THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
"The Alchemist may doubt the shining gold
His crucible pours out,
But faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood,
Hugs it to the last."
"Death is the cure of all diseases. There is no _catholicon_
or universal remedy I know, but this, which though nauseous
to queasy stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is nectar, and
a pleasant potion of immortality."--BROWNE.
"I'll tell you what now of the Devil:
He's no such horrid creature; cloven-footed,
Black, saucer-ey'd, his nostrils breathing fire,
As these lying Christians make him."--MASSINGER.
"If the cure be wrought, what matters it to the happy
invalid ... whether the cure is wrought by the touch of
the Divine hand or the overpowering influence of a great
idea upon the nervous system? If our hunger be appeased,
it matters little whether it is by manna rained down
from heaven, or a wheaten loaf raised from the harvest
field. Miraculous water from the rock does not quench
the thirst better than that which bubbles from the
village spring."--BERDOE.
The advent of the Christian religion into the world, while purporting
to minister especially to the spiritual life, had a wide-reaching and
potent influence on the art of healing the body. We cannot sum up the
effect by saying that this influence was either wholly good or
bad--its relation to therapeutics was a mixed one. It can be
truthfully said that nothing has retarded the science of medicine
during the past two thousand years so much as the iron grip of
decadent orthodoxy, and, on the other hand, no power has caused men
and women so to sacrifice time, money, and even life itself for the
care and nurture of the sick, as the example and precepts of Jesus
Christ.
For eighteen centuries this paradoxical position was held by the
church, and the antithetical attitudes of hindrance and help continued
to exist. As valuable as was the spirit instilled into the hearts of
His followers by the tenderness of the Master, it was never sufficient
to counterbalance the deterrent effects of the religion which they
espoused. The retardation was caused by two related beliefs which
permeated the church: The first was the doctrine of the power of
demons in the lives of men, especially in the production of disease;
and the second was the prevalence of the idea of the possibility and
probability of the performance of miracles, particularly in the
healing of diseases.
A rather complicated science of demonology had come down from
primitive sources through Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek
civilization, although the demons of the Greeks were principally good
spirits. At the time of Christ, however, the Jews were the most ardent
advocates of demonology, and hence the chief exorcists. They expelled
demons partly by adjuration and partly by means of a certain
miraculous root named Baaras. They considered it nothing at all out
of the ordinary to meet men who were possessed by demons, and just as
common an experience to see them healed by having the demon exorcised.
Josephus assures us that in the reign of Vespasian he had himself seen
a Jew named Eleazar perform an exorcism; by means of adjuration and
the Baaras root he drew a demon through the nostrils of a possessed
person, who fell to the ground on the accomplishment of the miracle,
while on the command of the magician the demon, to prove that it had
really left its victim, threw down a cup of water which had been
placed at a distance.
Knowing as we do the close relationship between Judaism and
Christianity, it does not surprise us to discover that the Christians
inherited the doctrine and practice of the Jews in this matter. This
is more readily understood when we remember the connection of Jesus
with cases of demoniacal possession, and Paul's frequent references to
the spirits of the air. Following the example of their Master,
Christians everywhere became exorcists. Through the influence of
Philo's writings, Jewish demonology was propagated among Christian
converts, and the Gnostics quickly absorbed and spread the notion of
preternatural interposition. Next to the belief in the second coming
of Christ, the doctrine which most influenced the action of the early
church was that of a spiritual world and its hierarchy. Terrestrial
things were ruled by all sorts of spiritual beings.
Some philosophers, as well as the founders of different religions,
expelled demons, and the Christians fully recognized the power
possessed by the Jewish and gentile exorcists; the followers of
Christ, however, claimed to be in many respects the superior of all
others. The fathers maintained the reality of all pagan miracles as
fully as their own, except that doubt was sometimes cast on some forms
of healing and prophecy. Demons which had resisted all the
enchantments of the pagans might be cast out, oracles could be
silenced, and unclean spirits compelled to acknowledge the truth of
the Christian faith by the Christians, who simply made the sign of the
cross, or repeated the name of the Master.
