The subject of this dissertation is the ecclesiastical history of Scotland between 1660 and 1690. This work will examine the struggle between `presbytery' and `prelacy' in detail, and it will examine the role of the state in that conflict. The first three chapters deal with the post-Restoration church settlement and public reactions to that settlement, and these chapters are revisionist in approach. It is usually claimed that the decision to disestablish `presbytery' and revive `prelacy' in 1661 was unpopular, but the evidence in chapters one, two, and three suggests that the king's church polity--at least in the early years--aroused no great protest or outcry? Why? The war, turmoil, and taxes between 1637 and 1660 (the bitter harvest of the covenants) had left the Scots indifferent to religion in general and presbyterianism in particular, and although such attitudes would change in time, they were initially very real. Chapter four is an examination of the royal supremacy, one of the most controversial aspects of the post-Restoration church. In chapter four it will be argued that the presbyterians fundamentally misconstrued the nature of the royal supremacy--they exaggerated the king's ecclesiastical claims--but it will be shown that the crown's authority over the kirk was extensive nevertheless. Chapters five and six will examine the clergy of the post-Restoration kirk, the bishops and ministers that made it function. Chapters five and six will analyze the background and credentials of the clergy, and it will discuss the validity of the various charges made against them. Chapter seven will examine the ecclesiastical courts of the post-Restoration church, and it will discuss how the revival of prelacy affected these courts and changed their composition and function. It has been argued that the post-Restoration kirk was basically a `presbyterian church' with bishops superimposed for political purposes, but chapter seven will show that this opinion is incorrect, for in the period `church power' was clearly concentrated in the hands of the bishops, and, by and large, the church courts only existed in a mutated or abbreviated state. The changes in the church courts are important, for they help explain why the post-Restoration kirk could not accommodate presbyterians in the long run. Chapter eight is an analysis of the worship of the post-Restoration kirk. It will discuss the various developments in worship--the rejection of the Director of Public Worship, the resurrection of set forms of prayer, the repudiation of the lecture, the reinstitution of kneeling, the revival of the Perth Articles--and it will argue that the post-Restoration kirk was slowly drifting from the simple, spontaneous covenanter mode of worship to a more elaborate and structured mode that derived its inspiration from the Church of England. Chapters nine, ten and eleven are a history of presbyterian nonconformity. These chapters divide the history of dissent into three periods. First, a period of weakness (extending from early 1663 to roughly 1668-1669), when conventicles were few and most Scots conformed. This weakness was largely the result of the initial unpopularity of the covenanting cause and the traditional Scottish aversion to schism. Next, there was a period of vitality (extending from 1668-1669 to the Bothwell Bridge Rebellion), when dissent grew stronger and stronger and began to show some militant tendencies. The evidence suggests that this burst of vitality was inadvertently fostered by the government's `indulgence' policy. And finally, a third period (extending from the Rebellion to the granting of religious toleration in 1687), when conventicles again became rare and most Scots again conformed. This collapse, it will be argued, was the result of persecution (the traditional explanation) and the actions of certain radical sects who unwittingly undermined and disrupted presbyterianism with their `excesses.' Chapter twelve analyzes the persecution which the presbyterians endured. In the course of examing the various penalties used against dissenters--some of which were designed to deprive the nonconformist of his wealth and property, and others which were designed to affect the liberty, health, and even the life of the nonconformist--chapter twelve will correct some presbyterian hyperbole. The traditional presbyterian sources, such as the definitive work by Robert Wodrow, tend to emphasize the rigor of the persecution, but chapter twelve shows that the penal laws were often inconsistently applied. And finally, chapter thirteen will examine Scotland's last ecclesiastical revolution, the victory of presbyterianism in 1689-1690. The directors of the `revolution,' King William and his supporters, justified the charge on the grounds that presbyterianism was favored by the majority, but chapter thirteen questions the validity of that claim, and argues that political considerations, rather than demographic factors, were responsible for the presbyterian triumph.

