ABSTRACT
Edward Synge was an Irish Bishop in the Anglican Church of Ireland and renowned preacher. He authored over sixty volumes of sermons and religious tracts in his lifetime, and was known for his rationalist approach to the faith. This excerpt came from a text that provided advice for those suffering from spiritual melancholy, notably distinguishing between melancholy caused by sin or crisis of the faith, and that produced by bodily illness. Advice literature on a wide range of topics was a popular form of writing since the late medieval period, and was used by readers to help them improve their lives and moral behaviour. Much advice drew on a Christian moral framework, not least in discussions of health and wellbeing. Melancholy was a significant illness in the early modern European imagination, widely written about it and discussed. Synge was participating in a wide-ranging conversation on this subject, while also offering practical strategies for those living with melancholy. As a well-known minister, his contribution explicitly situates melancholy as a problem of faith and that can be resolved through religious exercises. It provides useful insights both into how melancholy was perceived during this period, and how such emotional disorders were interpreted and managed through a religious lens.
