The Issue of Health and Disease in The Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart by John Amos Comenius

Abstract

This paper examines the function and significance of the issue of health and illness in the literary and philosophical-religious discourse of John Amos Comenius. Research shows that the mental foundation of The Labyrinth of the World is based on the dialectics of health and illness, which for the author becomes the equivalent of good and evil, truth and falsehood, eternity and temporality, spiritual perfection and vanity. The culpable physical degradation of man is, in Comenius' work, a source of temporal suffering, and it also derails the chances of gaining spiritual perfection and, consequently, makes it impossible to get closer to God.