Author : Jessica L. Wright
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 309 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2022-12-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9780520387676
The Care of the Brain in Early Christianity by Jessica L. Wright Pdf
"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.