The Care of the Brain in Early Christianity

The care of the brain in early Christianity is a history of the brain during late antiquity. Through close attention to ancient medical material and its transformation in Christian texts, Jessica Wright traces the roots of cerebral subjectivity--the identification of the individual self with the brain, a belief very much still with us today--to tensions within early Christianity over the brain's role in self-governance and its inherent vulnerability. Examining how early Christians appropriated medical ideas, Wright tracks how they used the vulnerability of the brain as a trope for teaching ascetic practices, therapeutics of the soul, and the path to salvation. Bringing a medical lens to the religous discourse, this text demonstrates that rather than rejecting medical traditions, early Christianity developed through creatively integrating them--Publisher's website.

• | Author: Jessica L. Wright
• | Publisher: University Of California Press
• | Publication Date: Dec 13, 2022
• | Number of Pages: 310 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 0520387678
• | ISBN-13: 9780520387676