SPIRITUALITY AND MEDICINE - (J.L.) Zecher Spiritual Direction as a Medical Art in Early Christian Monasticism. Pp. xxii + 371, figs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Cased, £75, US$100. ISBN: 978-0-19-885413-5.

Abstract

Synesius emphasises an activity hardly touched by Athanasius: education. In Neoplatonic tradition, education itself reshapes the soul for virtue and, through the purification of virtues, contemplation.Though Wagner touches briefly on Synesius' episcopacy, the chapter highlights one of two difficulties I have with the book. Although it purports to discuss 'early Christian Egypt', we are really dealing with literary Alexandria. The chapters do not touch on Pachomian or Shenoutan monastic literature, papyri from the Egyptian countryside or any other sources that might help fill out this account of dreams and virtue. It is simultaneously too broadwitness the multiple whistle-stop toursand too narrow. Although I praise the authors' erudition, an edited collection might have served their purpose better, allowing greater attention to a wider range of literature, both elite and non-elite. The second difficulty comes with the link between dreams and virtue. In some cases this seems clear, and Costache's analysis of Athanasius is particularly excellent, but in others it seems that two concepts (not to mention divine knowledge as a third) have been shoehorned together. Nevertheless, despite these criticisms, the book is a valuable and accessible contribution to several fieldsearly Christian studies, ancient oneirology and late ancient philosophyfor which both scholars and students alike will be grateful.