This study examines Augustine’s conception of the role of delight (delectatio) in the divine acts of creation and redemption. In the first part of the dissertation, I argue that Augustine, who was trained as a rhetor and taught rhetoric before his conversion, came to conceive of theology as the fulfilment of Cicero’s conviction that wisdom and eloquence ought to be united. His approach to Cicero’s rhetorical theory as found in De inventione, De oratore, and Orator shares many similarities with that of Late Antique rhetors (especially Marius Victorinus) in whose works the orator functions less as a statesman than as a physician of the soul. Accordingly, an orator’s role is not to sway the senate or deliberate in law courts (as in Cicero’s thought) but to inform and persuade people towards a fruitful return to the divine. In the second part of the dissertation, I demonstrate how this approach influenced Augustine’s understanding of redemption. He conceives of God as Cicero’s ideal orator, in whom wisdom and eloquence are perfectly united. God engages in a rhetorical contest with the devil whom Augustine portrays in terms of the false orators in Cicero’s De inventione. The devil’s rhetoric comprises an illicit delight in actual sin and an inordinate delight in created goods, both of which exert their power over the human will through suggestion, delight and persuasion and result in a bondage to sin and death. By contrast, God ‘utters’ creation as a delightful song and opposes death’s nihilistic rhetoric by pouring his own delight into the hearts of the faithful; this delight persuades the will to move towards a joyful participation in the divine that is the happy life for which all people long. Ultimately, Augustine identifies this spiritual delight most closely with the Holy Spirit who functions as God’s eternal eloquence.

This is a study of William Burkitt (1650-1703), Vicar and Lecturer of Dedham; his life, library and legacy. A son of an ejected Puritan minister, Burkitt became a conforming Reformed clergyman of the Church of England. This thesis examines the part that patrimony and education played in Burkitt's formation, ministry and legacy to consider why he became known for his moderation, tolerance and charity. Burkitt bequeathed a large parochial library which remained intact for two centuries before being dispersed. Historians of the book and historical bibliographers have mourned not only its loss but that what was lost became unknown. Re-discovered bibliographical manuscripts have been used to create a catalogue of what once existed. Other manuscripts by Burkitt are here given scholarly consideration for the first time; through this the academic and spiritual hinterland of his times will be better seen. Local and particular in approach, yet a kind of 'qualitative change' will be seen here with greater clarity. Burkitt wrote books that were among the most widely read in Britain and North America during the first century after his death. Now largely forgotten, even by students of early modem history, this thesis examines how Burkitt's books were once valued, considers why they fell from favour, and reflects on whether such amnesia is deserved. Reformed parochial clergy have been considered to have had only a marginal effect upon the Church in the latter part of the seventeenth century; this thesis challenges that assumption, offering a fresh insight into the importance of such ministers during these years. From all the divisions, conflicts and disasters of the period, England emerged a stronger and more confident nation. This thesis, with a magnification of Burkitt's ministry and its changes and continuities on the Essex-Suffolk border, will help to show how such transformation was made possible.

This thesis sets out to examine the importance of Latin in the literary output of John Foxe by means of an analysis of a representative sample of the many different genres in which he wrote. The thesis rests on the examination of four propositions about Foxe's career as a Latin writer: first that his natural language of thought was Latin and that he was an accomplished Latinist; secondly, that he developed a significant intellectual network with the great scholars of the day; thirdly that his Latin, both spoken and written, is the key to unlocking the distinctiveness of his experience during his exile; and finally that on his return to England Foxe continued to use his Latin as a protagonist in the Elizabethan regime. It demonstrates not only that he was an extremely skilled Latinist, but also that he was very much in demand at different stages of his life as an exponent of those skills. In particular, this thesis shows beyond all doubt that the widespread view over the centuries, prevalent even among many of his contemporaries that John Foxe was simply the church historian who wrote the Acts and Monuments ('Book of Martyrs'), is completely wrong. Foxe was a true humanist and a son of the Renaissance in the tradition of Erasmus and his disciples, a neglected Latin writer, whose final untranslated work on the Apocalypse, at the least, merits a detailed study.

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This thesis surveys facets of the eighteenth century English social context in order to offer a reading of Wesley as a contextual theologian. It explores distinctive aspects of Wesley's theology related to his ecclesiological practice. Wesley's ecclesiology affects his understanding of how and why the church should and does respond to (particularly urban) poverty. In considering his praxis, a model of good practice begins to emerge, both of churchmanship and of considerations and responses to poverty and people living within it. Picking up the eighteenth century analysis and overlaying it on selected aspects of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, analogous patterns become evident in social history, both for Christianity and of poverty (again, especially urban poverty). This thesis focuses particularly on one response to cultural change experienced within the Christian church in the West, the emergent church movement, which is a relatively recent phenomenon. The movement is defined and then considered in its approach to ecclesiology and to the poor. Within the framework of analogy developed the thesis offers a critique of the emergent church movement in relation to key theological developments, and critically reflects on the movement in respects to particular theological elements that are crucial to Wesley. From this critique and comparison the thesis concludes that if the emergent church movement and its successors willingly engage with Wesley and learn from him as a contextual theologian, then they would be better equipped to be a reforming movement for the whole church. This would also enable them to be intentionally transformational for communities and people socially excluded by poverty in the twenty-first century setting. Because the reading of Wesley establishes him as a contextual theologian, whose theology is inseparable from his praxis and shapes it, the thesis contends that the emergent church movement can learn from this. Wesley's orthopraxis - particularly how he relates to his specific historical context and how to help the poor, as essential characteristics of being a Christian church - then offers a powerful paradigm for the emergent church movement.

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This thesis examines the role which death plays in the development of a uniquely Christian identity in John Climacus’ seventh-century work, the Ladder of Divine Ascent and the Greek ascetic literature of the previous centuries. I argue that John Climacus deploys language of death, inherited from a range of Greek Christian literature, as the symbolic framework within which he describes the ascetic lifestyle as developing a Christian identity. This framework is expressed by thee ascetic practice of ‘memory of death’ and by practices of renunciation described as ‘death’ to oneself and others. In order to understand Climacus’ unique achievement in regard to engagement with death it is necessary first to situate the Ladder and its author within the literature of the Greek ascetic tradition, within which Climacus consciously wrote. In the Introduction I develp ways Climacus draws on and develops traditional material, while arguing that it must be treated and interpreted in its own right and not simply as his ‘sources.’ I then examine the vocabulary of death and the lines of thought opened up in the New Testament. Chapter One argues that the memory of death plays an important role in Athanasius’ Vita Antonii. Chapter Two surveys material from the fifth- and sixth-century Egyptian and Palestinian deserts in which memory and practice of death are deployed in a wider variety of ways and are increasingly connected to ascetics’ fundamental understanding of self and salvation. Chapter Three examines the sixth-century Quaestiones et Responsiones of Barsanuphius and John of Gaza in which further elaboration of the same thematic is discernible. Chapter Four concludes this thesis with a sustained reading of John Climacus’ Scala Paradisi in which the various thematics centring on memory and practice of death are synthesized into the existential framework and practical response, respectively.