Augustine · history · history of Christianity · Peter Brown

The Body and Society

Death was a catastrophe that no contemplation of the universe could soften. And, in explaining death as the punishment of Adam, Augustine gave the Christian laity of his time an explanation of death that was at least as melodramatic as death itself was shocking. Yet, in so doing, he caused the cosmos (that majestic and… Continue reading The Body and Society

history · history of science · medieval history · philosophy

Medieval Dinner Conversation

I have amused myself while writing this book by trying to identify which, if any, late antique or early medieval writers (that is, those whose personality we can recapture, at any rate in part, with least mediation) I could imagine meeting with any real pleasure. It comes down to remarkably few: Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Gregory… Continue reading Medieval Dinner Conversation