Limbajul medical antic în slujba vindecării spirituale: repere în opera Sfântului Luca
Ancient Medical Language in the Service of Spiritual Healing: Highlights from the Work of Saint Luke

Summary/Abstract: The present paper aims to examine the medical language of Saint Luke, drawing both from the Church’s documentary tradition about his profession as a ‘beloved physician’ and from the content of his two works: the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. In this context, his collaboration with Saint Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, plays a very important role, especially during his missionary journeys and the time of his Roman imprisonments. The author uses certain words and expressions that are much more precise in describing the healing miracles performed by Jesus Christ and the diseases, compared to other biblical writers – terms that only someone from the medical field could use, reflecting knowledge of the technical medical language found in existing Greek medical works. Furthermore, within Luke’s narrative, we can identify certain words and expressions that, while not directly referring to medical subjects, were common in the phraseology of Greek medical schools and would likely be used by a physician due to his training and habits. Moreover, it can be observed that, independent of obvious medical expressions and beyond a specific type of language tied to medical education, there are some words or phrases in Luke’s work that deal with non-professional subjects but still belong to the register familiar to Greek medical writers.

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