The exegesis of four verses enables us to discuss whether the author uses existing material and to discern whether the teaching is in harmony with Ephesians as a whole and with Pauline teaching, especially on reconciliation. Ephesians 2:14-17 speaks of the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile through the reconciliation of both to God. This passage is not hymnic in origin, although it does reveal hymnic characteristics. These are partly due to the style of Ephesians, but mainly appear through the use of Is. 57:19 and Col. 1:20-22. Evidence of a gnostic background, to the passage is insufficient. We have an example of inclusio, where the words ()and () (v.13) are elaborated upon and then cited again (v.l7). The word peace in Is. 57:19 prompts the writer to show how Christ is our peace. The meaning of the term "middle wall" is problematical, but no suggestion is better than that of the temple barrier in Jerusalem about which the readers would know something from the Old Testament. The middle wall illustrates the divisive aspect of the law. The punctuation of vv. 15, 16 with a comma after () is to be preferred. The negative statements of breaking down and abolishing are followed by the positive of the creating of a new man and the reconciliation of both Jew and Gentile into one body () is used generally and does not refer specifically to the literal body of Christ. Christ preached this message of peace through the apostles and prophets, who were the foundation members of the church. The passage is an example of the author's love of Isaiah, whose message the Christ event has fulfilled in a fuller sense than the prophet envisaged. Not only have the Jews of the Dispersion been brought near, but also the Gentiles. This concept is in harmony with the general theme of Ephesians and Pauline teaching on reconciliation. The evidence is insufficient to support the non-Pauline authorship of Ephesians.

The focus of this thesis is the repair and maintenance of parish churches between 1603 and 1677. As such it represents one of the first systematic studies of this topic to contribute to a variety of debates touching on Jacobean rebuilding programmes, the more famous Laudian initiatives of the 1630s, the notorious iconoclasm of the 1640s, and the impact of the Restoration; debates hitherto all too often approached in isolation from one another. It commences with a brief summary of the prevailing situation based on reports provided for Archbishop Whitgift's survey of 1602 and concludes on the death of Archbishop Sheldon. The geographical location is that covered by James I's 1615 proclamation that 'all persons without a lawful occupation were to leave London, Westminster and Southwark, and all places within 30 mile compass and return to their place where they were born ... ' The thesis refutes the general perception of the period as one of gross neglect of churches. It highlights the importance of local parish pride and initiative over mere compliance with ecclesiastical orders in maintaining, restoring and building churches. Unlike earlier studies of London and Westminster, this thesis has compared and contrasted these two cities with the surrounding rural areas. While the prosperous capital may have led the way in overall expenditure and initiatives, this study shows how the hinterland too experienced constant concern for churches throughout this period. A key finding of this thesis is that the parishioners continued to care for their churches during the civil wars and general unrest of the 1640s and 1650s, when no overall authority ordered or monitored the condition of churches. This care continued after the Restoration, although the re-establishment of the Church of England had little impact on churches outside London and Westminster. The importance of parochial pride is well captured through study of the huge sums spent by congregations on bells and church towers. The thesis is based heavily on systematic study of churchwardens' accounts, the problems of which are discussed fully at the outset. This is another valuable contribution of the thesis, for it addresses current concerns about the reliability and usefulness of these sources and is based on a comprehensive body of material for 242 parishes which are fully representative of communities in the region. Moreover, the scope of this study has enabled the creation of a building cost price index - a valuable companion to the famous Phelps Brown Hopkins Price Index of consumables which should allay the fears of many historians concerning the impact of inflation in studies of this kind.

Jürgen Moltmann’s desire to see the relationship between humans and our natural environment improve is long-standing. In later years he called for a ‘new theological architecture’ to help facilitate an ‘ecological reformation’ of Christianity and society. While Moltmann did not claim to have created this new architecture, one of his work’s aims has clearly been to contribute towards it. To what extent has Moltmann been successful in this aim? Firstly, his doctrine of the Trinity provides the themes of love and relatedness which pervade and colour his whole project. These themes then interact with other key areas of Moltmann’s thought that inform this architecture: creation, God’s ongoing care and openness towards creation (largely pneumatology and christology), and eschatology. Each of these areas contribute to a theological architecture in which non-human creation, past, present, and future, is a full recipient of God’s uniting love and openness. Naturally this leads towards a consideration of the ecological reformation. Less positively, Moltmann’s discussion of God’s creating through self-restriction presents some problems for this architecture’s coherence, although Moltmann’s developing views on this do help provide a solution. Furthermore, analysis of the criticisms made by various commentators suggests that several debated areas are actually particularly productive for Moltmann’s contributions to the architecture. Other criticisms do highlight areas of concern and possible development, but do not present terminal problems. The potential for this architecture to address practice, not simply theory, increases through elements of Moltmann’s theological anthropology that challenge humanity’s behaviour. Those elements thus form a lens through which Moltmann’s wider contributions to the architecture more powerfully speak of the need for creation care. Therefore, while Moltmann’s contribution towards a new architecture for ecological reformation would be helped by certain modifications, nevertheless it is highly significant. Its wide scope makes it fertile for further contributions and development.

