How does one lead a life of law, love and freedom? This inquiry has very deep roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, the divergent answers to this inquiry mark the transition from Judeo to Christian. This dissertation returns to those roots to trace the routes that these ideas have taken as they move from the sacred to the secular. The argument of this dissertation is threefold. First, it argues that the concepts of law, love and freedom are each internally polarized. Each concept contains, within itself, conflicting values. Paul's equivocation in his letters is a striking manifestation of this internal polarization. Second, it argues that, while values are many, my life is one. Hence, one needs to combine the plurality of values within a singular life. Values find their coherence within a form of life. There are, at least, two ways of leading a life of law, love and freedom: monastic versus antinomian. Third, it argues that the Reformation transformed these religious ideals into political ideologies. The monastic ideal is politically manifested as constitutionalism, and the antinomian ideal is politically manifested as anarchism. There are, at least, two ways of creating a polity of law, love and freedom: constitutional versus anarchic. To mount the threefold argument, the dissertation deploys a whole range of disciplinary tools. The dissertation draws on analytic jurisprudence in its analysis of law; ethics and aesthetics in its analysis of love; political philosophy in its analysis of freedom; biblical scholarship in its interpretation of Paul; the history of ideas in its study of the formation and transformation of these ideas; and moral philosophy in concluding how one could lead a life of law, love and freedom.

Bernard of Morlaix was a Cluniac monk who flourished around 1140. What little is known about him, including his visit to Rome, is examined in relation to the affairs of the Cluniac family in his day. A new conjecture is advanced that he was prior of Saint-Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou. His poems are discussed as examples of the genre of complaint literature. His treatment of the end of the world, and of death, judgement, heaven and hell, is discussed in relation to twelfth-century monasticism. His castigation of the sins of his time includes some of the earliest estates satire. His anticlericalism and his misogyny are compared with those of his contemporaries, and discussed in the context of twelfth-century monastic culture. Bernard’s classical learning is analysed and compared with that of his contemporaries, especially John of Salisbury and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. His use of metre and rhyme is examined in the context of the development of metre based on stress rather than quantity and of systematic and sustained rhyme in the Latin verse of the twelfth century. Bernard’s use of interpretive and compositional allegory is explored. Bernard is seen as a man of his time, exemplifying a number of twelfth-century characteristics, religious, educational and cultural. Special attention is paid to the Latin literary tradition, and it is suggested that the culture of the twelfth-century was in many respects a culmination rather than a renaissance.

No description available.

Quanzhou Kaiyuan Monastery is an important Buddhist monastery on the Southeast coast of China, in Fujian. It was founded in the seventh century and survives with artifacts from every imperial dynasty stretching back more than one thousand years. Today it is the home of more than eighty monks and the site of a vibrant tradition of devotional life. The following chapters examine Kaiyuan monastery from multiple points of view (time, space, inhabitants and activities, discourse and relations with the state) in order to produce a multi-dimensional portrait considering the contributions of each element to the religious and institutional life of the monastery. In shedding light on monastic Buddhism in contemporary China, this study contributes to a small but growing body of knowledge on the revival of religion in post-Mao China. The study begins with a historical survey of the monastery providing the context in which to understand the current recovery. Subsequent chapters chronicle the dual interplay of secular and non-secular forces that contribute to the monastery's identity as a place of religious practice for monastics, laypersons and worshipers and a site of tourism and leisure for a steady stream of visitors. I survey the stages of recovery following the Cultural Revolution (chapter four) as well as the religious life of the monastery today (chapter five). Other chapters examine how material culture (chapter six) and memorials to auspicious events and eminent monks (chapter seven) contribute to the identity of the monastery. Chapters eight and nine consider how Kaiyuan balances demands to accommodate tourists while remaining a place of religious practice.

No description available.

<p>My dissertation explores how constructions of memory, space, and violence intersected in the history of early Christianity. It analyzes the crucial roles of memory and space/place in the formation, practice, and understanding of late ancient asceticism in Egypt's northwestern desert (Scetis, Kellia, Nitria, and Pherme). After a "barbarian" raid of Scetis in the early fifth century supposedly exiled Christian monks from the desert, Egypt came to be remembered as the birthplace of ascetic practice. Interpreting texts (in Coptic, Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Classical Arabic) and archaeological remains associated with the northwestern Egyptian desert, my dissertation investigates ascetic ideas about the relationship between memories and places: memory-acts as preserved in the liturgical and literary texts, memory in the liturgical contexts of church and cell, the ascetic use of Scriptural interpretation to thwart "worldly" recollection caused by demonic incitement to abandon the desert, and remembrance of a past moment through the perceived loss of Scetis. Wedding textual evidence, material culture, and theoretical insights, I highlight how the memorialization of a particular moment in the history of early Christian asceticism overshadowed other, contemporary late ancient asceticisms. My dissertation produces a new understanding of the negotiations between memory and space, often a process of contestation, and sheds new light not only on how violence was performed in late antiquity, but also on modern struggles over memorialized locales.</p> / Dissertation

This dissertation investigates a middle Byzantine (10th-11th c.) typology, the rock-cut Courtyard Complexes, spread throughout Cappadocia in central Turkey, with a special focus on the A&ccedil / iksaray Group. Usually organized around three sided courtyards, these complexes stand either within an ensemble or in isolation. Nevertheless, the concentration of complexes is remarkable on strategic points near fortresses or military roads. Courtyard Complexes have large receptional suites as well as utilitarian spaces such as kitchens, stables and apparently multi-functional rooms all carved around a courtyard. The majority of the complexes have their own churches also carved in the rock mass. High decorated fa&ccedil / ades adorn the Courtyard Complexes and make them visible from a considerable distance. Because of the distinctive elaborate design, and the large number of still standing examples, as well as the communal life style that they indicate, these Cappadocian complexes have attracted scholarly attention in both monastic and secular Byzantine studies. Consequently, it was necessary for the dissertation to reconsider both religious and secular communities and their physical expressions in the form of monasteries and various dwelling types of the era. On the other hand, the idiosyncratic volcanic landscape and carved architecture required an extensive comparative architectural investigation of all Courtyard Complexes known so far in Cappadocia. Based on the results coming out from the contextual studies and architectural analysis this dissertation proposes aristocratic families with a military function on this border land of Byzantine as the initial inhabitants of the Courtyard Complexes. The A&ccedil / iksaray Group in particular, with the paucity of its churches contrasting its elaborate stables, bears the traces of a secular medieval community of some importance.

Inaug.-diss.--Munich. / Lebenslauf. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Louvain. / Reprint of the 1898 ed., published by Van Linthout in Louvain. Includes bibliographical references.

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 17, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Thesis advisor: Dr. Lois Huneycutt. Includes bibliographical references.