Religio Medici

Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici was in its day a European best-seller which brought its author fame and respect throughout the continent. Because an unauthorized version of Browne's thoughts upon the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity, were mercilessly distributed and reproduced with added text the newly-qualified physician found it necessary to publish an authorized version of his spiritual testament and psychological self-portait in 1643. Samuel Pepys in his diaries complained that the Religio was 'cried up to the whole world for its wit and learning' and its unorthodox views placed it swiftly upon the Papal index in 1645.

Although he predominately concerns himself with Christian faith, nevertheless the author of 'The Religion of a Doctor also wanders into digressions upon alchemy, hermetic philosophy, astrology, and physiognomy. Often whilst discussing Biblical scripture Browne finds it convenient to allude to esoteric learning, confessing 'I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras and the secret magicke of numbers;' likewise his decidedly broad-based Protestantism could declare 'the severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes' .

Though little read nowadays in Virginia Woolf's opinion the Religio paved the way for all future confessionals, private memoirs and personal writings. It also spawned numerous imitations in the seventeenth century but none matched the frank, intimate tone of the original in which the learned doctor invites the reader to share with him in the mystery of his personality. Curiously in the twentieth century the Swiss psychologist C.G.Jung used the phrase Religio Medici several times in his writings. A translation into German of the Religio was made in 1746. English admirers of the Religio in the nineteenth century include- Charles Lamb, Samuel Taylor Coleridge '(O to write a character of this man !)' and Thomas de Quincey ('I have never read a better definition of music than that which occurs in R.M.')