THE ATTRIBUTION OF DISEASE TO
SATANIC INFLUENCE.—"PASTORAL MEDICINE" CHECKS SCIENTIFIC EFFORT.
Especially prejudicial to a true development of medical
science among the first Christians was their attribution of
disease to diabolic influence. As we have seen, this idea had
come from far, and, having prevailed in Chaldea, Egypt, and
Persia, had naturally entered into the sacred books of the
Hebrews. Moreover, St. Paul had distinctly declared that the gods
of the heathen were devils; and everywhere the early Christians
saw in disease the malignant work of these dethroned powers of
evil. The Gnostic and Manichaean struggles had ripened the
theologic idea that, although at times diseases are punishments
by the Almighty, the main agency in them is Satanic. The great
fathers and renowned leaders of the early Church accepted and
strengthened this idea. Origen said: "It is demons which produce
famine, unfruitfulness, corruptions of the air, pestilences; 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." St. Augustine said: "All diseases of Christians
are to be ascribed to these demons; chiefly do they torment
fresh-baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless, newborn
infants." Tertullian insisted that a malevolent angel is in
constant attendance upon every person. Gregory of Nazianzus
declared that bodily pains are provoked by demons, and that
medicines are useless, but that they are often cured by the
laying on of consecrated hands. St. Nilus and St. Gregory of
Tours, echoing St. Ambrose, gave examples to show the sinfulness
of resorting to medicine instead of trusting to the intercession
of saints.
St. Bernard, in a letter to certain monks, warned them that
to seek relief from disease in medicine was in harmony neither
with their religion nor with the honour and purity of their
order. This view even found its way into the canon law, which
declared the precepts of medicine contrary to Divine knowledge. As
a rule, the leaders of the Church discouraged the theory that diseases
are due to natural causes, and most of them deprecated a resort to
surgeons and physicians rather than to supernatural means.
Out of these and similar considerations was developed the
vast system of "pastoral medicine," so powerful not only through
the Middle Ages, but even in modern times, both among Catholics
and Protestants. As to its results, we must bear in mind that,
while there is no need to attribute the mass of stories regarding
miraculous cures to conscious fraud, there was without doubt, at
a later period, no small admixture of belief biased by
self-interest, with much pious invention and suppression of
facts. Enormous revenues flowed into various monasteries and
churches in all parts of Europe from relics noted for their
healing powers. Every cathedral, every great abbey, and nearly
every parish church claimed possession of healing relics. While,
undoubtedly, a childlike faith was at the bottom of this belief,
there came out of it unquestionably a great development of the
mercantile spirit. The commercial value of sundry relics was
often very high. In the year 1056 a French ruler pledged
securities to the amount of ten thousand solidi for the
production of the relics of St. Just and St. Pastor, pending a
legal decision regarding the ownership between him and the
Archbishop of Narbonne. The Emperor of Germany on one occasion
demanded, as a sufficient pledge for the establishment of a city
market, the arm of St. George. The body of St. Sebastian brought
enormous wealth to the Abbey of Soissons; Rome, Canterbury,
Treves, Marburg, every great city, drew large revenues from
similar sources, and the Venetian Republic ventured very
considerable sums in the purchase of relics.
Naturally, then, corporations, whether lay or ecclesiastical,
which drew large revenue from relics looked with little favour
on a science which tended to discredit their investments.
Nowhere, perhaps, in Europe can the philosophy of this
development of fetichism be better studied to-day than at
Cologne. At the cathedral, preserved in a magnificent shrine
since about the twelfth century, are the skulls of the Three
Kings, or Wise Men of the East, who, guided by the star of
Bethlehem, brought gifts to the Saviour. These relics were an
enormous source of wealth to the cathedral chapter during many
centuries. But other ecclesiastical bodies in that city were both
pious and shrewd, and so we find that not far off, at the church
of St. Gereon, a cemetery has been dug up, and the bones
distributed over the walls as the relics of St. Gereon and his
Theban band of martyrs! Again, at the neighbouring church of St.
Ursula, we have the later spoils of another cemetery, covering
the interior walls of the church as the bones of St. Ursula and
her eleven thousand virgin martyrs: the fact that many of them, as
anatomists now declare, are the bones of men does not appear in
the Middle Ages to have diminished their power of competing with
the relics at the other shrines in healing efficiency.
No error in the choice of these healing means seems to have
diminished their efficacy. When Prof. Buckland, the eminent
osteologist and geologist, discovered that the relics of St.
Rosalia at Palermo, which had for ages cured diseases and warded
off epidemics, were the bones of a goat, this fact caused not the
slightest diminution in their miraculous power.
Other developments of fetich cure were no less discouraging
to the evolution of medical science. Very important among these
was the Agnus Dei, or piece of wax from the Paschal candles,
stamped with the figure of a lamb and Consecrated by the Pope. In
1471 Pope Paul II expatiated to the Church on the efficacy of
this fetich in preserving men from fire, shipwreck, tempest,
lightning, and hail, as well as in assisting women in childbirth;
and he reserved to himself and his successors the manufacture of
it. Even as late as 1517 Pope Leo X issued, for a consideration,
tickets bearing a cross and the following inscription: "This
cross measured forty times makes the height of Christ in his
humanity. He who kisses it is preserved for seven days from
fallingsickness, apoplexy, and sudden death."
Naturally, the belief thus sanctioned by successive heads of
the Church, infallible in all teaching regarding faith and
morals, created a demand for amulets and charms of all kinds; and
under this influence we find a reversion to old pagan fetiches.
Nothing, on the whole, stood more Constantly in the way of any
proper development of medical science than these fetich cures,
whose efficacy was based on theological reasoning and sanctioned
by ecclesiastical policy. It would be expecting too much from
human nature to imagine that pontiffs who derived large revenues
from the sale of the Agnus Dei, or priests who derived both
wealth and honours from cures wrought at shrines under their
care, or lay dignitaries who had invested heavily in relics,
should favour the development of any science which undermined
their interests.
