List of health deities

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A statue of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing Asclepius - Project Gutenberg eText 21325.png
A statue of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing

A health deity is a god or goddess in mythology or religion associated with health, healing and wellbeing. They may also be related to childbirth or Mother Goddesses. They are a common feature of polytheistic religions.

Contents

List of health deities

African

Yoruba and Afro-American

  • Aja, spirit of the forest, the animals within it and herbal healers
  • Babalú-Ayé, spirit of illness and disease
  • Erinlẹ, spirit of abundance, the healer, and Physician to the Orisha
  • Loco, patron of healers and plants
  • Mami Wata, a pantheon of water deities associated with healing and fertility
  • Ọsanyìn, spirit of herbalism
  • Sopona, god of smallpox

Albanian


Armenian

Aztec

Baltic

Celtic

Chinese

Egyptian

Etruscan

Filipino

Greek

Hindu

Dhanvantari, the Hindu physician of the gods and god of Ayurveda Dwanandhari Deva.jpg
Dhanvantari, the Hindu physician of the gods and god of Ayurveda

Hittite

Hurrian

Inuit

Japanese

Maya

Mesopotamian

Native American

Norse

Ossetian

Persian

Phoenician

Roman

Sami

Slavic

Thracian

Turkic

In monotheistic religion

Christianity and Islam

According to the Gospels, Jesus performed miracles during his earthly life as he traveled through Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. The miracles performed by Jesus are mentioned in two sections of the Qur'an (Sura 3:49 and 5: 110) in general, with few details or comments. [17] One of the greatest miracles Jesus performed was healing (Blind, Leprous, Paralytic, Epileptic, Healing a Bleeding Woman, etc.), [18] the Gospels provide different amounts of detail for each episode, at other times he uses materials such as spit and mud. In general, they are mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels, but not in the Gospel of John. [19] [20] [21] Luke, one of the apostles, was a physician (Greek for "one who heals"). [22]

Jesus endorsed the use of the medical assistance of the time (medicines of oil and wine) when he told the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), who "bound up [an injured man's] wounds, pouring on oil and wine" (verse 34) as a physician would. Jesus then told the doubting teacher of the law (who had elicited this parable by his self-justifying question, "And who is my neighbor?" in verse 29) to "go, and do likewise" in loving others with whom he would never ordinarily associate (verse 37). [23]

In 1936, Ludwig Bieler argued that Jesus was stylized in the New Testament in the image of the "divine man" (Greek: theios aner), which was widespread in antiquity. It is said that many of the famous rulers and elders of the time had divine healing powers. [24]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hygieia</span> Ancient Greek goddess of good health and cleanliness

Hygieia is a goddess from Greek mythology. Hygieia is a goddess of health, cleanliness and hygiene. Her name is the source for the word "hygiene".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asclepieion</span> Healing temples located in ancient Greece

Asclepieia were healing temples in ancient Greece, dedicated to Asclepius, the first doctor-demigod in Greek mythology. Asclepius was said to have been such a skilled doctor that he could even raise people from the dead. So stemming from the myth of his great healing powers, pilgrims would flock to temples built in his honor in order to seek spiritual and physical healing.

Belenus is an ancient Celtic healing god. The cult of Belenus stretched from the Italian Peninsula to the British Isles, with a main sanctuary located at Aquileia, on the Adriatic coast. Through interpretatio romana, Belenus was often identified with Apollo, although his cult seems to have preserved a certain degree of autonomy during the Roman period.

Georgian mythology refers to the mythology of pre-Christian Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group native to Georgia and the South Caucasus. The mythology of the Kartvelian peoples is believed by many scholars to have formed part of the religions of the kingdoms of Diauehi, Colchis and Iberia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hittite mythology and religion</span> Religious beliefs and practices of the Hittites

Hittite mythology and Hittite religion were the religious beliefs and practices of the Hittites, who created an empire centered in what is now Turkey from c. 1600–1180 BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celtic deities</span> Gods and goddesses of the Ancient Celtic religion

The gods and goddesses of the pre-Christian Celtic peoples are known from a variety of sources, including ancient places of worship, statues, engravings, cult objects, and place or personal names. The ancient Celts appear to have had a pantheon of deities comparable to others in Indo-European religion, each linked to aspects of life and the natural world. Epona was an exception and retained without association with any Roman deity. By a process of syncretism, after the Roman conquest of Celtic areas, most of these became associated with their Roman equivalents, and their worship continued until Christianization. Pre-Roman Celtic art produced few images of deities, and these are hard to identify, lacking inscriptions, but in the post-conquest period many more images were made, some with inscriptions naming the deity. Most of the specific information we have therefore comes from Latin writers and the archaeology of the post-conquest period. More tentatively, links can be made between ancient Celtic deities and figures in early medieval Irish and Welsh literature, although all these works were produced well after Christianization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Panacea</span> Greek goddess of universal health

In Greek mythology and religion, Panacea, a goddess of universal remedy, was the daughter of Asclepius and Epione.

References

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  17. Braswell, George W. Jr. (2000). What you need to know about Islam & Muslims. Nashville, Tenn. ISBN   0-8054-1829-6. OCLC   42428848.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. Busse, Heribert (1998). Islam, Judaism and Christianity: the theological and historical affiliations. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers. ISBN   1-55876-143-8. OCLC   37675805.
  19. van der Loos (1965-01-01). Miracles of Jesus. BRILL. doi:10.1163/9789004265868. ISBN   978-90-04-26586-8.
  20. Classic sermons on the miracles of Jesus. Warren W. Wiersbe. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications. 1995. ISBN   0-8254-3999-X. OCLC   32467827.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  21. Evans, Craig A. (2001). Jesus and his contemporaries: comparative studies. Boston: Brill. ISBN   0-391-04118-5. OCLC   46951642.
  22. "The Epistle to the Colossians.", Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 1974, doi:10.5040/9781472556004.0006, ISBN   978-1-4725-5600-4
  23. "God's Intrinsic "Sovereignty"", Human Anguish and God's Power, Cambridge University Press, pp. 71–100, 2020-12-17, doi:10.1017/9781108873246.006, ISBN   978-1-108-87324-6, S2CID   234554723
  24. ST. PATRICK, SAINT & SECUNDINUS (1953-01-01). The Works of St. Patrick. St. Secundus: Hymn on St. Patrick. Translated and Annotated by Ludwig Bieler. Newman Press.