The power of the Christian exorcists was shown by still more wonderful
feats. Demons, which were sometimes supposed to enter animals, were
expelled. St. Hilarion (288-371), we are told, courageously confronted
and relieved a possessed camel. "The great St. Ambrose [340-397] tells
us that a priest, while saying mass, was troubled by the croaking of
frogs in a neighboring marsh; that he exorcised them, and so stopped
their noise. St. Bernard [1091-1153], as the monkish chroniclers tell
us, mounting the pulpit to preach in his abbey, was interrupted by a
crowd of flies; straightway the saint uttered the sacred formula of
excommunication, when the flies fell dead upon the pavement in heaps,
and were cast out with shovels! A formula of exorcism attributed to a
saint of the ninth century, which remained in use down to a recent
period, especially declares insects injurious to crops to be possessed
of evil spirits, and names, among the animals to be excommunicated or
exorcised, moles, mice, and serpents. The use of exorcism against
caterpillars and grasshoppers was also common. In the thirteenth
century a bishop of Lausanne, finding that the eels in Lake Leman
troubled the fishermen, attempted to remove the difficulty by
exorcism, and two centuries later one of his successors excommunicated
all the May-bugs in the diocese. As late as 1731 there appears an
entry on the municipal register of Thonon as follows: '_Resolved_,
that this town join with other parishes of this province in obtaining
from Rome an excommunication against the insects, and that it will
contribute _pro rata_ to the expense of the same.'"
Scripture was cited to prove the diabolical character of some animals
during the Middle Ages. Says White: "Did anyone venture to deny that
animals could be possessed by Satan, he was at once silenced by
reference to the entrance of Satan into the serpent in the Garden of
Eden, and to the casting of devils into swine by the Founder of
Christianity himself."[3]
Notwithstanding the pleasing theory adopted by the earlier Christian
writers that the powers of darkness were unable to harm the faithful
without the permission of divinity, to whom demoniacal spirits were
ultimately subjected, unlimited power was conceded to those beings who
existed under divine sanction. Demoniacal aeons or emanations were
acknowledged to be the primitive source of earthly sufferings,
pestilence among men, sickness and other bodily afflictions, but
inflicted with the consent of God, whose messengers they were.
Early Christian writers boldly asserted that all the disorders of the
world originated with the devil and his sinister companions, because
they were stirred with the unholy desire to obtain associates in their
miseries. It was impossible to fix a limit to the number of these
malevolent spirits constantly provoking diseases and infirmities upon
men. They were alleged to surround mankind so densely that each person
had a thousand to his right and ten thousand to the left of him.
Endowed with the subtlest activity, they were able to reach the
remotest points of earth in the twinkling of an eye.
According to Salverte, Tatian, a sincere defender of Christianity, who
lived in the second century, "does not deny the wonderful cures
effected by the priests of the temples of the Polytheists; he only
attempts to explain them by supposing that the pagan gods were actual
demons, and that they introduced disease into the body of a healthy
man, announcing to him, in a dream, that he should be cured if he
implored their assistance; and then, by terminating the evil which
they themselves had produced, they obtained the glory of having worked
the miracle."[4]
So firm was the belief that Christians could exorcise these demons
that from the time of Justin Martyr (100-163), for about two
centuries, there is not a single Christian writer who does not
solemnly and explicitly assert the reality and frequent employment of
this power. In his Second Apology, Justin says: "And now you can learn
this from what is under your own observation. For numberless demoniacs
throughout the whole world, and in your city, many of our Christian
men exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified
under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal, rendering helpless and
driving the possessing demons out of the men, though they could not be
cured by all the other exorcists, and those who used incantations and
drugs."
Irenaeus (130-202) held that mankind, through transgressions of divine
command, fell absolutely from the time of Adam into the power of
Satan. On the other hand, he assures us that all Christians possessed
the power of working miracles; that they prophesied, cast out devils,
healed the sick, and sometimes even raised the dead; that some who had
been thus resuscitated lived for many years among them, and that it
would be impossible to reckon the wonderful acts that were daily
performed.[5]
Tertullian (160-220) insisted that a malevolent angel was in constant
attendance upon every person, but in writing to the pagans in a time
of persecution he challenged his opponents to bring forth any person
who was possessed by a demon or any of those prophets or virgins who
were supposed to be inspired by a divinity. He asserted that all
demons would be compelled to confess their diabolical character when
questioned by any Christians, and invited the pagans, if it were
otherwise, to put the Christian immediately to death, for this, he
thought, was the simplest and most decisive demonstration of the
faith.
