Jonathan is a Research Fellow in Biblical and Early Christian Studies at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne.

He looks at early Christian asceticism, the medical cultures of late antiquity, and traditions of prayer and spiritual practice in Byzantium and Eastern Orthodox Christianity. His first book (2015) explores the monastic engagement with death and judgment, focusing especially on the masterpiece of Byzantine monastic literature, the Ladder of Divine Ascent. His current monograph (under contract with Oxford University Press), part of the Modes of Knowing Project at ACU, explores the medical context and logic of early monastic practices of spiritual direction.

Jonathan’s interest in medicine extends to clinical practices in late antiquity and their applicability to questions of clinical relationship and care being explored in the health/medical humanities today. He pursues this interest through research in the discursive histories of pain and emotion from Hellenistic philosophy through Byzantium. In context of this work, he serves on the board of ReMeDHe, an international working group for scholars interested in “Religion, Medicine, Disability, and Health in Late Antiquity.”