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 religious discourse, this text demonstrates that rather than rejecting medical traditions, early Christianity developed through creatively integrating them.