Lecky tells us of the attitude of the fathers toward demonism in the
following words: "Justin Martyr, Origen, Lactantius, Athanasius, and
Minucius Felix, all in language equally solemn and explicit, call upon
the pagans to form their own opinions from the confessions wrung from
their own gods. We hear from them, that when a Christian began to
pray, to make the sign of the cross, or to utter the name of his
Master in the presence of a possessed or inspired person, the latter,
by screams and frightful contortions, exhibited the torture that was
inflicted, and by this torture the evil spirit was compelled to avow
its nature. Several of the Christian writers declare that this was
generally known to pagans."[6]
Origen (185-254) said: "It is demons which produce famine,
unfruitfulness, corruptions of the air, pestilence; they hover
concealed in clouds in the lower atmosphere, and are attracted by the
blood and incense which the heathen offer to them as gods." He
thought, though, that Raphael had special care of the sick and the
infirm. Cyprian (186-258) charged that demons caused luxations and
fractures of the limbs, undermined the health, and harassed with
diseases. Up to this time it was the privilege of any Christian to
exorcise demons, but Pope Fabian (236-250) assigned a definite name
and functions to exorcists as a separate order. To-day the priest has
included in his ordination vows those of exorcist. Gregory of
Nazianzus (329-390) declared that bodily pains are provoked by demons,
and that medicines are useless, but that demoniacs are often cured by
laying on of consecrated hands. St. Augustine (354-430) said: "All
diseases of Christians are to be ascribed to these demons; chiefly do
they torment fresh-baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless
new-born infants."
Baltus[7] says: "De tous les anciens auteurs ecclesiastiques, n'y en
ayant pas un qui n'ait parle de ce pouvoir admirable que les Chretiens
avoient de chasser les demons," and Gregory of Tours (538-594) says
that exorcism was common in his time, having himself seen a monk named
Julian cure by his words a possessed person. This testimony of
Gregory's concerning the prevalence of exorcisms at the end of the
sixth century is interesting in view of the facts that the Council of
Laodicea, in the fourth century, forbade any one to exorcise, except
those duly authorized by the bishop, and that in the very beginning of
the fifth century a physician named Posidonius denied the existence of
possession. The fathers of the church, however, ridiculed the solemn
assertion of physicians that many of these alleged demoniacal
infirmities were attributable to material agencies, and were fully
persuaded in their own minds that demons took possession of the
organism of the human body.
At about this time, such a broad-minded man as Gregory the Great
(540-604) solemnly related that a nun, having eaten some lettuce without
making the sign of the cross, swallowed a devil, and that, when
commanded by a holy man to come forth, the devil replied: "How am I to
blame? I was sitting on the lettuce, and this woman, not having made the
sign of the cross, ate me along with it." This is but an example of the
ideas concerning the entrance of demons into the possessed.[8] Besides
the possibility of being taken into the mouth with one's food, they
might enter while the mouth was opened to breathe. Exorcists were
therefore careful to keep their mouths closed when casting out evil
spirits, lest the imps should jump into their mouths from the mouths of
the patients. Another theory was that the devil entered human beings
during sleep, and at a comparatively recent period a king of Spain,
Charles II (1661-1700), kept off the devil while asleep by the presence
of his confessor and two friars.[9]
Shortly before the reign of Gregory, there came into vogue the fashion
of exorcising demons by means of a written formula rather than by the
earlier means of making the sign of the cross and invoking the name of
Jesus. The theory of demonology was never very clear nor consistent.
By some it was claimed that in the practice of the magical arts evil
spirits provided cure for sickness, others maintained that they could
not heal any diseases, and hence the true test of Christianity was the
ability to cure bodily ills. A compromise position was that demons
were only successful in eliminating diseases which they had themselves
caused. There was not a little doubt in some cases about the character
of the possessing spirits, and it behooved people to be careful;
demons might use men as habitations, and while posing as good angels
vitiate health and provoke disease.
At the beginning of the seventh century, we have an account of an
exorcism by St. Gall (556-640), and during the Carlovingian age the
healing at Monte Cassino was based on the Satanic origin of disease.
When the conversion of northern races to Christianity began,
demonology received a stimulus. An unlimited number of demons, similar
in individuality and prowess, were substituted for the pagan demons,
and the pagan gods were added as additional demons. When proselytes
were taken into the church, care was taken to exorcise all evil
spirits. During the baptismal service the Satanic hosts, as
originators of sin, vice, and maladies, were expelled by insufflation
of the officiating clergyman, the sign of the cross, and the
invocation of the Triune Deity. The earliest formulas for such
expulsion directed a double exhalation of the priest.[10]
In all epidemics of the Middle Ages, such persons as were afflicted by
pestilent diseases were declared contaminated by the devil, and
carried to churches and chapels, a dozen at a time, securely bound
together. They were thrown upon the floor, where they lay, according
to the attestation of a pitying chronicler, until dead or restored to
health.
