The Right Use of Doctors
Medicine is a gift from God even if some people do not make the right use of it.
Granted, it would be stupid to put all hope of a cure in the hands of doctors, yet there are people who stubbornly refuse their help altogether.
Not infrequently, illness is an opportunity to correct one’s faults.
Their correction, though, is an image and symbol of the improvements due to the soul.
We ought not to reject medical skill en bloc but we ought not to trust ourselves completely to it either.
Just as we till the ground but at the same time ask God to make it fertile, just as we leave the guidance of the ship to the steersman but at the same time pray God to save us from the perils of the sea, so we ought to go to the doctor for help without abandoning our faith in the Most High.
Basil the Great, The Greater Rules, 55 (PG31, 1048)
The Right Use of Medicine
All the different sciences and techniques have been given us by God to make up for the deficiencies of nature.
Agriculture is an example, because the produce of the ground does not spring up in sufficient quantity all on its own. The art of weaving is another, because we need clothing both to cover ourselves decently and to protect ourselves from the bite of the cold.
The same holds good for medicine.
The body is subject to innumerable ills. Sometimes it lacks food, at other times it has too much. So God the governor of life has made us the gift of medicine, the skill to remove what is superfluous and to supply what is lacking, and in this way to be a symbol of the art of healing our souls.
Not by chance does the earth produce plants that have healing properties. It is clearly evident that the Creator wants to give them to us to use.
So much then for doctors and their prescriptions. The Christian, in accepting their healing, knows how they reveal the glory of God and sees in them a mirror of the healing that is needed by the soul.
Basil the Great, The Greater Rules, 55 (PG31, 1044)
~Thomas Spidlik, Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary, Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World
