“How does one develop an appropriate urban Christian Spirituality?” is the question this study asks. First, I develop a rigorous, yet open, theoretical framework with which to describe Christian Spirituality’s complexity: a description focused primarily on constraining the markers of Biblical Spirituality and City Spirituality. Within the limits placed on the complex system of Christian Spirituality, I begin exploring various, mostly minor, tropes of urban biblical spiritualities in the “Old” and “New” Testament. From these analyses, I evince the implications of these biblical spirituality tropes for the current city theater, and also construe a set of questions evaluating the appropriateness of mitigating urban communities. The study culminates in an imagined ideal mitigating urban community named an ekklesiastes: a wisdom teaching technology of urban meaning, complexity, and resistance. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Christian Spirituality)

This thesis aims to provide a critique of the conclusions of Gershom Scholem regarding the potential for ‘Gnostic’-Kabbalistic filiation, and to establish whether, in light of the available evidence, Scholem’s arguments (which have yet, to my mind, to be sufficiently challenged) can be reasonably supported. I strive to offer an arguably clearer definition of the relevant taxonomic terms than is often presented in scholarly analyses of this question, whilst also arguing for the applicability to this debate of certain pertinent methodological approaches drawn from the wider school of comparative mythology. As such, I also attempt to establish a clear methodology for judging the probability of the genetic descent of one ‘system’ from another, viz. that perhaps the most logical method for assessing potential similarities between different ‘systems’ is to assume in the first instance that all correspondences identified are essentially coincidental, dismissing this assumption only if one can identify a high level of exactness in these comparisons (such as would render pure coincidence relatively improbable) and/or establish a secure chain of transmission between two sources, a chain which renders the transmission of ideas not only possible but indeed probable. Applying this methodology to certain potential routes by which second century ‘Gnostic’ thought might have been transmitted to the origin point of the medieval Kabbalah, I attempt both to demonstrate the wider applicability of such a methodology beyond the narrow question of ‘Gnostic’-Kabbalistic relationships, and to illustrate the serious difficulties with advancing any of these potential routes as a reliable source for the transmission of ‘Gnostic’ ideas to the Kabbalah. Rather, I argue that it may be more logically defensible, in the absence of clear source evidence, to ascribe such correspondences as are located purely to coincidence, albeit a coincidence perhaps somewhat tempered by certain observations regarding the relative ubiquity of certain concepts and modes of thought.

The county of Tripoli (Lebanon) was one of four “crusader states” established in the Levant after the First Crusade (1095-99). Compared to the other states, the county of Tripoli has suffered from a disproportionate level of historiographical neglect. What has been produced has taken an institutional and Eurocentric approach to the subject and its sources. The present thesis jettisons this in favour of a post-institutional methodology, approaching the county from the perspectives of geography and demographics, which together ensure that it is treated within its proper Syro-Lebanese context. Chapter one looks at the role of local geography in shaping the political frontiers of the county of Tripoli and its neighbours, arguing that topography was more important than the agency of the European settlers. Chapter two continues to challenge traditional assumptions regarding European influence, arguing that the specifically southern French origins of many of the county’s settlers were of little significance. Chapter three analyses the use of Arabic by the Frankish government of the county, informed by an awareness of diglossia. It argues that the Franks were more likely to know spoken Arabic than written, but remained reliant upon local intermediaries when ruling over Arabophones. Chapter four looks at popular religion, arguing that the cross-fertilisation of religious beliefs and practices was widespread but poorly understood by the contemporary intelligentsia, upon whose sources historians rely. As a whole, the thesis argues that the county’s inhabitants lacked a distinctive culture, identity, religion or language. The sole justification for viewing the county as an integrated unit is geographical.

Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th (Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology)

My thesis examines the function and development of the cult of saints in Coptic Egypt. For this purpose I focus primarily on the material provided by the texts forming the Coptic hagiographical tradition of the early Christian martyr Philotheus of Antioch, and more specifically - the Martyrdom of St Philotheus of Antioch (Pierpont Morgan M583). This Martyrdom is a reflection of a once flourishing cult which is attested in Egypt by rich textual and material evidence. This text enjoyed great popularity not only in Egypt, but also in other countries of the Christian East, since his dossier includes texts in Coptic, Georgian, Ethiopic, and Arabic. This thesis examines the literary and historical background of the Martyrdom of Philotheus and similar hagiographical texts. It also explores the goals and concerns of the authors and editors of Coptic martyr passions and their intended audience. I am arguing that these texts were produced in order to perform multiple functions: to justify and promote the cult of a particular saint, as an educational tool, and as an important structural element of liturgical celebrations in honour of the saint. Another aim of this work is to stress the entertainment value of such texts. I explore the sources used by Coptic hagiographers for creating such entertaining stories, as well as the methods they used to re-work certain theological concepts and make them more accessible to the audience. The thesis begins with description of the manuscript tradition of Philotheus and a brief outline and comparison of its main versions. The second chapter discusses the place of the Martyrdom of Philotheus in Coptic hagiography and its connection to the so-called cycles. The next two chapters explore the motifs and topoi characteristic of Coptic martyr passions, especially the legend of Diocletian the Persecutor and the image of Antioch as the Holy City in Coptic hagiography, as these two motifs appear in one way or another in the majority of the martyr passions. Chapter 5 is dedicated to one of the focal points in the Martyrdom - the miracle of resurrection and the tour of hell – and its literary and theological background. Chapter 6 discusses representations of magic and paganism in Coptic hagiography and some of the concerns of Coptic hagiographers. In the last chapter I explore the geography of the cult, its iconographic and hymnographic dimensions and the transformation of the perception of the saint; the second part of this chapter discusses the questions of performance, authorship and audience.

