> On Fri, 1 Nov 1996, Julie Hotchin wrote:
>
> > Some time back there was a discussion about "heroic asceticism" and John
> > refered to a canon about how people who were ill should first go to a priest
> > before they went to a doctor, as illness could be caused by sin. Your
> > context was the prevalence of cathar & waldensian doctors, who obviously
> > were considered a threat to people's spiritual welfare.
the most obvious and dangerous source of such spiritual polution were
Jewish doctors, and i seem to remember a number of statements to the effect
that it was better to die of illness than be healed by a Jew. it's been
many years since i worked on this, so don't ask me for references.
rlandes
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|