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There is a tradition of interpretation, testimony to the influence of Kasemann's study of Hebrews which suggests that the finished work of Christ in the past is the guarantee of certain salvation for his faithful in the future. The relation between them is presented in terms of their following him to heaven. However, this does not allow that the emphasis on the completed aspect of Christ's work and the future element in the believers' salvation are connected with the occasional nature of Hebrews as a letter written to those tempted to abandon their Christian commitment. In fact the work of Christ is completed and yet continuing, salvation for the faithful both present and yet future. An analysis of major themes indicates that the relation between Christ and the believers is not future and indirect but rather present and direct. As <i>rest</i> for the people of God is both present and future, so <i>faith</i> has an 'invisible' aspect which is the foundation for its 'future' aspect. It is 'by faith' that the readers look to Jesus whose ministry ensures their present access to God 'in fulness of faith'. Integral to his understanding of <i>sin</i> and to his presentation of the <i>sacrifice</i> of Christ is the author's emphasis on the new covenant, under which sin is the deliberate rejection of its mediator, the Son of God who by his death has destroyed the power of death and lives for ever as High Priest, introducing his faithful into the presence of the living God. The relation of Christ to his faithful is present and direct, and indeed he is presented as one in whom they are included. A study focused particularly on 2:9; 3:14 and 10:10 reveals that integral to the epistle's central argument that Christ, who offered the only real sacrifice, is the only real priest is an estimate of him as not only absolutely alive but also as more than individual, as 'the inclusive Christ'.

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This study explored the relationship between L.D.S. seminary discontinuation and the characteristics of individual dropouts. It also sought to identify distinguishing characteristics of students who continue enrollment in seminary. The seminary teachers and the program itself were considered for their impact on a student's decision to continue attendance. Major factors such as peer associations, Priesthood involvement, parental influence and recruitment practices were considered. The roll of public school academic requirements in connection with premature seminary dissociation were also investigated. Initially a sample of dropout and continuing students form Southern Arizona were interviewed using an open-ended, semi-structured format. This process elicited data in four major domains: (1) discriminating personal characteristics; (2) external factors; (3) structural factors; and (4) church related factors. The responses were analyzed and used to develop a second questionnaire. This second survey was then administered to a larger sample of dropout and continuing students throughout Arizona.

This dissertation traces shifts in the way tears were perceived during the English Renaissance, from roughly 1509 to 1660. Examining medical treatises, sermons, and lyric poetry, I demonstrate that tears and weeping underwent a paradigm shift both as literary symbols and phenomena. Although this revaluation is inconsistent between the different discourses, by the end of the Renaissance, patterns in place a century earlier had been significantly challenged, even redefined, as the most popular model in each genre gradually yielded to new insights. Chapter One examines medical treatises, primarily on melancholy. The Renaissance inherited the paradigm of humours theory to explain human psycho/ physiology. During the seventeenth century, dissection began to replace humours with an empirical model based on the existence of glandular paths for tears. Chapter Two investigates the effect upon lyric poetry of this loss of vital, currently grounded metaphors derived from humoural models. Sixteenth-century poetic miscellanies are replete with tears wept unabashedly by poetic speakers to honor their unrequited love, tears shed in a type of serious, often melancholic play. By the end of the seventeenth century, although humour-based metaphors are still present, increasingly they are devoid of fundamental content. This drought embodies alterations in medical paradigm, as well as the homiletic tradition's long-standing distrust of affect. Chapter Three explores sermons, where, unless they were shed in repentance for sin, tears signified human sinful weakness. All "natural" grief was suspect. In addition, preachers struggled with the vestiges of the medieval 'gift of tears.' Theologically unpopular, this conception was sufficiently prevalent to require frequent rebuttal from the pulpit. Sermons on the verse, "Jesus wept" preached between 1509 and 1700 demonstrate an hermeneutical transmutation: from an early characterization as the superior, almost condescending, but compassionate king, Jesus has by 1700 become the divine architect, weeping only because his exalted design for humanity will be rejected. In Chapter Four, the works of three seventeenth-century devotional poets, John Donne, George Herbert, and Richard Crashaw, are shown to incorporate the most dominant effects of the overall change that tears underwent. In their poetry, metaphoric depletion is offset by gains in imaginative liberty. Donne wrestles with the dilemma of placing tears between himself and God; Herbert offers tears to God--with a problematic humility--because he is human; and Crashaw celebrates the sheer human wonder of tears. The vitality of poetic tear imagery culminates in their work.