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The thesis is introduced by setting the scene at around the beginning of the second century CE, with a short description of the ‘Parting of the Ways’ between Judaism and Christianity. Particular emphasis is placed on the construction of Christianity’s identity and her assembly of Jewish and pagan identities. Attention will be drawn to the history of interpretation of this Christian identification, from perception of an attitude of anti-Judaism across-the-board to recognition of a more intricate interplay. Recognising that the investigation of this interplay is critical and can only be achieved through textual analysis, the <i>KP</i> is introduced with questions of authorship and provenance examined. The goal of the thesis is then stated; to determine the Petrine author’s perceptions of Jews and Judaism and whether they are based on historical stereotyping or real contemporary contact. The first chapter is foundational to the investigation that follows, for it is a critical text and translation of the <i>KP</i>. The text’s fragmentary nature is noted as well as the different schemes devised to refer to specific parts of the <i>KP</i>. With the appropriate nomenclature fixed upon, the fragments are then set out one after the other and where there is divergence in opinion about the meaning of the text, this is noted and all arguments considered before a judgement is given. With this background, the second chapter examines the instances within the text where the author may be accused of attacking Jews and Judaism. This occurs in two fragments {<i>KP</i>(IV) and <i>KP</i>(IX)} and over three separate issues {angelolatry, selenolatry and ‘Christ-killing’}. These topics are examined in turn, with the attitudes in the <i>KP</i> compared to those in contemporary texts. By making such comparisons it is possible to ascertain whether the Petrine author’s claims were justified and to help establish the extent of contact the Petrine author had with Jews and Judaism. The third chapter focuses on areas of Judaism that the Petrine author appropriated. This includes an examination of ‘Scripture’ and ‘Jerusalem’ in <i>KP</i>(IX) and the use of ‘νόμος’ and ‘λόγος’ in <i>KP</i>(I). Contemporary works are again analysed alongside the <i>KP</i> so as to permit an assessment of the extent of any appropriation. In the final chapter I turn my attention to <i>KP</i>(V) and <i>KP</i>(VI) which deal with the notion of ‘New Covenant’ and the possibility of Jews being part of this agreement.

This thesis will aim to conceptualise the period from c. 1739 to 1800 as a time in which the nature of Calvinism, or what contemporaries perceived as Calvinism to mean, was under intense and continuous discussion in New England. Ministers’ various attempts to remould their Calvinist heritage will be examined: in particular, the investigation will focus on ‘New Divinity’ clerics such as Joseph Bellamy, and Samuel Hopkins, who reinterpreted the works of Jonathan Edwards senior. We will also analyse the opposing arguments of ‘Old Calvinist’ and ‘Arminian’ pastors, and consider in some detail the treatises of such ‘Arminians’ as Charles Chauncy and Jonathan Mayhew, who repudiated certain Calvinist doctrines. In sum, this thesis will study very closely the ministerial discussions of such topics as original sin, total depravity, and the origin of evil; the freedom of the will and moral agency; the nature of justifying faith; the relationship between faith and works; true holiness; and Christ’s atonement and universal salvation. Moreover, in New England, the principles of eighteenth-century ‘supernatural rationalism’ were significant, as they initiated debate on such issues as the relationship between God and man; man’s rational ability to perceive true virtue; his potential to enact good works; and God’s infinite benevolence. Ministers’ reinterpretation of New England Calvinism will therefore be placed in the context of the common intellectual culture of ‘the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world’, in order to see how, and to what extent, they absorbed or rejected its theological assumptions.

This thesis examines the date, reception and literary setting of the <i>Shepherd of Hermas</i>. It includes a reassessment of the Muratorian <i>Canon</i>, the most important external evidence for the date. Chapter 2 explores critical questions relating to the <i>Shepherd</i>'s internal evidence, particularly the date. It considers textual and numismatic evidence, concluding that the <i>Shepherd</i> probably dates to the early second century. Chapter 3 is a fresh study of the Muratorian <i>Canon</i>, often assumed to date the <i>Shepherd</i> accurately; however it is considered here to reflect an important early negative perception of the <i>Shepherd</i>. This Chapter argues that the <i>Canon</i> is a Roman canonical list, possibly an excerpt from a lost dialogue, written within an early-third century anti-Montanist context, from the Hippolytean school. The <i>Shepherd</i> was probably used as a scriptural authority by Callistus' church to justify a view of second repentance unacceptable to the Hippolytean school and Tertullian. This led the school to undermine the scriptural authority of the <i>Shepherd, </i>by dating it to the time of Pius. Chapter 4 sheds further light upon the <i>Shepherd </i>through a fresh study of its wider literary setting. After a comparison with other apocalyptic works, especially <i>I Enoch</i> and <i>4 Ezra</i>, it is argued that the whole of the <i>Shepherd: Visions, Mandates</i> and <i>Similitudes,</i> is an apocalypse not only in form but also in content. Three main themes are considered: mode of revelation, eschatology and angelology. This apocalyptic dimension also sheds light upon the <i>Shepherd's</i> common paraenetic tradition with the New Testament, especially James (an Appendix sets out this material), on the understanding of repentance in the <i>Shepherd</i>, and on contemporary ecclesiastical disputes. Finally the use of the word <i>homonoia</i> is judged to indicate a further literary link with the group of second century Greek writings termed the 'Second Sophistic'.