After graduating from the Literae Humaniores course, which after the mid-nineteenth century came to revolve around Plato’s Republic, Walter Pater’s (1839-1894) professional duties spanning thirty years at Oxford were those of a philosophy teacher and lecturer of Plato. This thesis examines Pater’s deep engagement with Platonism in his work, from his earliest known piece, “Diaphaneitè” (1864), to his final book, Plato and Platonism (1893), treating both his criticism and fiction, including his studies on myth. Plato is an ideal philosopher, critic, and artist to Pater, exemplifying a literary craftsman who blends genres with the highest authority. Platonism is a point of contact with several of Pater’s contemporaries, such as Arnold and Wilde, from which we can take new measure of their critical relationships regarding aestheticism and Decadence. Pater’s idea of aesthetic education takes Platonism for its model, which heightens one’s awareness of reality in the recognition of form and matter. Platonism also provides a framework for critical encounters with figures across history, such as Wordsworth, Michelangelo and Pico della Mirandola in The Renaissance (1873), Marcus Aurelius and Apuleius in Marius the Epicurean (1885), and Montaigne and Giordano Bruno in Gaston de Latour (1896). In the manner Platonism holds that soul or mind is the essence of a person, Pater’s criticism, evident even in his fiction, seeks the mind of the author, so that his writing enacts Platonic love. Through close reading, we highlight his many references to Plato, identify Platonic subjects and themes, and explore etymological nuances in the very selection of his words, which often reveals a Platonic tendency of refinement towards immateriality, from seen to unseen beauty. As a teacher and an author Pater helped shape Oxonian Platonism, and through his writing we examine how Platonism informs his philosophy of aesthetics, history, myth, epistemology, ethics, language, and style.

The popular millenarian movement founded by Joanna Southcott (1750-1814) enjoyed a complex relationship with political radicalism in early nineteenth-century Britain. Southcott opposed radicalism during her lifetime, encouraging her followers to await a messianic agent of the millennium. Within two decades of the prophet’s death – as Southcott expected to give birth to this messiah – some surviving Southcottians became political radicals, most notably, John ‘Zion’ Ward (1781-1837) and James Elishama Smith (1801-57). Ward was a popular preacher during the agitations around the Reform Bill, Smith a radical lecturer, editor of Robert Owen’s journal Crisis, and ideologue within general trades unionism in 1833-34. The respective influence of each figure drew several hundred Southcottians into engagement with politics. This thesis presents a new interpretation of why such millenarians engaged with radicalism. Utilising a substantial range of Southcottian and radical sources, many previously unstudied, it challenges the existing explanations of Southcottian radicalism of E.P. Thompson, J.F.C. Harrison, Barbara Taylor and others. Through a close study of the religious experience, ideas and practices of Southcottians in 1815-35, it locates an altered disposition towards social activity through the evolving millennial theologies of Southcottian groups and the personal acquaintanceship of individual believers with radical freethinkers. Under the prophetic leadership of Zion Ward and John Wroe (1782-1863), earlier Southcottian notions of the respective roles of divine and human agency in the realising of the millennium were changed by 1830. This led Southcottians to a new sense of agency, where their own actions took on a millennial significance when directed towards the achievement of God’s perceived intentions for the world. For some, this presented engagement with political radicalism, even freethought radicalism, in a new light: as action apposite to their beliefs. This argument features an alternative theoretical framework for millenarian beliefs which takes account of the way conceptions of human agency can vary within religious movements centred on modern prophecy. In exposing the inadequacy of existing pre- and postmillennial categories to explain such beliefs, it demonstrates how visionary religion can inspire expectations of both disruptive and evolutionary change, and require both divine and human agency, in the realisation of the millennium. This is a study in religious history, orientated towards politics. It demonstrates that a sensitivity to how visionary religious ideas influenced individuals involved in political movements, aids an improved understanding of political motivations and ideals.