Unsound mind was universally accepted as a specific distinction of
diabolical power, and caused by the corporeal presence of an impure
spirit. Imbeciles and the insane were, throughout the Middle Ages,
especially conceded to be the abode of avenging and frenzied demons.
In aggravated cases, the actual presence of the medicinal saint was
necessary; in less vexatious maladies, the bare imposition of hands,
accompanied by plaintive prayer, quickly healed the diseased.[11]
As early as the fifth century before Christ, Hippocrates of Cos
asserted that madness was simply a disease of the brain, but
notwithstanding the reiteration of this scientific truth the church
repudiated it, and as late as the Reformation, Martin Luther
maintained that not only was insanity caused by diabolical influences,
but that "Satan produces all the maladies which afflict mankind." Even
much later, however, when other diseases were assigned a physical
origin, insanity was still thought to be demoniacal possession. As
late as Bossuet's time, lunacy was thought to be the work of demons.
The cultured and progressive Bishop of Meaux, while trying to throw
off the shackles of superstition, delivered and published two great
sermons in which demoniacal possession is defended. To show how the
idea has clung, notwithstanding the advancement and enlightenment of
late years, we may notice a trial which took place at Wemding, in
southern Germany, in 1892, of which White tells us.
"A boy had become hysterical, and the Capuchin Father
Aurelian tried to exorcise him, and charged a peasant's
wife, Frau Herz, with bewitching him, on evidence that
would have cost the woman her life at any time during
the seventeenth century. Thereupon the woman's husband
brought suit against Father Aurelian for slander. The
latter urged in his defence that the boy was possessed
of an evil spirit, if anybody ever was; that what had
been said and done was in accordance with the rules and
regulations of the Church, as laid down in decrees,
formulas, and rituals sanctioned by popes, councils,
and innumerable bishops during ages. All in vain. The
court condemned the good father to fine and
imprisonment."[12]
I cannot refrain from quoting in this connection the now famous
epitaph of Lord Westbury's, suggested by the decision given by him as
Lord Chancellor in the case against Mr. Wilson in which it was charged
that the latter denied the doctrine of eternal punishment. The court
decided that it did "not find in the formularies of the English Church
any such distinct declaration upon the subject as to require it to
punish the expression of a hope by a clergyman that even the ultimate
pardon of the wicked who are condemned in the day of judgment may be
consistent with the will of Almighty God." The following is the
epitaph:
"RICHARD BARON WESTBURY,
Lord High Chancellor of England.
He was an eminent Christian,
An energetic and merciful Statesman,
And a still more eminent and merciful Judge.
During his three years' tenure of office
He abolished the ancient method of conveying land,
The time-honored institution of the Insolvents' Court,
And
The Eternity of Punishment.
Toward the close of his earthly career,
In the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,
He dismissed Hell with costs,
And took away from Orthodox members of the
Church of England
Their last hope of everlasting damnation."[13]
In the Middle Ages there was a strange and incongruous mixture of
medicine and exorcism. Notice the following prescriptions:
"If an elf or a goblin come, smear his forehead with
this salve, put it on his eyes, cense him with incense,
and sign him frequently with the sign of the cross."
"For a fiend-sick man: When a devil possesses a man, or
controls him from within with disease, a spew-drink of
lupin, bishopwort, henbane, garlic. Pound these
together, add ale and holy water."
"A drink for a fiend-sick man, to be drunk out of a
church bell: Githrife, cynoglossum, yarrow, lupin,
flower-de-luce, fennel, lichen, lovage. Work up to a
drink with clear ale, sing seven masses over it, add
garlic and holy water, and let the possessed sing the
_Beati Immaculati_; then let him drink the dose out of a
church bell, and let the priest sing over him the
_Domine Sancte Pater Omnipotens_."[14]
Three methods of driving out demons from the insane were used: the
main weapon against the devil and his angels has always been exorcism
by means of ecclesiastical formula and signs. These formulas
degenerated at one time to the vilest cursings, threatenings, and
vulgarities. A second means was by an effort to disgust the demon and
wound his pride. This might simply precede the exorcism proper. To
accomplish this purpose of offending the demons, the most blasphemous
and obscene epithets were used by the exorcist, which were allowable
and perfectly proper when addressing demons. Most of these are so
indecent that they cannot be printed, but the following are some
examples:
"Thou lustful and stupid one,... thou lean sow,
famine-stricken and most impure,... thou wrinkled beast,
thou mangy beast, thou beast of all beasts the most
beastly,... thou mad spirit,... thou bestial and foolish
drunkard,... most greedy wolf,... most abominable
whisperer,... thou sooty spirit from Tartarus!... I cast
thee down, O Tartarean boor,... into the infernal
kitchen!... Loathsome cobbler,... dingy collier,...
