This small monograph seeks to tackle the difficult question of the nature of dreams in Christian Egyptian thought. Noting that scholarly interest in dreams and sleep has steadily increased since the mid-1980s, these authors stand in direct conversation with the works of Patricia Cox Miller, David Brakke, and Leslie Dossey (3–4). While providing an overview of Greek philosophical predecessors, the authors highlight the precarious nature of dreams for patristic authors. Ultimately, they argue that Egyptian thinking on dreams was deeply indebted to Neoplatonism, and Christian authors neither fully embraced dreams nor condemned them; rather, they sought interpretative strategies to negotiate and neutralize the potentially dangerous aspects of dreaming.
Divided into five chapters, the text is organized relatively chronologically beginning with various Greco-Roman dream traditions and ending with Egyptian monastic traditions. In the first chapter, Bronwen Neil and Kevin Wagner begin with a discussion of Homeric dreams (5–8) and Artemidorus's dream manual (8–13). They also discuss Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic approaches to dreaming (13–17) and provide a brief discussion of virtue's relation to dreams (17–23). The next chapters, Neil's “The Development of the Alexandrian Tradition” (chapter 2) and Danu Costache's “Sleep, Dream and Soul-Travel” (chapter 3), turn to dream theories espoused by Alexandrians and their intellectual successors. The former offers an overview of approaches to dreams in Philo and Origen all the way to Synesius of Cyrene. The latter focuses on Athanasius's views on sleep (66–93) and his classification of dreams (94–115). Kevin Wagner's contribution tackles the legacy of Neoplatonic thought (116–142) in Synesius's On Dreams and Synesius's view of divinatory dreams as an extension of virtue acquisition (142–167). With the final chapter, Neil expands the discussion to dreams in John Cassian's Conferences (175–179) and the Apophthegmata Patrum (179–182), highlighting the tension between patristic sources’ distrust of sleep and the understanding of dreams as potential vehicles for divine revelation. Overall, each chapter provides a window into the importance of dreams for Greek philosophical and later patristic thought.
One strange aspect of this book revolves around its treatment of certain details. For example, in a discussion of Alexandrian authors, the text inserts with little preparation Tertullian, Augustine, Ambrose of Milan, and Lactantius (51–56). Presumably, Tertullian appears because of his ties to Montanism and the movement's emphasis on prophetic dreams—two connections that receive no explicit mention (52–53). The others supposedly stand in parallel (53) or contrast (56) to the Alexandrian school; however, no sustained in-depth comparison occurs. More troubling is framing sexual desire or lust on pages 60–61 as “the more advanced form of psychological torture” when discussing Evagrius. Evagrius's hierarchy of thoughts makes clear that lust ranks as a lower order evil (Praktikos 6). This fact is reiterated in On Thoughts 28 when Evagrius remarks, “When the demons have not been able to trouble the irascible or concupiscible part”—Evagrius ties these parts of the soul to anger and lust—“at night, they then fabricate dreams of vainglory and draw the soul down into a pit of thoughts” (Robert Sinkewicz, Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus [Oxford University Press, 2003], 173). Visions or dreams drawing on dangers to the physical body, be they violent or sexual in nature, appear to monks less accomplished in virtue and as such are often grouped together. To indicate otherwise misses the point that the most dangerous dreams for Evagrius are those that reveal the monk's desire for self-aggrandizement or renown (On Thoughts 28).
Perhaps more importantly, the text lacks a discussion of the terminology for dreams and visions. So, the authors introduce ἔκσατασις, or ecstatic trance (28), early on but never refer to its usage again. No thorough discussion occurs of the terms ὀπτασία (vision), ὄναρ (dream), and ὅραμα (dream or vision). When they do mention a specific term, they skip important examples in their argumentation. For instance, Costache draws attention to Athanasius's use of the word ἐρχημάτιζɛ in Letter 61 to describe the revelatory dream received by Pilate's wife in Matthew 27:19 (100). Costache insists that Athanasius's employment of ἐρχημάτιζɛ in this context “suggests the oracular or rather revelatory dimension more emphatically, without discarding the connection between this experience and the oneiric space established by the Matthean narrative” (101). Yet, Costache's evidence indicates the opposite—Athanasius has effectively discarded the oneiric since the original passage employs the phrase κατ᾽ὄναρ and not any form of χρηματίζω, a verb meaning to receive divine warning or revelation. On that note, Costache could have pointed out that the New Testament ties χρηματίζω to both dreaming—the verb χρηματίζω appears in Matthew 2:22 alongside the phrase κατ᾽ὄναρ—and divine warning, as in Acts 10:22, wherein the phrase ἐχρηματίσθη ὑπὸ ἀγγέλου ἁγίου appears, to provide context, but he does not. He also fails to demonstrate that Athanasius referenced the term ὄναρ disparagingly or derogatorily; associated χρηματίζω with dreams and with oracular activity; and/or used χρηματίζω, even occasionally, to avoid referencing dreams directly while still maintaining that connotation. This oversight is especially noticeable when Costache previously has mentioned Athanasius's negative rhetorical use of ἐνυπνιάζω (to dream), προλέγɛιν (to foretell), and φαντασία (phantasms or delusions) (96–99), especially alongside Costache's insistence that Athanasius “employed an expression [ἐρχημάτιζɛ] which he otherwise would have considered suspicious” (102). Occasional gaps, like the one above, make some arguments in the book difficult to follow at best and unconvincing at worst.
Despite these missteps, the book still offers valuable information and reveals avenues for future scholarship. It combines together a number of patristic approaches to dreams in a fairly accessible form, and it highlights lesser-known sources, such as Synesius's On Dreams. The largest drawbacks to the volume reside in its occasional assumption of the reader's familiarity with the subject matter and the at times puzzling use of sources. However, scholars of ancient dream theory may very well find elements of the text worth investigating. At the very least, the book rightfully underscores patristic authors’ dependency on earlier philosophical models and reveals how those authors integrated those theories into Christian dream theory.
