The Hippocratic Oath enjoys imperishable value in the western traditions of medicine. In modern culture, its postulates have frequently been interpreted as the foundations for the principles of bioethics and a basis of paternalistic practice, typical for modern medicine and opposite to bioethics. According to the authors of this contribution the semantics of the Hippocratic Oath underwent a serious transformation in the course of centuries, while contemporary bioethics revives its archaic pragmatics.