Health

Use in the book

Health is the good for whose sake the sick person values the doctor and medicine. It contrasts with disease, the bad condition because of which medical help is sought.

Once health too is called φίλον, Socrates asks whether it must be valued for something further. Thus a familiar medical goal initiates the question of an ultimate goal. The related verb ὑγιαίνω, including τὸ ὑγιαῖνον σῶμα, describes being healthy rather than acquiring or seeking health.

Places to read

1. 218eδιὰ νόσον ἕνεκα ὑγιείας — Because of disease, for the sake of health.
2. 217a
3. 219a–c

Use in the book

In the Hermetic complaint, Air describes itself as diseased and no longer healthful because of exhalation from dead bodies. The personification links Air’s condition with its effects on living creatures. Elsewhere health is associated with bodily accommodation to a familiar regimen.

Places to read

1. I.49.44.68Personified Air loses its healthful condition through pollution.
2. I.47.7.2Health accompanies an adapted bodily regimen.

Translation in this edition

“Health” names the condition; “healthful” suits an environment that supports health.

Use in the book

The meditation imagines sin as dross, incorporated filth, and leprosy, then asks how infinite wisdom can separate it from the person who has sinned. Restored health stands beside beauty and glory as the positive end of this work. The medical image is therefore part of an argument for redemption: love values its object and seeks a way to heal rather than simply abandon it.

Places to read

1. II.31The soul’s primitive health, beauty, and glory are restored through the costly work of redemption.

In this edition

The passage is not offering a medical diagnosis or treatment. Its disease imagery describes sin and recovery; bodily illness should not be inferred to be proof of a person’s moral fault.