The present volume offers twelve interdisciplinary papers from the conference Praying and Contemplating in Late Antiquity: Religious and Philosophical Interactions in Late Antiquity. The conference, hosted in 2016, was developed and organized by Eleni Pachoumi. It brought together a group of scholars to think about encounters between religion and philosophy from the 3rd–7th century CE. The resulting volume of conference proceedings offers an assorted collection that encompasses studies from the Orphic Codex to the Emperor Julian’s writings. Contributors have variously interpreted the conference’s principal themes of “prayer” and “contemplation”: In her contribution, AnneMaré Kotzé reads Augustine’s Confessions as one long prayer, whose objective is to communicate with both a human and divine audience. Mark Wildish’s paper focusses on Iamblichus’ theurgical prayers and argues that these consisted of theurgical deeds, whose efficacy was dependent on the activities performed for them. The essay by Mark Edwards’ maintains that Christian exorcism spells were a form of prayer in which an exorcist surrendered their personal authority by invoking the agency of Christ.

Though the contributions vary widely in theme, period, and methodology, the reader can often find a productive complementarity between them. Together, the papers on dreams by John F. Finamore and Bronwen Neil cover a spectrum of Neoplatonic and early Christian approaches to dream interpretation and deliberations over the divine inspiration, mantic potential, and function of dreams. Despite some correspondence between essays, the volume’s contributions nevertheless lack a clear, binding structure. “Prayer” and “contemplation” are wide-ranging concepts that are loosely defined in the volume. A more precise explanation of these terms would thus have been helpful. Moreover, the reader would also have benefited from an overarching vision that organizes the diverse array of topics. This said, the volume’s well-researched papers offer a valuable contribution to the field of late antique studies that will be of interest to scholars of various research backgrounds, spanning from Classics to Philosophy to Ancient Christianity.