Given the global rise of diabetes, the low uptake of GP services and prescribed medicine among UK Chinese is worrying. Little is known about their management of symptoms, compliance with treatment and implementation of lifestyle changes inherent in living with diabetes. Even less is known about whether they use Chinese folk medicine as part of their treatment regime. This qualitative study reduces this information gap based on data collected through focus group discussions and individual interviews. Eight focus group discussions were held in Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham and London with 37 foreign-born UK Chinese participants, including patients, friends and family members. On completion of the eight focus groups, 22 semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with both foreign and British-born Chinese with diabetes. Findings from the focus groups include (i) a reluctance to accept diabetes as a chronic illness, (ii) persistence in the use of folk remedies and (iii) an absence of use of professional Chinese medicine for diabetes, with the exception of one participant. Findings from the individual interviews on ideas about diabetes were similar to those from the focus groups, with further developments in the images of diabetes. With regards to self-management regimes, different coping styles indicated high levels of anxiety and uncertainty surrounding the nature of diabetes. Use of medicine, Chinese or otherwise, was found to be linked to levels of trust and integration with the host community. Themes consistent in both phases of the study include firstly, the description of diabetes as an illness with ‘no tail’ (mouhmei/meiwei 没尾) – the tail representing an end of an illness. Secondly, the cultural practice of food abstinence (gaihhauh/jikou 戒口) was perceived to be an effective method of control and prevention of the deterioration of diabetes. Finally, the relentless search for a cure expressed as ‘cutting the tail’ (tueihmei/duanwei 段尾) was evident in all the interviews. This study highlights the difficulties experienced by ethnic groups whose folk models of illness differ from those of biomedicine. It also addresses two important issues in the management of chronic illness: coping with uncertainty and the importance of trust. These results can help inform the future planning and delivery of healthcare services for ethnic minority groups.

Part One deals with social and historical aspects of melancholy in relation to the emergence of modernity. It is argued that one way of understanding modernity is in terms of the emergence of a characteristic world view associated with Copernicanism, and that this transformation 'from the closed world to the infinite universe' is the context within which the old term 'melancholy' was redefined in terms of the modern experience of 'motion', 'distance' and 'reflection'. It is argued that an initial understanding of this relation provides a meaningful context for the reading of Kierkegaard's comments on his own society, particularly those contained in his Two Ages, his varied journalistic production, and his thesis, The Concept of Irony. Part Two attempts to define and present three distinct perspectives within which psychological, philosophical and religious dimensions of melancholy are explored. I have termed these perspectives, respectively, topological, anthropological and philosophical. Not only the aesthetic works, but the 'theory of the spheres' - which has played a central part in much contemporary literature on Kierkegaard - are here treated as exemplifying a topological approach to the central issues of modernity. In contrast to this horizontal perspective, and cutting across it a various points, a distinctively vertical analysis of experience is explored in a number of anthropological works, including, The Concept of Anxiety. An openly philosophical analysis of modernity is then presented, using the works attributed to Johannes Climacus and Anti-Climacus. Part Three, as distinct from the secular works discussed in Parts One and Two, deals with Kierkegaard's explicitly religious writings. In these works, it is argued, Kierkegaard offers a description of religiously transformed, non-melancholic experience. He does so, however, by way of contrast with the melancholy which remains central to both our immediate and reflective forms of self-understanding.

This doctoral thesis concentrates exclusively on the Historiae adversus paganos, an apologetic history in seven books written by the presbyter Paulus Orosius in the early fifth century AD. This thesis is ultimately an exposition of Orosius's philosophy of history, within which the themes of divine providence, monotheism, and imperial authority are central. This thesis has endeavoured to establish what the Historiae is in terms of content, purpose, and genre, a more complex task than this simple statement suggests. At every stage of analysis this research has worked to uncover the ideology and apologetic underlying Orosius‘s historical narrative, in particular the significance behind Orosius‘s stylistic habit of rhetorical comparison. This thesis consists of six chapters, unified in methodology but encompassing a broad diversity of subject matter. Chapter One examines the constructed text and its genre, as well as issues of opponent, audience and self-representation. Chapter Two provides a philosophical and technical treatment of time. Chapters Three and Four explore the representations of monotheism and imperial authority in the emperors Augustus and Theodosius. Chapter Five is concerned with Orosius‘s representation of warfare, and Chapter Six considers the retributive and redemptive aspect of the sack of Rome.