filthy sow (_scrofa stercorata_),... perfidious boar,...
envious crocodile,... malodorous drudge,... wounded
basilisk,... rust-colored asp,... swollen toad,...
entangled spider,... lousy swineherd (_porcarie
pedicose_),... lowest of the low,... cudgelled ass,"
etc.[15]
The pride of the demon was also to be wounded by the use of the
vilest-smelling drugs, by trampling underfoot and spitting upon the
picture of the devil, or even by sprinkling upon it foul compounds.
Some even tried to scare the demon by using large-sounding words and
names.
The third method of exorcism was punishment. The attempt was
frequently made to scourge the demon out of the body. The exorcism was
more effective if the name of the demon could be ascertained. If
successful in procuring the name, it was written on a piece of paper
and burned in a fire previously blessed, which caused the demons to
suffer all the torments in the accompanying exorcisms. All forms of
torture were employed, and in the great cities of Europe, "witch
towers," where witches and demoniacs were tortured, and "fool towers,"
where the more gentle lunatics were imprisoned, may still be seen.
The treatment of the insane in the Middle Ages is one of the darkest
blots on the growing civilization.
The exorcism being completed, when some of the weaker demons were put
to flight an after service was held in which everything belonging to
the patient was exorcised, so that the demon might not hide there and
return to the patient. The exorcised demons were forbidden to return,
and the demons remaining in the body were commanded to leave all the
remainder of the body, and to descend into the little toe of the right
foot, and there to rest quietly.
After the Reformation, two contests shaped themselves in the matter of
exorcisms. The Protestants and the Roman Catholics vied with each
other in the power, rapidity, and duration of the exorcisms. Both put
forth miraculous claims, and with as much energy denied the power of
the other. They agreed in one thing, and that was the erroneous
position and teaching of the physicians. This, however, was but a
continuation of that rivalry between the advancement of science and
the conservation of theology, which is as old as history. In our
examination of the influence of Christianity upon mental healing, it
may be well for us to glance at the discouraging attitude of
Christianity toward medicine.[16]
The usurpation of healing by the church, which was a most serious
drawback to the therapeutic art, will be traced in the following
chapters; there are, however, some other ways in which the church
retarded the work of physicians. Chief among these was the theory
propagated by Christians that it was unlawful to meddle with the
bodies of the dead. This theory came down from ancient times, but was
eagerly accepted by the church, principally on account of the doctrine
of the bodily resurrection. In addition to this, surgery was forbidden
because the Church of Rome adopted the maxim that "the church abhors
the shedding of blood." A recent English historian has remarked that
of all organizations in human history, the Church of Rome has caused
the spilling of most innocent blood, but it refused to allow the
surgeons to spill a drop.
Monks were prohibited the practice of surgery in 1248, and by
subsequent councils, and all dissections were considered sacrilege.
Surgery was considered dishonorable until the fifteenth or sixteenth
centuries. The use of medicine was also discouraged. Down through the
centuries a few churchmen and many others, especially Jews and Arabs,
took up the study. The church authorities did everything possible to
thwart it. Supernatural means were so abundant that the use of drugs
was not only irreligious but superfluous. Monks who took medicine were
punished, and physicians in the thirteenth century could not treat
patients without calling in ecclesiastical advice.
We are told that in the reign of Philip II of Spain a famous Spanish
doctor was actually condemned by the Inquisition to be burnt for
having performed a surgical operation, and it was only by royal favor
that he was permitted instead to expiate his crime by a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land, where he died in poverty and exile.
This restriction was continued for three centuries, and consequently
threw medical work into the hands of charlatans among Christians, and
of Jews. The clergy of the city of Hall protested that "it were better
to die with Christ than to be cured by a Jew doctor aided by the
devil." The Jesuit professor, Stengal, said that God permits illness
because of His wish to glorify Himself through the miracles wrought by
the church, and His desire to test the faith of men by letting them
choose between the holy aid of the church and the illicit resort to
medicine.
