The almost constant awareness today in the western media of conflict associated with religion is reflected in a rapidly growing scholarly literature on the topic. At the forefront of such studies is a natural preoccupation with its most visual, newsworthy, and disruptive aspectits expression in physical violence.¹ Religious conflict is a much larger phenomenon, however, than religiously-motivated violence, while even religious violence itself is not simple. The latter encompasses not just the physical domain (violent acts), but also the discursive (violent, i. e., hostile/hate-filled speech),² raising questions about the precise relationship between these two forms, how each should be addressed, and the degree to which each is harmful to society. The motivation for such violence, moreover, is often complex, leading to the conclusion, on the one hand, that violent "religious" conflicts in late antiquity, for instance, were rarely purely religiously motivated. On careful examination they can be shown to owe as much, if not
Drawing on recent scholarship on mental health in the ancient world, it is argued that the previously puzzling final treatise that John Chrysostom sent to his supporters from exile is a therapeutic medico-philosophical treatise for the sick soul that draws on a well-established tradition within Hellenistic and imperial medicine and philosophy. Viewed in this light, it is a natural accompaniment to two other works written by him at this time, the treatise Quod nemo laeditur, and the final letter to Olympias. It is argued that all three works emerge from a holistic approach to the health of the human soul that is in continuity with Galen and his predecessors, an approach embraced by John early in his ministry.
This essay seeks to provide a framework for the four articles that follow. While the employment of medical metaphors by the writers of Late Antiquity has long been recognized, for medical historians the domains to which the metaphors are applied have remained largely in the background. Attention has tended to focus on the metaphors themselves and on the degree to which they reflect actual historical medical thought and practice. More recently attention has focused on the cultural, conceptual, and moral purpose of medical metaphors and how their employment might in itself be therapeutic. This article addresses three recent shifts in the way the role of medical metaphor is viewed, including its cognitive implications for the hearer.
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