Saint Luke the Evangelist Plaque

Product Description

This Saint Luke the Evangelist Plaque commemorates Saint Luke the Evangelist (died c. 74) is the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts and is the patron saint of physicians, artists and iconographers. This bronze plaque makes an ideal gift for a birthday, Christmas, name day, confirmation, and will make a great Christmas stocking stuffer.

This solid bronze plaque is an ideal gift for all the healers in our lives, especially therapists, nurses, nurse practitioners, doctors, and clinicians. It’s also perfect for writers and artists.

A Wall Plaque in Three Sizes

This religious plaque is available in three sizes: small (p100k, 2 x 1.6 inches), medium (p77m, 3.75 x 3 inches), and large (p124g, 7.9 x 6.3 inches). This solid bronze plaque can be hung easily on any wall in the office or at home and was conceived and created by a master bronzesmith in Germany. Rich in symbolism, it makes an excellent gift for the feast day of St. Luke on October 18. This solid bronze plaque will be a great gift for that special “Luke” in your life.

Saint Luke the Physician

This plaque depicts Saint Luke painting (or “writing”) an icon. Luke was traditionally depicted as a “writer” of many icons of the Virgin Mary and Child. The ox in the lower left corner of the plaque is a symbol of the Gospel of Luke. Christian tradition has long assigned each of the four “living creatures” that surround the throne of God (Revelation 4:7) to the four Evangelists:  the symbol of Matthew is the human (angel), the symbol of Mark is the lion, the symbol of Luke is the ox and the symbol of John is the eagle. The flask in the lower right is a symbol of the healing oil or medicament used by Luke the physician. On the right side of the plaque is the staff of Aesculapius (Asklepios), an ancient Greek symbol of healing (for more on this, see the History/Story tab).

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The Staff of Aesculapius

The Staff of Aesculapius is a staff or rod with a serpent curling around it. This is the rod (or staff) of the god of medicine, Aesculapius in Latin (or Asklepios in Greek).  To go to item gw44 (the Staff of Aesculapius), please click here.

Aesculapius may originally have been a living person famous for his humane and gentle remedies as well as his humane treatment of those suffering from mental illness.  The followers of Asklepios built temples known as asclepions. The most famous asklepion was established south of Corinth, Greece in a grove of trees, where the sick spent a night while the remedies needed for their healing were disclosed in a dream to the priests of the asklepion.  Those who received healing were required to offer a fitting sacrifice (usually a rooster) to the god Asklepios.

According to legend, Asklepios had many children including Hygieia, the goddess of health (“hygiene” is derived from her name) and Panaceia, the goddess of healing (“panacea”, or “universal remedy,” is derived from her name).

Now the staff of Asklepios is a familiar symbol of the medical profession. This staff is the symbol of the WHO (World Health Organization), the CMA (Canadian Medical Association),  the AMA (American Medical Association) as well as numerous other professional medical organizations.

Many “medical” organisations now use the symbol of a short rod entwined by two serpents and capped by a pair of wings.  This is actually the caduceus, the magic wand of the messenger of the Gods, the Roman god Mercury (the Greek god).

Walter Friedlander examined the insignias and logos of 242 American organizations associated with healing or medicine in which the staff of Asklepios or the caduceus of Mercury played a significant role in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. He ascertained that professional societieis tended to display the staff of Asklepios (62%) while commercial organizations tended to display the caduceus of Mercury (76%). The exception here is hospitals of which only 37% displayed the staff of Asklepios as opposed to 63% for the caduceus. (But we should remember here that hospitals in the U.S. are generally commercial, for-profit in nature.)Friedlander notes that while the dominant use of the caduceus for the medicine’s “commercial” dimension can be considered as “more-or-less appropriate”, he thinks the reason is that professional medical associations are more likely to better understand and distinguish these the two symbols, while commercial organizations are more interested in the visual impact of a symbol to better aid in the sale of their products. Walter J. Friedlander, The Golden Wand of Medicine: A History of the Caduceus Symbol in Medicine, New York, Greenwood, 1992.

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