Health, Medicine, and Philosophy in the School of Justin Martyr
Date
2023
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Cambridge University Press
Abstract
In this paper, I contextualize the engagement of Christian intellectuals with the Roman Empire’s medical marketplace in the second century, focusing on Justin Martyr, Tatian, and pseudo-Justin’s On the Resurrection. I show that Justin, Tatian, and pseudo-Justin attempted to derive authority from displays of medical and philosophical expertise regarding bodily and mental health. Justin’s limited interests in bodily health and medicine were driven by his interest in presenting Christians as philosophers who faced death without fear, a goal that aligned him more closely with his philosophical contemporaries. Tatian and pseudo-Justin, in contrast, launched challenges against the authority of physicians, presenting an ascetic form of regimen as a superior Christian method of achieving excellent bodily and mental health.
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Citation
Secord, J. (2023). Health, Medicine, and Philosophy in the School of Justin Martyr. In L. Ayres, M. Champion, & M. Crawford (Eds.), The Intellectual World of Late Antique Christianity: Reshaping Classical Traditions (pp. 47-65). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108883559.005