Disease and the topic of hope

The approach to physical suffering, asserted the inescapability of its spiritual conversions, is problematized in the article. The cultural genealogy of this model, first of all connected with the Christian tradition of martyrdom, is analyzed. The ontology of martyrdom reveals positive dimensions of bodily suffering: in this perspective discord and destruction of bodily life assert the temporal structure of the openness of the future and the principle of joint being. The use of these parameters of physical suffering in the experience of modern personalistic medicine is investigated.