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Galen und Asklepios

Abstract This paper examines the ties between temple healing and the scientific practice of medicine and healing in Antiquity as exemplified in the writings of Galen of Pergamon. This prominent physician, while representing a medical science based on rational principles, seeking precise knowledge of all the workings of the human body and aiming to establish a well-founded and comprehensive therapeutic method, nevertheless considers himself a disciple of Asklepios. Galen’s reference to “our fatherly god Asklepios,” invoking their common Pergamene home, attests to his respect for and close link to the deity. In the face of rare or particularly challenging illnesses or impending vital decisions, Galen the scientist recurs to divine counsel, received from Asklepios by way of dreams. In closing, this paper contrasts the relationship of the scientific practitioner of medicine to his art’s god with the enthused, all-encompassing and directing devotion to Asklepios as extolled in the works of the orator Aelius Aristides, particularly in his Sacred Tales.