5 4 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 8 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 2 2 5 Physician Similarly to previous image of good Samaritan, the image of Christ – divine physician has been interpreted from various points of view. In Enarratio 18 Augustine explains why we needed heavenly physician and his deeds. By sickness he means pride and the whole plan of redemption revolves around this topic: “Because of this vice, because of the great sin of pride, God came in humility. This great sin is the reason, this horrible sickness of souls that made the almighty physician descend from heaven and become the servant. This sickness that exposed him to disdain and hang him on the wood. We needed such a strong medicine to cure this swell.” (Augustinus 1956 in CCSL 38, 112). Hence, Augustine sees the Incarnation as a medicine for fallen man who bears the consequences of the original sin (Urbančok 2021, 52). There are several Psalms dealing with the topic of physician, but Enarratio 50 (penitentiary Psalm; Andoková et al. 2021, 45) is the most obvious. God’s mercy mentioned by the psalmist is nothing else than a medicine given to us by the divine physician: “Have mercy on me, says David, according to your mercy. Heal my big wound with the power of your medicine. My evil is great, but I find the refuge in the Almighty. Such a lethal wound would lead me to desperation if I would not have found such a physician. Have mercy on me according to your mercy, and in abundance of your mercy destroy my sin. To say destroy my sin means to say: have mercy on me, my Lord. Abundance of your mercy has the same meaning as: according to your great mercy. Because your mercy is great, your mercy is abundant, and your great mercy is the source of its abundance.” (Augustinus 1956 in CCSL 38, 602). Prayer of the psalmist clearly underlines the need of physician’s intervention, his power, and the trust in his help (Dufka 2019, 27–29). Augustine’s interpretation contains the quote from the Gospel of John 8:1–11 regarding the encounter of adulterous woman who was taken to Jesus. The event becomes symbolical, and the woman becomes the image of the sick, the image of misery, poverty. Jesus becomes the symbol of mercy: “only adulterous woman with the Lord, sick with the physician, great poverty with great mercy remains.” Physician does not offer punishment but cure for the sickness. Augustine adds that the woman was confused, which – as he believed – was a sign of acknowledging of her sin (Augustinus 1956 in CCSL 38, 604). Augustine also mentions hand of the physician in which the psalmist puts his trust: “He wants all his faults to be washed away, putting his trust in hands of the physician, in his great mercy for which he begged at the beginning of the Psalm: destroy my iniquity.” (Augustinus 1956 in CCSL 38, 610).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzgxMzI=