The article focuses on two main characters in Camus' The plague, where illness transcends history, expressing the conflict between religion and science. This conflict is shown by the opposite opinions of Bernard Rieux, an atheistic doctor who represents science, and Paneloux, a Jesuit who symbolizes faith in the novel. In particular, the debate between Rieux and Paneloux summarizes the cultural stratification of biblical roots, that is arrived to the Western literatures through two often crossed traditions: the literary tradition and the polemic tradition, that is relative to the connection between illness and faith.