This passage is a cutting satire on practises which undoubtedly prevailed in the Greek temples as early as the sixth century, B.C. But, nevertheless, it took a long time before the patients lost their belief in the miraculous efficacy of temple sleep, and the priesthood continually strove to revive, by the mysterious stories of various kinds they recounted to doubters, the belief in temple sleep. The sixth of the marble votive tablets which were found in the temple of Æsculapius at Epidaurus shows the kind of miraculous reports invented by the priests. The latter were in the habit of inscribing upon these tablets reports of cures that had occurred in their sanctuary, for the benefit of the visitors of the temple and for the still greater benefit of the medical historians; but it is quite probable that the priesthood, intent upon curing, were encouraged in their medico-literary attempts only by the silent hope of creating an abundant supply of patients by such miraculous reports. The above tablet, No. 6—which probably dates from the third century, B.C.—tells us that a blind man by the name of Hermon, a native of Thasos, had recovered his sight by sleeping in the Epidaurean temple of Æsculapius. However, it appears that this man Hermon had been a miserable wretch, for he disappeared without having expressed his thanks in hard cash. Naturally such ingratitude provoked the god, and summarily he blinded the thankless individual again. It required a second temple sleep before the god condescended to become helpful once more. But our tablet does not mention anything about the amount of the remuneration paid by our friend Hermon who had been twice cured of blindness; neither is this at all necessary. The miraculous tablet, even without stating the price, doubtless made sufficient impression upon the minds even of the most parsimonious of future patients.
Altho, therefore, the more enlightened among the Greeks recognized, as early as in the sixth century, B.C., the futility of temple sleep as a means of healing, the ancient world never relinquished it entirely. We encounter it again in the later periods of antiquity. Thus, for instance, Suetonius and other ancient authors tell us that two patients, one blind, the other lame, one day approached the emperor Vespasian, who happened to be in Alexandria, asking him to spit into the eyes of the one and to stroke the paralyzed limbs of the other; for they had been notified in temple sleep that they would be restored to health if only the emperor would deign to perform the above-mentioned manipulations. But Vespasian was an enlightened ruler who, in spite of his imperial dignity, did not have much confidence in the medical qualities of his saliva and of his hands, and accordingly unceremoniously dismissed both supplicants. This caused great terror among the priests of Serapis and among the courtiers, for obviously they had interpreted this affair solely as intended in majorem Vespasiani gloriam. The emperor was importuned, therefore, kindly to aid the unfortunate, but he persisted in his refusal. Probably he was right in fearing the loss of his prestige should the imperial medical powers prove unequal to the task of curing disease. Not until the priests solemnly vouched for the truthfulness of the dream-sending god Serapis, and declared a failure of the imperial cure to be impossible, did Vespasian’s stubbornness relent. Now he spat, and rubbed the paralyzed limbs, and the blind saw, and the paralytic arose and walked.
§6. Church Sleep.—When, subsequently, the ancient religions died out, and had left the world as an heritage to Christianity, temple sleep had by no means died out also. On the contrary, after the lapse of three centuries, it again came into favor with the Christian priests. And the use of it now was scarcely less in favor than it had been a thousand years previous in the world of the ancient Greeks. Let us mention a few examples. The first four stories are taken from the works of Gregory of Tours.
Mummolus, who came to the court of Justinian (527 to 565) as the ambassador of King Theudebert, suffered greatly from calculi of the urinary bladder, and during this journey he became subject to an attack of renal colic. Things went badly with poor Mummolus, and he was in a great hurry to make his will. Whereupon he was advised to pass one night sleeping in St. Andrew’s Church, at Pateras, for St. Andrew had performed many miraculous cures in this place. No sooner said than done. Mummolus, greatly tormented by pain and fever, and despairing of life, had himself placed upon the stone flags of the sanctuary, and waited there for the things that were to happen. Suddenly, toward midnight, the patient awoke with a violent desire to urinate, and discharged in a natural manner a calculus which, as St. Gregory assures us, was so enormous that it fell with a loud clatter into the vessel. From that hour Mummolus was hale and hearty, and joyfully started on his journey homeward.
In Brioude, the capital of the present department Haute-Loire, there was a woman named Fedamia, who had been paralyzed for years. In addition to this, she was penniless, and her relatives, therefore, brought her to the Church of St. Julian, who enjoyed a great reputation in Brioude, in order that, even if she did not become cured, she might at least make some money by begging at the church door. For eighteen years she had lived thus when, one Sunday night, while she slept in the colonnade adjoining the church, a man appeared who took her by the hand and led her toward the grave of St. Julian. On arriving there she uttered a fervent prayer, and in a moment felt as if a load of actual chains fell from her limbs. All this, it is true, happened in a dream, but when the patient awoke she was hale and hearty, and was able, to the amazement of the assembled multitude, to walk, with loud prayers, to the grave of the saint.
A certain man, deaf, dumb, and blind, known by the name of Amagildus, also tried the sleep in the Church of St. Julian, at Brioude. But it appears that this saint was not always quite accessible to the wishes of the sick. It is true, Amagildus was not obliged, like Fedamia of the previous narrative, to pass eighteen years in the basilica, but, nevertheless, he had to sleep for a full year in the colonnade of the church before the curative power of the holy martyr delivered him from his ailment.
Veranus, the slave of one of the clergy under Gregory, was so violently attacked by gout that he was absolutely unable to move for an entire year. Thereupon his master pledged himself to advance the afflicted slave to the priesthood if St. Martin would be willing to cure him. To accomplish this cure the slave was carried to the church, and there placed at the feet of the saint. The poor wretch had to remain there for five long days, and it seemed as tho St. Martin had forgotten all about him. Finally, on the sixth day, the patient was visited by a man who seized his foot and drew it out straight. The slave rose to his feet in terror, and perceived that he was cured. For many years he served St. Martin as a priest.
But the most wonderful cure was that of the German emperor Henry II., called “The Saint” (1002 to 1024). This emperor, who was of Bavarian stock, suffered greatly from the stone, and had retired to the Italian cloister Monte Cassino, inasmuch as this cloister during that period justly enjoyed an extraordinary medical reputation. But whether the monks of Monte Cassino, altho well versed in medical art, did not have sufficient confidence in their ability to treat an emperor, or whether they were induced by some other reason, is not known; however, instead of submitting the imperial patient to the operations of terrestrial medicine, they surrendered him to the providence of heaven, and more particularly to the sympathy of St. Benedict. This saint fully justified the confidence that was placed in him, for, during an acute period in the patient’s sufferings, he appeared in his own holy person, and with his own holy hands he performed the necessary operation, and, after having pressed the stone that he had removed from the bladder into the hand of the sleeping emperor, he retired heavenward. But he took care from his heavenly residence to attend to the prompt healing of the operation wound, and this was surely very good of St. Benedict. In fact, his entire behavior during this case was extremely proper and laudable; for is it not much more fitting that the imperial bladder should be delivered from its disagreeable visitor, the stone, at the hands of a saint than by those of mortal beings, even if those mortal beings were the pious and medically skilled monks of Monte Cassino?[3]
The form in which we encounter the Christian temple sleep in the above stories is as like as two peas to that practised in the Hellenic temples. They are distinguished merely by the fact that the Greek gods generally hastened to the assistance of the patients after the latter had spent one night in the temple, whereas the Christian saints often allowed years to pass before the patient, who was crying for aid, secured relief.