This thesis investigates the first poetry written in Castilian by intellectuals, the 'mester de clerecía', ‘craft of clerics’. Exploring the unique circumstances of Iberia in the Middle Ages as a hub for the intellectual vanguard and a holy territory for encounters with saints, pilgrimage and Reconquest, I examine the canonical texts of an alleged thirteenth-century poetic school as the Castilian bedrock of a wider Iberian and European literary movement. Notably including analysis of the fourteenth-century "Libro de buen amor", a canonical work in its own right thought to parody the earlier poems, I also reassess the significance of the verse form 'cuaderna vía' for the 'mester de clerecía', in which the thirteenth-century poems are exclusively written. Over an introduction and four chapters, I combine close reading of the "Libro de Alexandre" (Chapter 1), Berceo’s Vidas of Millán, Domingo and Oria (Chapter 2), the "Libro de Apolonio" and "Poema de Fernán González" (Chapter 3), and the "Libro de buen amor" (Chapter 4), with research into intellectual, pedagogical, and religious contexts. Notably, I have found the poems analyzed to be especially concerned with the landscape of the reading mind. The result is an expanded view of the 'mester de clerecía' as theological and philosophical poems that offer ways of understanding and approaching the life of the mind as well as that of the body that are thought-provoking and informative to this day. Concluding that the thirteenth-century, canonical poems are the witnesses of a 'textual community' of authors rather than a poetic school, I advocate an inclusive definition of the 'mester de clerecía'. The 'mester de clerecía' are of extremely rich intellectual scope and are of potential interest to scholars of all European literatures, and literary, intellectual, and social history, as well as theology and philosophy.

The manuscript Berlin, SBB-PK, mgf 863 was written in about 1430 to 1435 and contains more than 600 short narrative texts in German prose (with some Latin insertions). Among them is the collection of the ›Alemannische Vitaspatrum‹ as well as an additional, extensive and multifarious exempla corpus, which mostly contains translations from well-known Latin collections such as – for example and most prominently – Caesarius' of Heisterbach ›Dialogus miraculorum‹. Because of the specific composition of the corpus and its large extent, mgf 863 builds an excellent basis for the investigation of exempla, a text type which has not received much attention in German studies. The manuscript was probably produced in Strasbourg where it belonged to the library of the nuns from the convent of St Mary Magdalen. It contains a large quantity of textual material with close links to Strasbourg in terms of content or history of transmission. My primary interest is in the texts in the manuscript, in their contents and interdependencies, as well as in their history and their contextualization in, for example, groups of manuscripts, exempla tradition and religious practice. The project aims at a contribution to exempla research as well as to literary and religious life in Strasbourg in the late Middle Ages. My approach comes primarily from literary studies, but also uses palaeographical, textualcritical, and historical methods. The thesis combines case studies of the transmission of individual exempla or groups of exempla with general research into the history of texts (›Textgeschichte‹) and the history of transmission (›Überlieferungsgeschichte‹) of German prose exempla. A repertory in the appendix provides an overview of the manuscript's content. It helps to orientate within the study; furthermore, with over 600 entries, it provides a tool for the identification of German exempla.

This thesis examines political engagement amongst young urban Chinese Protestants. Based on 100 interviews in Beijing and Shenzhen, 50 with Protestants, and 50 with non-Protestants, it focuses on three areas: national narratives (what individuals think about China, its current situation and its future direction), political opinions, and social and political activity. I firstly argue that Protestants generally adhere to a relatively ‘critical’ national narrative, one that is more divergent from the Party-state’s nationalist discourse than that of their demographic peers. I then argue that in causal terms, it is primarily individuals who hold these critical values who are most drawn to Christianity, rather than developing the values as a result of their faith. Secondly, Protestants do not just hold more negative opinions of China's political regime, but that the criteria by which they judge it are different. In contrast to their demographic peers, Protestants do not base their judgements of the regime on its performance at delivering on everyday political issues. Thirdly, Protestantism catalyses the development of a sense of agency in its adherents: a sense of moral responsibility towards China and a desire to bring change through transformative activism. However, factors in China's cultural, historical, social and political context serve to steer Protestants' activism away from engagement with secular society and inward towards the church community. I conclude by arguing that Protestantism poses two challenges to China's Party-state: Firstly, it is symptomatic of an underlying sense of social and political malaise, of scepticism towards the primacy of economic enrichment and towards the Party-state’s attempt to legitimise its rule based upon this. Secondly, Protestantism catalyses the emergence of a critical, morally agentic individualism that anchors its worldview in a discourse outside the control of the Party-state. Adapting to these social shifts presents a major future challenge for the CCP.