Archetypal Images in Greek Religion: 3. Asklepios: Archetypal Image of the Physician's Existence (Archetypal Images in Greek Religion, 1)

Professor Kerenyi investigates the archetypal significance of the Divine Physician, Asklepios or Aesculapius, in the course of an exploration of the sacred sites of his cult. Scientific inquiry into the history of ancient medicine reveals that to the physicians of that age, Asklepios was the prototype, the ideal, of their existence – the existence of the healer. He was the physician as divinity, whom they could contemplate or evoke in myths and in the cult of a god or hero. “Existence” in this volume is therefore used not as it occurs in existentialist philosophy, but in its simplest and most direct sense. Asklepios is Volume 3 of a series of monographs on Archetypal images in Greek Religion, in which Professor Kerényi provides a new picture of Greek religion from the standpoint of mythology – a perspective all but neglected in recent works on the subject. With 58 text illustrations, bibliography, and index. (from the back cover)