Disability, Medicine, and Healing Discourse in Early Christianity

Susan R. Holman is John R. Eckrich Chair and Professor of Religion and the Healing Arts at Valparaiso University. Her publications include eight academic monographs, among them Beholden: Religion, Global Health, and Human Rights (Oxford 2015), recipient of the 2016 Grawemeyer Award in Religion.Chris L. de Wet is Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Studies at the University of South Africa, Pretoria. His books include Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity (2015) and The Unbound God: Slavery and the Formation of Early Christian Thought (2018). Jonathan L. Zecher is Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Catholic University and Co-Director of ReMeDHe, an international working group for Religion, Medicine, Disability, and Health in Late Antiquity. His second book, Spiritual Direction as a Medical Art in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford), was published in 2022.

• 1. Introduction: Discourses of Health between Late Antiquity and Postmodernity; Part One: Marking Bodies, Making Communities; 2. Christ the Physician and his Deaf Followers: Medical Metaphors in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch - Anna Rebecca Sølevag; 3. A Circumcising Mission to the Gentiles and Hazing Culture – Adam Booth; 4. Pain in Ancient Medicine and Literature, and Early Christianity: A Paradox of Insharability and Agency – Helen Rhee; Part Two: Defining Patients, Delimiting Communities; 5. To Be, or Not to Be Sterile: that is a Question of Well-being in Byzantine Medical Discourse of the Sixth Century AD - Elisa Groff; 6. The Negotiation of Meaning in Late Antique Clinical Practice: Alexander of Tralles and "Natural Remedies" – Jonathan L. Zecher; 7. Medical Discourse, Identity Formation, and Otherness in Early Eastern Christianity – Chris L. de Wet; Part Three: Performing Health, Preserving Communities; 8. Hagiography and "Mental Health" in Late Antique Monasticism – Paul Dilley; 9. Shaping Water: Public Health and the ‘Medicine of Mortality’ in Late Antiquity – Susan R. Holman; Reflections; 10. Intersecting Christian Antiquity and Modern Health Care - Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen.

"En definitiva, estos estudios acercan al lector a la vida cotidiana de la antigüedad tardía y muestran cómo los problemas sanitarios y las respuestas que encontraban o perseguían no distaban tanto de las actuales. Los autores de este volumen muestran que estudiar el pasado desde una perspectiva más amplia y ponerla en diálogo con el presente es altamente enriquecedor y abre nuevas vías e interrogantes sobre los que será necesario transitar."[In short, these studies bring the reader closer to the daily life of late antiquity and show how the health problems and the solutions they encountered or sought were not so different from those of today. The authors of this volume demonstrate that studying the past from a broader perspective and engaging it in dialogue with the present is highly enriching and opens new avenues and questions that will need to be explored.] - Exemplaria Clasica"Disability, Medicine, and Healing Discourse in Early Christianity constitutes an important contribution to the discourse surrounding the complexity of medical phenomena, emphasizing their socially, culturally, and theologically structured nature. The essays come into dialogue with one another and offer a multidisciplinary approach to various aspectsof medicine and healing... the volume can ultimately challenge our views regarding the relationship between medicine and religion and illustrate their social implications." - The Byzantine Review"[O]ffer[s] a good framework for bridging ancient and modern approaches to disability and health in the ancient world, and should become foundational if not seminal... for this discipline within ancient world studies." - The Classical Review"[T]his work aims to represent a multidisciplinary approach to health and healing in the late ancient world. By integrating disparate topics, such as ethical ecological practices with pastoral care, it achieves this purpose. These essays bear witness to the ways in which modern medical discourses read in parallel with ancient ones cultivate new avenues of exploration and challenge scholars to scrutinize Christian texts anew... [A]ltogether this work offers a model for bridging the chasm of modern and ancient discourses." - Journal of Early Christian Studies