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Renowned medievalist Jacques Le Goff claims ‘Purgatory’ was not ‘born’ until the late twelfth century, but all the functions of purgatory are regularly referred to in Anglo-Saxon writings, and the interim was clearly an important concept.  For clergy and laity alike, the commemoration and obligations owed to the dead resulted in the perception of the interim as a place of interaction between living and departed. Far from being ‘born’ in the late twelfth century, therefore, purgatory was by then a child whose future and direction was discussed in great detail: it had existed since much earlier. Penance ties into the interim in the context of the rites for the sick and dying, but was also an occasion for teaching and learning; the priest catechised the penitent as part of the confessional process, and the afterlife was the first teaching a penitent Christian should learn. The practical and social aspects of pastoral care are crucial to the understanding of the post-mortem interim, especially so since the later Anglo-Saxon Church grouped the laity according to where they confessed and performed penance. This work begins by exploring the ideas of the interim and afterlife which circulated in the early Church. An investigation of the organisation and nature of the church in England in this period seeks to establish by whom and for whom Anglo-Saxon religious texts were written, and how information was disseminated and received. Following this, I examine the ways in which Anglo-Saxons responded to, adapted and reproduced medieval Christian ideas of death and dying, from the importance of confession and penance in life, to the rites of the sick and dying and the funerary liturgy, and ultimately to perceptions of death and the beyond.

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This thesis explores how Christianity, the religion of a small number of people in India, played a significant role in shaping India’s state policies towards religion, and the culture of modern Indian public life. Rather than evaluate whether India is ‘secular’ or not, this thesis investigates the particular details of modern India’s relation with religion. It is argued that these particularities are best explained with reference to a history of social competition, in which sectarianism, including Christian sectarianism, played a major role. The thesis operates at three levels: state policy, social institutions, and community organization. Within state policy it deals with religion in public education, the regulation of religious endowments and the formation of family laws, known as personal laws. In each case it is described how the British imperial policy of ‘religious neutrality’ came to be interpreted and applied in response to the dynamics of the current political situation. The success of Christians in influencing the government was only periodic, but in these periods, legal and policy precedents were created which continued to affect subsequent laws and policies. The effects of such laws on social institutions are studied with respect to a range of Christian educational institutions, which were instituted by European and American missionaries, ostensibly as methods of evangelisation, but which ended up becoming generally desirable public schools. It is argued that the Christian schools’ success depended upon the transformation of their religious approach, which was shaped by external laws and policies, but also by their internal dynamics, especially the rise of a new group of predominantly Indian Christian managers, who better appreciated the sensibilities of their largely non-Christian clientele. The last three chapters further open up the differences and disputes among Christians in India, revealing how the Indian Community shaped and represented itself in the Indian public world.

This thesis concerns aspects of the history of the English Premonstratensian canons in the later middle ages, and concentrates on the period c. 1458-1500 in particular. It focuses primarily on the conventual observances of the abbeys of the 'white' canons and their visitation by Bishop Richard Redman (1505), commissary-general of Prémontré and English visitor, as revealed in his visitation register and other manuscript sources. The first chapter, by way of introduction, surveys the development and organisation of the English Premonstratensian province. This includes a brief discussion of the origins of the white canons, the foundation of the English houses, and their devolved government from Prémontré, their French motherhouse. Chapter Two considers the manuscript sources containing the visitation records of the English Premonstratensians, Bodleian Library, Oxford MS. Ashmole 1519, and British Library Additional MSS. 4934 and 4935. The first of these, the Ashmole MS., is shown to be the most important primary source for our period, as it contains Richard Redman's visitation register. Following a discussion of the register's composition, is an examination of the unpublished journey itineraries contained in the Ashmole MS., which enabled Redman to travel from abbey to abbey. The third chapter contains an extensive analysis of Redman's visitations, mainly between 1478-1500, and attempts to ascertain the nature and observance of monastic life within the English Premonstratensian abbeys. An account is given of the procedure of visitation as conducted by Redman and Premonstratensians generally, followed by an examination of the name lists in Redman's register, which give an idea of the level of recruitment amongst the canons and the complements within each abbey. Various aspects of Premonstratensian life, including conventual food and clothing, and the misdemeanours recorded during the visitations, such as sexual immorality and apostasy, are considered. Redman's comments on the maintenance of economic structures within each house and the conservation of monastic buildings, are briefly discussed.

The dissertation is a study of the Christian quest for doctrinal and moral purity during the fifty years preceding the fall of Rome (410 AD). As the barbarians were approaching the frontiers of the empire, Roman citizens had to come to terms with the prospect that Rome might no longer be the 'Eternal City'. Success and wealth became meaningless. Many started to turn away from the material world. They put all their hopes into the Church which they wanted to be pure and untouchable. The dissertation shows that the rise of Christian asceticism and monasticism in the fourth century should be associated with the rigorist conception of the Church which developed at the same time. Moral preachers and rigorist theologians used the <I>Song of Songs</I> to redraw the boundaries of Christian society and the social order of the Church. Their interpretation of the poem betrays their will to strengthen the Church in face of political insecurity and to impose on Christian women a return to a more traditional and secluded lifestyle. My research is based on original Greek and Latin texts of the fourth and fifth century, mainly the works of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory of Elvira, and Ambrose of Milan. I make use of unedited manuscripts which I have discovered in the Vatican library and the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. As well as contributing to the general history of the Early Church, my dissertation reveals important new information on the consecration of virgins in the fourth century and the liturgy which accompanied the ceremony. This new information includes evidence that the ceremony. This new information includes evidence that the ceremony of consecration of virgins appeared at the time of Ambrose and that it was deeply inspired by the Song of Songs. Chapter 6 contains a new and original reconstitution of this ceremony.