The rhetoric of health and illness in the “care of the soul” in Plato and the authorsof the Corpus Hermeticum

Abstract

Already the ancients recognised that the soul is the most essential element of a human. Socrates argues that it is the soul that must be cared for, not the pleasures of the body. His most famous disciple, Plato, devotes a great deal of space in his dialogues to the concept of the psyche, claiming, among other things, that “virtue would be the health and evil the disease of the soul.” This view, widespread in later centuries, is also taken up by the authors of the Hermetic writings grouped in the so-called Corpus Hermeticum. They mention two serious diseases of the soul, namely godlessness and delusion, and point to pleasure, among other things, as their root. In the case of both Plato's dialogues and the Hermetic treatises, the ethical recommendations contained therein often make use of rhetorical com­parisons from the field of medicine, aiming to vividly illustrate to readers and listeners the need for proper care of the soul, the correct diagnosis of its “diseases” and the implementation of appropriate “therapy.” They are also concerned with the correlation between the soul and the body. The aim of this article is to show what the illnesses of the soul are, according to Plato and the authors of the writings contained in the Corpus Hermeticum, what their source is and by what means they can be cured, as well as to attempt to answer the questions of the role they believe the psyche plays in human physical health.