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INTRODUCTION.
xxxi
It is remarkable, besides, that, with the exception of
Hippocrates, all the extant Greek medical writers were
Asiatic Greeks. Galen was a native of Pergamus in Mysia ;
Dioscorides, of Anazarba in Cilicia ;
Aretaeus was surnamed
the Cappadocian from his native land ; and Hippocrates,
though not an Asiatic Greek, yet was born and lived in
close proximity to the coast of Asia Minor, being a native
of Cos, an island off the coast of Caria. Hence it is
natural that a similarity of diction should occur in writers
who were trained in the Medical Schools of Asia Minor.
St. Luke, too, was in all probability an Asiatic Greek.
He was bom at Antioch in Syria (Eusebius, Rist. Eccl. iii. 4),
and " was probably of Gentile origin, if
we may judge from
Coloss. iv. 11, 14, where St. Paul, having saluted several
persons—Aristarchus, Marcus, Jesus Justus—adds that they
were of the circumcision, separating them in this manner from
those mentioned immediately afterwards, among whom is
Luke, and, as his name is a Greek one, he was in all probability
a Greek." (Davidson : Introduction to the Neio
Testament.)
It will be found in the second part
of this work that, independently
of such obvious medical phrases as rpfj/xa jSeXovrjc
(Luke, xviii. 25), ^aKrvXi^y irpoatpaveiv (Luke, xi. 46), Bpofi^oi
aifxaTOQ (Luke, xxii. 44), apx'^'- od6vr\q (Acts, X. 11), &c.,
there is
a class of words running through the third Gospel
and the Acts of the Apostles,
and for the most part peculiar
to these of the N. T. writings, with which a medical man
must have been very familiar,
as they formed part of the
ordinary phraseology of Greek medical language.
In thus