome,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 25 (1914), 74. According to Pease, Jerome was directly affected by the multiple references of Christ the Physician that appear in Origen. Scholars point to Origen’s influence as the reason there are even some scattered references to Asclepius in Jerome. Pease believes even these random citations of Asclepius are the reflection of Origen’s writings painting the god as an important opponent, see his 74-75.
102 Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.10.1; 4.27 (CSEL 19.33; 19.387). Written between 303-310 CE. On the matter of Lactantiius’ being one of Arnobius’ pupils (and the doubts raised) see one of W.H.C. Frend’s last essays,
“Some North African Turning Points in Christian Apologetics,” in JEH, vol. 51, no. 1 (January 2006), 1-15.
103 Lactantius, Inst, 1.18.21 (CSEL 19.70).
104 Lactantius, Inst. 1.19.3 (CSEL 19.71).
Savior to involve them in impious error.” 105 Asclepius was “surely no god, but a deceiver of souls who had practiced fraud for many long years.”106
For whatever reason, the attacks on Asclepius in the mid to late fourth and fifth centuries were not as severe as in Tertullian and Arnobius.107 The Asclepius cult continued to have its adherents in the late fourth and fifth centuries.108 Jerome remarked at the faithful crowds that continue to sleep at the area of the old Asclepieion.109 Apparently in the late fourth and fifth centuries, even if the temple was destroyed the area was still attended by believers in the healing god.
With a lack of the robust citations inveighing against Asclepius that authors such as Arnobius provided, the image of Christ the Physician, in text and art, steadily increased in the later fourth century. While not an apologist, Cyril of Jerusalem employed the image of the Physician to his catechumens: “Jesus then means according to the Hebrew ‘Savior,’ but in the Greek tongue ‘The Healer,’ since he is physician of souls and bodies…If, therefore,
105 Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.55-56 (PG 20, 1120-1121; NPNF 2.1.535)). He went on to record in his hagiography of Constantine how the emperor ordered the Asclepieion in Cilicia to be destroyed so “that not even a vestige of the former madness was left remaining there.”
106 Ibid. Eusebius also mentioned the Pindar myth that Tertullian, Clement and Arnobius refer to “…when in the myth he was struck by lightning.”
107 Rudolf Arbesmann, “The Concept of ‘Christus Medicus’ in St. Augustine,” Traditio 10 (1954), 4. Rudolph Arbesmann writes, “The chief target of the Christian writers is no longer the worship of Asclepius, but the Oriental cults of Isis, Mithras, and Sarapis, which now fascinate the masses by the magic spell of their gorgeous and mysterious ritual.” Attention to Isis and Sarapis occurred far earlier than the fourth century, and
Arbesmann does not take the writings and actions of Julian the Apostate into account. Material evidence of Asclepius lessened, as the last coins depicting Asclepius come from the time of the emperor Valerian (253-260 CE). See Otfried Deubner reports this in Das Asklepeion von Pergamon, (Berlin: Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1938), 20.
108 It is apparent in the writings of Julian that Asclepius worship was still prominent. Julian’s friend and teacher Libanius, credited Asclepius with healing his foot, see Libanius, Ep. 1383; Ep. 1303.
109 Jerome, On Isaiah 18.65. Rüttimann on 207 cites the philosopher Plutarch sleeping in the temple in 423 CE (Lucian, Anfänge, 254).
any one is suffering in soul from sins, there is the Physician for him.”110 Cyril emphasized the healing nature of Christ and the fact that he cures both body and soul.
The Physician was a powerful image, and it appears that the image was in greater demand in post-Constantinian Christianity than ever before. Christianity was more established during this period than during the time of Tertullian or Arnobius. Asclepieia were destroyed or overtaken and rededicated by the Christians.111 The persistence and increase of the Physician and Miracle Worker images in text and art indicated an anxiety that the replacement was not actual. With the Asclepius cult less of a problem, Christ still had a significant void to fill. The Christian populace needed to be continually reminded that Christ was the healer par excellence that could embrace them body and soul. The effort of church leaders to restrain people from returning to the pagan fold was ongoing. Late fourth-century Christian leaders were in more of a precarious position than before. They could not afford a misstep and allow the public to fall back into old patterns. Christ must be insisted upon repeatedly as the supreme physician. The most obvious stage to purvey this message to the people was the church pulpit.
In order to answer the vexing question as to why mentions of Asclepius declined in authors of the fourth and fifth centuries while mentions of Christ the Physician skyrocket, one must properly consider the writings of Ambrose and Augustine. Both Ambrose and Augustine profitably utilized the image of Christ the Physician in their writings, especially their sermons. Ambrose and Augustine employed a similar use of language when talking of
110 Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 10.13 (NPNF 2.7.60).
111 The destruction of the Sarapieion in Alexandria at 391 is an oft-cited example of Christian destruction of a pagan temple, but destruction affected the cult of Asclepius as well. For example, the Asclepieion at Corinth was destroyed in the 520s around Alaric’s invasion and rededicated as a Christian church and cemetery. The cult enjoyed some longevity at Corinth. Excavations have unearthed Christian epitaphs at the site. See Roebuck, “The Asklepieion and Lerna,” in Corinth and see the notes in Helen Saradi-Mendelovici’s “Christian Attitudes toward Pagan Monuments in Late Antiquity and Their Legacy in Later Byzantine Centuries,” in DOP, vol. 44, (1990), 47-61.