The State of the Question: Religion, Medicine, Disability, and Health in Late Antiquity

This essay provides an overview of the scholarship on the intersections between religion and health-related topics (specifically, medicine, illness, and disability) in Late Antiquity. We characterize the dominant approaches in two, somewhat distinct scholarly trajectories—the History of Medicine and Disability Studies—and urge future scholars to better integrate the insights of each approach. We also identify a range of common methodological missteps that plague the scholarly work to date in the hopes of refining the methodology of future scholarship.