This study provides a contribution to the sociology of religion by examining the relationship between Hinduism and the Internet - an area largely neglected by scholars of religion and the Internet. A theoretical discussion as to the suitability of cyberspace for Hinduism - which concludes that there is a high level of compatibility - is followed by a discussion of embodiment (a relatively neglected topic in sociology) in Hinduism in order to assess whether online religious activity which does not require full embodiment could be problematic. Although there is no natural fit between Hinduism and online religious activity, such activity is extensive; and this gives rise to a number of empirical research questions about online practices and their implications for Hinduism 'offline'. Empirical research was carried out both online and 'offline'. Online, data was obtained through the utilisation of innovative research methods which were able to map Hinduism on the WWW and uncover the processes that are occurring. An important finding was that a relatively small number of Hindu organisations are effectively monopolising Hinduism online. Significant websites were also analysed. 'Offline', research was carried out at mandirs (Hindu Temples) in India. The prime research method used was the semi-structured interview. The informants were high-ranking mandir officials. Owners of web sites offering a puja (ritual honouring a deity) service were also interviewed. The online and 'offline' research did not constitute discrete lines of enquiry, and findings were analysed together in the light of sociological theories of embodiment and globalisation, and rational choice theory. These theories contribute to the understanding of processes that are occurring in Hinduism and, in turn, the findings suggested revisions of the theoretical ideas. The main conclusion is that despite globalisation and the pre-eminent role that the Internet plays in it - contrary to the assertions of some globalisation theorists -local sites of Hindu practice do not necessarily decline in importance. Instead, there is an interpenetration of the local and the global as a result of online Hinduism.

The thesis examines the seasonality of baptisms, marriages and burials in early modern towns, and demonstrates that seasonality (which measures how the frequency of vital events varied through the year) is a useful method of examining aspects of social history. Chapter 1 looks at the background to the use of the demographic tool of seasonality and suggests how seasonality may be able to address some of the concerns of urban historians. Chapters 2 to 4 discuss the sources and methodology of the study, and the results are summarised in Chapter 5. The baptismal, burial and marriage seasonality patterns are described, and urban patterns are compared and contrasted with rural patterns. The results are discussed in Chapter 6, which seeks to explain the seasonality patterns, and the similarities and differences between urban and rural patterns, by looking at the context in which they arise, principally living conditions and the prevalence of diseases, and working and leisure patterns. Chapter 7 looks more closely at the transition between urban and rural seasonality patterns. Plague and intestinal disease, due to overcrowded and insanitary living conditions, created a divergent burial pattern in towns up to 1700. Otherwise, the urban and rural seasonality patterns of all events were basically similar in shape. The crucial distinction between urban and rural seasonality was in the much `flatter' patterns in towns, due largely to the more even and varied routines of urban occupations compared to farming, which was inherently seasonal in its labour demands. It is argued that population size was the significant factor in the development of urban seasonality, with small towns being transitional between the high seasonality of rural parishes and the low seasonality of larger towns.

Temples in antis first appear in the Early Bronze Age in modern day Syria and gradually spread southwards through the rest of the Levant from the Middle Bronze Age onwards. In Syria, some temples in antis are still found in the Iron Age but they seem to be declining in popularity in this period. This research aims to provide a new definition of temples in antis across the Levant based not only on the architecture as in previous research, but also on the finds within the temples. Looking at the finds as well as the architecture allows a consideration of the nature of activities associated with these buildings, and a comparison between these temples and other types of temples will show whether they represent a new style of cult or simply a new style of architecture to house existing cults. Before considering the temples in antis specifically, this research first presents a summary of research into religion and ritual in archaeology, an area that has been sadly neglected in the past, allowing a definition of what we may be encountering in the case of these temples. It is hoped that this research will add to the recent wave of research on religion in archaeology, acting as a case study that shows how the archaeological remains of religion should be considered as an important piece of evidence allowing us to better understand ancient societies, rather than simply being ignored or treated as something of a joke. In the main part of this research, the entire corpus of temples in antis is collected, and then all the available data on finds from these temples are brought together for analysis. Because of the lack of data for many sites, four case study sites (Ebla, Tel Haror, Tell el-Hayyat and Hazor) were chosen which act as a base to which other, more poorly published sites may be compared. Conclusions based on this research are threefold considering: firstly, what can be determined about religion and ritual in the temple in antis; secondly, how these temples compare to other types of temples; and finally, how these temples, whatever they represent, may have spread.