Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 1821. Adviser: Alexander L. Mayer. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 208-212) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

La présente étude sur les législations et canons en matière de divorce rédigés ou commentés par Bar Hebraeus se propose de montrer combien il est difficile et délicat de les appliquer à des décisions concrètes. Le mariage est une institution naturelle, fondée sur la dualité sexuelle de l'espèce humaine l'homme et la femme sont attirés l'un vers l'autre et invités à s'unir et former une communauté, pour toute la vie. Par nature, le mariage présente les propriétés essentielles d'unité et d'indissolubilité. En tenant compte de l'expérience humaine et des réalités sociales, l'Église syriaque orthodoxe d'Antioche a légiféré sur les motifs légitimes de séparation et de divorce. Pour elle, le divorce proprement dit, ou divorce pénal, ne peut être envisagé que comme une mesure exceptionnelle, une solution extrême à de graves problèmes d'infidélité conjugale. Elle propose ainsi la dissolution du lien matrimonial, ou divorce remède, tout en reconnaissant le rôle de l'économie dans les décisions finales relatives aux cas particuliers. Selon son enseignement et celui de Bar Hebraeus, le mariage conclu et consommé ne peut être dissous que pour les motifs déterminés par la loi et le divorce est considéré comme un mal inévitable et une affaire très sérieuse. Je crois, et j'affirme, qu'aucune autorité humaine ne peut dissoudre le lien matrimonial et que, si un tribunal ecclésiastique peut accorder un divorce, lorsque l'exigent les intérêts supérieurs des fidèles, c'est seulement par un don gracieux de Dieu lui-même. Le droit reconnaît la nécessité du divorce et de la séparation pour protéger l'institution familiale des atteintes du péché. Il incombe aux pasteurs de prendre le relais du droit dans le domaine spirituel et de recourir à des moyens de correction pacifique pour tenter de contribuer à reconstruire la relation conjugale. J'espère avoir démontré que l'enseignement de l'Église syriaque orthodoxe d'Antioche en matière de divorce repose sur des fondements bibliques et patristiques et que sa pratique s'inspire de motifs constitutifs déterminés par sa législation ecclésiastique. Pour elle, le divorce constitue soit une solution pénale, soit une solution thérapeutique et seul un tribunal eccléastique a compétence pour établir la réalité des motifs invoqués.

This dissertation examines a major debate in tenth- to twelfth-century Kashmiri literary theory between two famous theorists: Abhinavagupta and Mahimabhaṭṭa, and shows that we cannot fully understand the debate between these two thinkers if we do not properly understand the religious context in which it took place. This is because the philosophical issues at stake in this debate, which concern the difference between how things appear and what they truly are, overlapped in important ways with theological debates going on at the time. So when a twelfth-century literary theorist discussed how the words of a poem relate to the mood at the core of the poem, he was at the same time discussing issues that were of basic theological importance in his context, such as God's relationship to the world, the self's relationship to actions, or the relations between knowledge, intuition, and memory. Part One looks at the famous theory of "poetic manifestation" developed in the ninth century by Ānandavardhana and radically updated 150 years later by Abhinavagupta. In this half of the dissertation I explore the connection between Abhinavagupta's literary theory and his Hindu theology. Part Two of the dissertation looks at a famous attempt to refute the theory of poetic manifestation by Mahimabhaṭṭa, a theorist writing in Kashmir within a generation of Abhinavagupta who relied heavily and explicitly on the Buddhist philosophy of Dharmakīrti. I show that Mahimabhaṭṭa's use of Dharmakīrti was a direct response to the religious basis of Abhinavagupta's theory, as Dharmakīrti represented an inverted religious worldview from that of Abhinavagupta. This difference, in turn affects the conclusions these theorists reach about the ethical value of literature. Whereas Abhinavagupta ultimately concludes that the pleasure literature affords us is itself an ethical goal, Mahimabhaṭṭa attributes only an instrumental value to the pleasure of literature, saying that it is like sugar coating on the bitter medicine of ethical lessons. These conclusions, I show, are not arbitrary, but are deeply tied to the assumptions underlying both aesthetic and religious ideas. / Religion, Committee on the Study of

Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825-1921) became one of the most outspoken and remarkable women of her era: an ordained minister, a published author, a prominent public speaker, and a philosophical thinker whose writings described and explicated her syntheses of theology and science. Her life was punctuated by “firsts” that have significance within women’s history as evidence of female success in what were then male-dominated arenas. In this dissertation I propose that the arguments that Brown Blackwell presented on behalf of women’s rights can be understood as a synthesis of Rev. Charles Grandison Finney’s religious teachings around doing with science-based theories that she believed revealed validating evidence about women’s nature and abilities to do. After the publication of her book, The Sexes Throughout Nature (1875), her contributions to women’s rights movements and her books were less documented by historians, perhaps because she was less focused on suffrage. I argue that during that time, her contributions to woman’s rights were nevertheless significant as she worked among women who resonated with her religious sensibilities, agendas, and rhetoric: while many actively supported woman’s suffrage, most did not. In advancing woman’s rights, Brown Blackwell used rhetoric that synthesized her Finney-inspired ideals with her interpretations of science. This dissertation will add to the existing scholarship about women’s rights, by recognizing the existence and thoughts of the thousands of religious women who contributed to woman’s rights, even if they all did not support suffrage, as an outward expression of their inward piety.

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This study examines the marriage canons contained in the present canonical legislation of the Church of England. These canons, B30-B36, were promulgated in 1969 and may be found in The Canons of the Church of England: Canons Ecclesiastical Promulgated by the Convocations of Canterbury and York in 1964 and 1969. A broad sweep through English history shows that from the time of the Norman Conquest until the reign of Henry VIII, the canon law of the Western Church operated effectively in the country. Marriage was generally accepted as being of a religious nature and the temporal power left such matters to the Church. In 1533, Henry VIII gave statutory force to the universal ius commune, thereby creating a new body of national ecclesiastical law and through this act of legal fiction created a new legislator in matters canonical. The Church of England produced new codes of law for itself at different times in its history. These historical developments are traced and examined as are the various canons that applied to marriage. While the administration of canonical marriage law remained in the hands of churchmen, and Church courts alone remained competent to settle matrimonial cases, the question is posed: has the Church of England retained the canonical traditions concerning marriage which it had operated for a millenium prior to the Reformation? (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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