Entheastiká. Medical accounts of religious madness in the Anonymus Parisinus

Abstract

This article examines the twentieth chapter (Perì entheastikōn) of the 1st-century AD medical treatise Anonymus Parisinus, devoted to a chronic mental disorder whose sufferers believe themselves under divine influence and act on false opinions about the gods. After outlining the nosological context of the work, it analyses the doxographical section reporting the aetiological views of Praxagoras of Cos and a retrospectively constructed “Hippocratic” doctrine. Praxagoras situates the pathology in the heart and aorta, linking it to pneumatic disturbances comparable to those characteristic of epilepsy, mania, and melancholy, and offering a possible pathophysiological correlate of the Peripatetic doctrine of enthousiasmós; the “Hippocratic” view anachronistically frames the disease as a form of melancholy affecting the superstitious, a perspective also paralleled in Erotian’s Hippocratic Lexicon. The paper then examines the author’s description of symptoms – self-mutilation, frenzied movement, collapse in sacred spaces – closely associated with Metroac cult practices, and his distinctive therapeutic programme. This combines dietary measures, avoidance of ritual stimuli, and verbal admonition to correct false beliefs, supported by respected authority figures. The study situates Perì entheastikōn within broader Greco-Roman conceptions of ‘religious madness’ and highlights its pragmatic, practice-oriented approach to treatment.   Keywords: This article examines the twentieth chapter (Perì entheastikōn) of the 1st-century AD medical treatise Anonymus Parisinus, devoted to a chronic mental disorder whose sufferers believe themselves under divine influence and act on false opinions about the gods. After outlining the nosological context of the work, it analyses the doxographical section reporting the aetiological views of Praxagoras of Cos and a retrospectively constructed “Hippocratic” doctrine. Praxagoras situates the pathology in the heart and aorta, linking it to pneumatic disturbances comparable to those characteristic of epilepsy, mania, and melancholy, and offering a possible pathophysiological correlate of the Peripatetic doctrine of enthousiasmós; the “Hippocratic” view anachronistically frames the disease as a form of melancholy affecting the superstitious, a perspective also paralleled in Erotian’s Hippocratic Lexicon. The paper then examines the author’s description of symptoms – self-mutilation, frenzied movement, collapse in sacred spaces – closely associated with Metroac cult practices, and his distinctive therapeutic programme. This combines dietary measures, avoidance of ritual stimuli, and verbal admonition to correct false beliefs, supported by respected authority figures. The study situates Perì entheastikōn within broader Greco-Roman conceptions of ‘religious madness’ and highlights its pragmatic, practice-oriented approach to treatment.