Psukhai that matter: The Psukhē in and behind Clement of Alexandria\u27s Paedagogus

This dissertation aims to investigate the ideology and mechanics of the ancient soul’s materiality as witnessed in Clement of Alexandria’s late second- or early third-century work, the Paedagogus. I focus on four ways in which Clement refers to the soul: (1) as an entity in need of punishment and healing, (2) as vulnerable to substances and the activities of the body, (3) as made visible through the body’s appearance, and (4) as an internal moral-core. Through the lens of the Paedagogus, this dissertation introduces recent theoretical work on “materiality” and “the body,” especially as developed in gender studies, into the broad scholarly conversation about the ancient soul. In the process, it shows how Clement uses the interactions between the ancient soul and the ancient body in his attempt to produce and police Christian subjects