2025/01/02 by Susan R. Holman · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Religion, Theology, History, Judaism, Christianity #Literature and Cultural Memory #Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism
paper · doi:10.1080/2222582x.2025.2561545
openalex publication_date 2025/01/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/28 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
This article follows three seventh-century monk-bishops and how each experienced bodily injury or sickness during crisis migration. It uses palimpsest manuscripts and metaphor to consider religion and medical health concerns within these narratives, practices, and interpretive legacies. Sophronius of Jerusalem, Theodore of Tarsus/Canterbury, and Cuthbert of Lindisfarne each endured forced travel as refugees, and each suffered illness or debilitating physical insult. Sophronius, known for his pro-Chalcedonian zeal, sought healing through what we might call folk medicine, and condemned professional physicians. Theodore, whose life and legacy reflects a diverse range of cultural and literary influences, supported Hippocratic-Galenic medicine in his ministry and teaching. Finally, Cuthbert, who practiced an elemental approach to healing, who welcomed both physicians and miracles, and whose post-mortem “incorrupt” body was unmade by pious friends and foes, offers a layered exegetical model of liturgical and therapeutic environmentalism. The palimpsest lens of these lives is compared here using three literal palimpsest manuscripts, each holding medical and scriptural texts within a pattern of disruption. This article’s multidisciplinary approach invites creative and serious discussions on the relationships between embodiment and scripture-based models for health equity and crisis response in religious history.