Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1996. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [403]-432).

Thesis (D.Min.)--Liberty Theological Seminary and Graduate School, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Div.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1992. / Includes "The Seven letters of St. Anthony the Great," translated by Derwas J. Chitty, 1975. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80).

Thesis (S.T.D.)--Catholic University of America, 1924. / Biography. Includes bibliographical references (p. 111-116).

Thesis (M.A.R.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-94).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2005. / Advisor: Zdravko Planinc. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-208). Also available via World Wide Web.

The argument of the thesis is that the literary forms of Thomas Merton's prose writings embody theological claims he makes elsewhere at the level of content. Specifically, the five chapters of the thesis show that Merton not only writes about the themes of self-denial, simplification, observing the 'thereness' of the world, and (in two distinct ways) apprehending God in darkness and obscurity, but that he also enacts those themes in the way he writes prose. The thesis offers an original and significant contribution to three main fields of enquiry. Firstly, when analysing Merton's prose I employ methods espoused by New Formalist literary critics, but I apply their reading strategies to the theological dimensions of literary form. Secondly, my work builds upon claims made by theologians of form about the link between literary genres or forms and issues surrounding, for instance, the character of God, but it does so in a novel way, by employing New Formalist close reading strategies. Thirdly, the thesis offers a new method of enquiry for Thomas Merton Studies, by performing the first extended literary-critical account of his prose. In sum, the thesis opens up new theoretical territory for Formalism, new specific material for the theology of form, and a new methodology for Merton Studies. Besides the introductory and concluding chapters, all of the chapters of the thesis are structured in the same way. Each includes an expositional section in which I quote from Merton's thoughts on, for example, self-denial, and a literary-critical section, in which I read the forms of Merton's prose in terms of the content-claims already outlined. The goal of this methodology is, at every stage, to show that Merton enacts his own theologically-rooted content claims in the forms of his prose.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Ancient Languages / unrestricted

Maxims, proverbs, and other forms of pithy sayings are sprinkled throughout ancient and medieval literature; polysemous and manipulable by nature, they serve as communicative tools whose precise meaning and function shifts from context to context. My dissertation explores how late antique and medieval Christians capitalized on the flexible forms of Greek and Latin aphorisms to negotiate and construct what it meant to be a Christian. Using theories and methods developed in the fields of folklore, linguistic anthropology, and ethno- and sociolinguistics, I investigate three examples in which Christians revised and reused wisdom in new contexts. First, I document the proverbial concept of gathering something useful from somewhere dangerous as expressed in sayings like “to pluck a rose from among thorns” and “to gather gold from shit,” charting how it originally went viral in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, remained in vogue well into the Middle Ages, and continued to evolve in meaning throughout its usage. I then analyze the Sentences of Sextus, a second-century collection of Greek maxims assembled from various Pythagorean aphorisms and sayings of Jesus. Whereas previous scholarship has focused on the authorship, content, and structure of the Sentences, I study the new meanings, functions, and forms the collection acquired as it underwent processes of translation, transcription, epitomization, excerption, and quotation. The text’s gnomic format and armchair morality contributed not only to its centuried popularity and widespread readership, but also to the dispersion of many of its individual sayings. In particular, I consider the extensive and unstudied reception of the Sentences of Sextus within the mid-ninth-century legal forgeries known as the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. I show that the Sextine elements reveal the presence of recurring textual units across the Decretals and offer new insights regarding Pseudo-Isidore’s compositional method—a method that, in many ways, parallels the Sentences’ recycling of Pythagorean and biblical material. Ultimately, my project models how wisdom-centered investigations of late antique and medieval literature lead to new understandings of the craftsmanship of individual authors as well as to deeper understandings of the time and its culture.

Religious Studies & Arabic / D.Litt. et Phil. (Religious Studies)