Commentary “My mind thinks I’m still 25. My body thinks my mind is an idiot.” This piece of social media wisdom may not be the most subtle or sophisticated, but it probably is the most recent example of an imagined conversation or debate between body and mind. In such exchanges, not uncommon in medieval and Renaissance literature, the mind (or spirit or soul—the terms were sometimes used interchangeably) is the superior party, the essence of the person. It might berate the body, which it associated with carnality, lust, and the flesh, for leading the soul into sinful and destructive behavior. The body might reply that it was merely a pile of inert matter, unable to do anything without being directed and animated by the soul. Or as in Plato, the body is pictured as a cage in which the soul was entrapped to be released only by death. Or as …