Contents: Preface; Part I Bodies and Minds: the Limits of Reason: The Fathers and the children; Cosmic sympathies: nature as the expression of divine purpose; The Fathers and the animals: the rule of reason?; Animal passions. Part II Bodies and Gender: Christian Challenges: Women and asceticism in late antiquity: the refusal of status and gender; 'The bright frontier of friendship': Augustine and the Christian body as frontier; Adam's womb (Augustine, Confessions 13.28) and the salty sea; Bodies and blood: late antique debate on martyrdom, virginity and resurrection; The old Adam: the Fathers and the unmaking of masculinity; Adam's engendering: Augustine on gender and creation; In the foreskin of your flesh': the pure male body in late antiquity. Part III Bodies and Souls: the Philosophic Life: Victricius of Rouen: Praising the Saints; Translating relics: Victricius of Rouen and 4th-century debate; Translate into Greek: Porphyry of Tyre on the new barbarians; Philosophic Lives and the philosophic life: Porphyry and Iamblicus; Fattening the soul: Christian asceticism and Porphyry On Abstinence; The health of the spiritual athlete; Do try this at home: the domestic philosopher in late antiquity; Addenda; Index.