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Fever (2)

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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FEVER (ὁ πυρετός, and in Acts 28:8 οἱ πυρετοἱ, with corresponding participle in Mt. and Mk. πυρέσσουσα). There are only five passages in the NT in which fever is spoken of, and three of these, viz. Matthew 8:14 f., Mark 1:30 f., and Luke 4:38 f. are parallel passages. One cannot say with certainty what specific fever is alluded to in these passages, or in John 4:52, where the healing of the nobleman’s son is spoken of. It may be, indeed, that St. Luke, whose training as a physician naturally led him to speak with exactness about medical matters, does specify the fever from which Peter’s wife’s mother was suffering (συνεχομένη πυρετῷ μεγάλῳ). It has been contended that there was a specific fever known as ‘the great fever,’ and that it was this, whatever it may have been, from which the sick woman in Capernaum suffered. This, however, has been questioned, and perhaps it is rather the intensity of the fever than its specific character that is indicated by the word ‘great.’ Probably both Peter’s wife’s mother and the nobleman’s son suffered from malarial fever. Professor G. A. Smith tells us that the region about Tiberias is a very feverish region, and Dr. Cunningham Geikie says that malarial fever was common at Capernaum. It is very likely that there has always been a good deal of malarial fever about the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and especially about the more northerly portion of these shores. The fever from which the father of Publius suffered (Acts 28:8) was fever accompanying or accompanied by acute dysentery. See also artt. Cures, p. 403^b, and Disease, p. 463^b.

Literature.—NT Commentaries; artt. ‘Medicine’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible and ‘Diseases,’ Encyc. Biblica; G. A. Smith, HGH^{L [Note: GHL Historical Geog. of Holy Land.] 1 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]} , p. 449; Cunningham Geikie, Life and Words of Christ, ii. 5 f.

George C. Watt.