The priest-physician in Malta and abroad

Abstract

The association of healing with the deity and the combination of healer and priest in the same person are as old as the emergence of organised religion in the history of mankind. The earliest evidence of primitive medical practice in our Islands is associated with the neolithic temples of Mnajdra, Hagar Qim and Hal Safflieni Hypogeum that date back to about 2400 BC. The healer-priest comes into a sharper focus during the Roman occupation of Malta. The first written record in AD 60 comes from the physician St. Luke in the Acts (Chapter 27 & 28) and the healer is no less a personage than Paul of Tarsus, the apostle, who following his shipwreck on Malta, healed the father of Publius, the Roman delegate of the Praetor of Sicily, from fever. Healer-priests throughout Maltese history are explored; during the 15th century when the Jews formed an important element of the Maltese community; in the 16th century during the stay of the religious Order of St. John, and particular Maltese priest-physicians of the 18th century and and 19th century.