Published in The Kingdom of the Spirit

Keywords: Keywords: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nisa, Medicine, Primitive Christianity.

The aim of this paper has been to present the doctrinal features connecting early Christianity and medicine through the theological contributions of the holy fathers. Specifically, we have focused on the evolution of the doctrinal relationship from the Didascalia apostolorum to Gregory of Nyssa. In the analysis of this relationship through the texts we discover two ways of seeing the medicine of his time at the beginning of the diffusion and transmission of the Christian message and the beginning of its anthropology as opposed to paganism or Christianity. Basil represents a less scientific or rational medicine, and on the other hand, Gregory of Nyssa offers us a penitential and even pastoral medicine with evident Neoplatonic philosophical influences. In short, we can see an advance in the beginnings of Christian anthropology and its relationship with the medicine of the time, which can be summed up in the beginning of the ‘Theology of Illness’, which is fundamentally centered on penitential medicine.