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One may ask what value a book about early Christianity may have for the psychoanalytically informed reader. The question becomes even more acute when it is realized that the words “psychiatry,” “psychoanalysis,” and “psychopathology” are never mentioned, and the phrases “depth psychology” and “post-Freudian age” are stated only once. After reading this enormously interesting and remarkable book, one can justifiably answer that its value is indeed great. The book is a veritable clinical textbook of the vicissitudes of the sexual drive in that crucial period of early Christianity which was to bequeath a legacy of the most profound significance to Western Civilization.
The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity is an impressive and scholarly work by Peter Brown, a Professor of History at Princeton University with established credentials in the field of early Christianity. It covers a span of time from a brief period before the missionary journey of Paul in the 40s A.D. to a point just after the death of Augustine in 430 A.D.
The birth of Christianity not only marked a turning point in history but was also a reflection of the emotional turmoil that