The Care of the Brain in Early Christianity

Cerebral subjectivity—the identification of the individual self with the brain—is a belief that has become firmly entrenched in modern science and popular culture. In The Care of the Brain in Early Christianity, Jessica Wright traces its roots 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 these ideas for teaching ascetic practices, developing the