Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Galenus, physician

Galenus, Claudius, physician, born 130 at Pergamus, flourished chiefly at Rome under the Antonines, and died in 200 or 201. For a full account see D. of G. and R. Biogr. He belongs to church history only because of a few incidental words referring to Christianity that occur in his voluminous writings. Thus in his de Pulsuum Differentiis (lib. iii. cap. 3, sub. fin. in Opp. t. viii. p. 657, ed. Kühn) he writes: "It is easier to convince the disciples of Moses and Christ than physicians and philosophers who are addicted to particular sects"; and (lib. ii. cap. 4, p. 579) he condemns the method of Archigenes, who requires his dicta to be received absolutely and without demonstration, "as though we were come to the school of Moses and of Christ." In the de Renum Affectuum Dignotione (Kühn, t. xix.) there are other references, but that treatise is spurious. An Arabic writer has preserved a fragment of Galen's lost work, de Republicâ Platonis, which reads: "We know that the people called Christians have founded a religion in parables and miracles. In moral training we see them in nowise inferior to philosophers; they practise celibacy, as do many of their women; in diet they are abstemious, in fastings and prayers assiduous; they injure no one. In the practice of virtue they surpass philosophers; in probity, in continence, in the genuine performance of miracles (verâ miraculorum patratione—does he mean the Scripture miracles, on which their religion was based?) they infinitely excel them" (Casiri, Biblioth. Arabico-Hispana, vol. i. p. 253). For apologetic remarks on Galen's testimony see Lardner's Credibility (Works, vol. vii. p. 300, ed. 1838).

[C.H.]