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Doctors in the Choir: Healing Embodiment and Ingestion in Early Church Space
- Journal of Early Christian Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 28, Number 2, Summer 2020
- pp. 255-282
- 10.1353/earl.2020.0021
- Article
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Abstract:
Holy physicians (anargyroi) dominate an eighth-century program of encaustic paintings in the Church of the Holy Virgin at the monastery of Deir al-Surian, yet the site is not known to have been nor included a healing sanctuary. This essay considers theological and therapeutic meanings of this program in relation to the anti-Julianist controversy as it related to healing nurture of Christ’s body, eucharistic theology, diverse narratives of medicine, the vulnerable body, and pious defacement of holy images. A brief comparison with the Chapel of the Physicians at Rome and an Egyptian cave church suggests that Deir al-Surian’s anargyroi program was not unique in late antique liturgical architecture.