There was another reason for the antagonism of the church to
physicians; the physicians in this case were inside the church. The
monks converted medicine to the basest uses. In connection with the
authority of the church, it was employed for extorting money from the
sick. They knew little or nothing about medicine, so used charms,
amulets, and relics in healing. The ignorance and cupidity of the
monks led the Lateran Council, under the pontificate of Calixtus II,
in 1123, to forbid priests and monks to attend the sick otherwise than
as ministers of religion. It had little or no effect, so that Innocent
II, in a council at Rheims in 1131, enforced the decree prohibiting
the monks frequenting schools of medicine, and directing them to
confine their practice to their own monasteries. They still disobeyed,
and a Lateran Council in 1139 threatened all who neglected its orders
with the severest penalties and suspension from the exercise of all
ecclesiastical functions; such practices were denounced as a neglect
of the sacred objects of their profession in exchange for ungodly
lucre. When the priests found that they could no longer confine the
practice of medicine to themselves, it was stigmatized and denounced.
At the Council of Tours in 1163, Alexander III maintained that through
medicine the devil tried to seduce the priesthood, and threatened with
excommunication any ecclesiastic who studied medicine. In 1215,
Innocent III fulminated an anathema against surgery and any priest
practising it. Even this was not effectual.[17]
What we see in connection with dissection and surgery and medicine was
repeated at a later date with inoculation, vaccination, and
anaesthetics. There were the same objections by the church on
theological grounds, the same stubborn battle, and the same
inevitable defeat of the theological position.
So long as disease was attributed to a demoniacal cause, so long did
exorcisms and other miraculous cures continue, and so far as these
cures were efficacious, they must be classed as mental healing.
Probably they continued longer in insanity and mental derangement on
account of the beneficent and soothing effect of religion upon a
diseased mind. Priestly cures of all kinds were largely, if not
wholly, suggestive, and no history of mental healing would be complete
without a resume of ecclesiastical therapeutics. Many vagaries of
healing which the church introduced might be mentioned to show to what
extent the people may be misled in the name of religion. For example,
the doctrine of signatures, to be later discussed, was disseminated by
priests and monks, and if these medicines were ever effective it must
have been by mental means.
The demon theory of disease, which began before the age of history,
and continued down through the savage ages and religions, through the
early civilizations, through the gospel history, and dominated early
Christianity, was finally, in the sixteenth century, to be vigorously
assailed and largely overcome. The cost of this was considerable;
attached as it was to the Christian church, it seemed necessary to
destroy the whole Christian fabric in order to unravel this one
thread. Atheism, therefore, was rampant, and science and atheism
became almost synonymous, and continued so until the church freed
science from its centuries of bondage and allowed it to develop so as
to be again in these days a co-laborer.
In pleasing contrast to the destructive and deterrent efforts of the
church against the development of medicine is the helpful care of the
sick exercised by Christians. The example of Jesus as shown by his
tender sympathy, his helpful acts, and his instruction to his
followers, bore fruit in the relief and care of sufferers by
individuals and religious asylums. About the year 1000 and later, the
infirmaries which were attached to numerous monasteries, and the
_hospitia_ along the routes of travel which opened their doors to sick
pilgrims, were but the development of a less portentous attempt on the
part of individuals and societies to care for the sick. The Knights of
St. John, or the Hospitalers as they were called, assumed as their
special duty the nursing and doctoring of those in need of such
attention, especially of sick and infirm pilgrims and crusaders.
Hospitals for the sick, orphanages for foundlings, and great
institutions for the proper care of paupers developed with immense
strides, and during the twelfth century expanded into gigantic
proportions. In the ensuing age, the mediaeval mind was fired with a
faith in the efficacy of unstinted charity; members of society, from
holy pontiff to the humblest recluse by the wayside, rivalled each
other in gratuities of clothing and food, founding of hospitals, and
endowment of beneficent public institutions. St. Louis's highest claim
to pious glory arose from his restless and unstinted charities to the
indigent and sick. Even the lepers, which were shunned or segregated,
were treated by Christian institutions; and saints and saintesses
found pious expression for their humility in personal attendance and
even loving embraces of these unsightly beings covered with repulsive
sores. For the last millennium there has not been a time when
Christian love and benevolence have not sought the opportunity of
ministering to the sick.
One can easily recognize the effect which this fact would have on
mental healing. The church fostered the ideas of exorcism and the
cures by relics and shrines, and deprecated the use of medicine. If
the hospitals and infirmaries were almost wholly in the hands of the
monks and churchmen, there was little hope for the development of
other than ecclesiastical mental healing. The untold good which
Christian ministrations to the sick accomplished must be acknowledged,
but it was not an unmixed benefit to the race as a whole.
We may more easily see, perhaps, the connection between the church and
the development of medicine, and the despotic power of the church in
this regard, when we remember that physicians were formerly a part of
the clergy, and it was not until 1542 that the papal legate in France
gave them permission to marry. In 1552 the doctors in law obtained
like permission. An early priestly physician has survived to fame by
the name of Elpideus, sometimes confused with Elpidius Rusticus. He
was both a deacon of the church and a skilled surgeon, and was very
favorably mentioned by St. Ennodius as a person of fine culture. He
was sufficiently dexterous and skilful to heal the Gothic ruler,
Theodoric, of a grievous illness.[18] Salverte gives us additional
examples: "Richard Fitz-Nigel, who died Bishop of London, in 1198, had
been apothecary to Henry II. The celebrated Roger Bacon, who
flourished in the thirteenth century, although a monk, yet practised
medicine. Nicolas de Farnham, a physician to Henry III, was created
Bishop of Durham; and many doctors of medicine were at various times
elevated to ecclesiastical dignities."[19]
The grip of the church accomplished its purpose, and science,
especially the science of medicine, was strangled, almost to the
death. Even the people of the time recognized the shortcomings of the
physicians. Henricus Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), writing in 1530,
said with pleasant irony that physic was "a certaine Arte of
manslaughter," and that "well neare alwaies there is more daunger in
the Physition and the Medicine than in the sicknesse itselfe." He also
gives the following picture of a fashionable doctor of his time: "Clad
in brave apparaile, having ringes on his fingers glimmeringe with
pretious stoanes, and which hath gotten fame and credence for having
been in farre countries, or having an obstinate manner of vaunting
with stiffe lies that he hath great remedies, and for having
continually in his mouth many wordes halfe Greeke and barbarous....
But this will prove to be true, that Physitians moste commonlye be
naught. They have one common honour with the hangman, that is to saye,
to kill menne and to be recompensed therefore."[20]
[3] A. D. White, _History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology_, II, p. 113.
[4] E. Salverte, _Philosophy of Magic_ (trans.
Thompson), II, p. 94.
[5] W. E. H. Lecky, _History of European Morals_, I, p.
378.
[6] _Ibid._, I, p. 383.
[7] _Reponse a l'histoire des oracles_, p. 296.
[8] A. D. White, _History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology_, II, p. 101.
[9] H. T. Buckle, _History of Civilization in England_,
II, p. 270.
[10] G. F. Fort, _History of Medical Economy During the
Middle Ages_, p. 201.
[11] For a full discussion of this subject, see A. D.
White, _History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology_, II, pp. 97-134.
[12] A. D. White, _History of the Warfare of Science
with Theology_, II, p. 128.
[13] Nash, _Life of Lord Westbury_, II, p. 78.
[14] Cockayne, _Leechdoms, Wort-cunning, and Star-craft
of Early England_, II, p. 177.
[15] M. H. Dziewicki, "Exorcizo Te," _Nineteenth
Century_, XXIV, p. 580.
[16] For a full discussion of this subject, see A. D.
White, _History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology_, II, pp. 1-167.
[17] T. J. Pettigrew, _Superstitions Connected with the
History and Practice of Surgery and Medicine_, pp. 51 f.
[18] G. F. Fort, _History of Medical Economy During the
Middle Ages_, pp. 142 f.
[19] E. Salverte, _Philosophy of Magic_ (trans.
Thompson), II, p. 96.
[20] E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine," _Nineteenth
Century_, XXXIV, p. 151.
For further references to the effect of demonism, see J.
F. Nevius, _Demon Possession and Allied Themes_; J. M.
Peebles, _The Demonism of the Ages and Spirit
Obsessions_; articles on "Demon," "Demonism,"
"Demoniacal Possession," and "Devil," in the _Catholic
Encyclopedia_, the _New International Encyclopedia_, and
the _Encyclopedia Britannica_.