Thesis (S.T.M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-59).

My dissertation reevaluates medieval concepts of body and identity by analyzing literary depictions of metamorphosis in romance. Focusing on examples such as the hag-turned-damsel in the Wife of Bath's Tale, the lump-turned-boy in The King of Tars and the demon-saint of Sir Gowther, I take as my starting point the fact that while those texts pivot on instances of physical transformation, they refrain from representing such change. This pattern of undescribed physical metamorphosis has broad implications for recent work on evolving notions of change and identity beginning in the high Middle Ages. While Caroline Walker Bynum has read the medieval outpouring of tales about werewolves and hybrids as imaginative responses to social upheavals, I consider why such medieval writings ironically focused on shape-shifters but avoided metamorphosis itself. I argue that we can understand why Chaucer and other writers resisted imagining bodies in the process of transforming by examining the history of ideas regarding metamorphosis in the medieval west. While the foremost classical writer on transformation, Ovid, reveled in depictions of metamorphosis, by the late Middle Ages a new religious discourse on change enjoyed prominence, the doctrine of transubstantiation. In its effort to separate substance and accidents, Eucharistic theory strove to detach identity from physical change and exhibited a certain level of repugnance over images of physical transformation. I argue that medieval secular writings address that anxiety over bread-turned-God in moments such as the close of the Wife of Bath's Tale. In a scene that recalls the place of veiling in Eucharistic ritual, the hag uses the bed curtain first to cloak then reveal her newly young and beautiful physique. Ultimately, the corpus of medieval literature on change--a body of work that engages both Ovidian and Eucharistic writings--suggests that identity intertwines with physical metamorphosis in a productive, if problematically unstable, manner.

Descartes and the followers of his new mechanistic physics were subject to condemnation as a result of a reaction against his philosophy on the basis that it could not adequately explain the miracle of the Eucharist. Descartes, however, firmly believed that he could give an explanation of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist which was not only consistent with his physics and metaphysics, but which was also consistent with the orthodoxy demanded by the Church. His explanation exploited the ambiguity of the language adopted by the Council of Trent, yet rejected the Aristotelian philosophy traditionally relied upon to explain the miracle. Descartes' explanation of transubstantiation remained provocative to his scholastic contemporaries not because it was internally inconsistent, but rather because Descartes attempted to overthrow the whole of traditional philosophy. Descartes' confidence in his own explanation of the sacred rite ultimately obscured the long and troubled history of the issue from him, leading him to believe that he could win converts to his philosophy by publishing his own theory of the Eucharist. Consequent to this excursion into theology, Descartes' philosophy came under fire and was condemned in part because it could not give a traditional explanation of the Eucharist. / Master of Arts

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-224).

Münchener Universitäts-Schriften. Theologische Fakultät. / Revision of author's thesis, Munich. Bibliography: p. [ix]-xi.

Münchener Universitäts-Schriften. Theologische Fakultät. / Revision of author's thesis, Munich. Bibliography: p. [ix]-xi.

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-224).

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity International University, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-224).

Hamlet's tragedy is constructed as a perspective of matter that is destined for decay, and this "objective," or "object-focused," mode of viewing the material world enhances theatrical and theological understandings of the play's props, figurative language, and characters. Hamlet's "objective mode" evokes early modern materialist philosophies of vanitas and memento mori, and it is communicated in theatre through semiotic means, whereby material items stand for moral ideas according to an established sign-signified relation. Extending an objective reading to Hamlet's characters reveals their function as images, or two-dimensional emblems, in moments of slowing narrative time. In the graveyard scene (5.1), characters and theatrical props cooperate to materialize the objective perspective. As a prop, Ophelia's corpse complicates the objective mode through its semantic complexity. Thus, she stands apart from other characters as one that both serves to construct and to deconstruct the objective mode. Hamlet's tragic outlook, which depends upon an understanding of matter as destined for decay, and of material items as ends in themselves rather than vehicles for spiritual transformation, is an early modern notion concurrent with theological debates surrounding the Eucharist. Drawing upon art-historical, linguistic, feminist, theological, and theatrical approaches, this thesis contributes to concurrent discourse on Hamlet's tragic genre.

This dissertation considers the possibility that, flowing from his broader theological framework and historical background, John Calvin’s eucharistic theology ‘re-invents’ a doctrine where the ‘substance’ (meaning) of the elements becomes the body and blood of Christ, and the believer who receives them is drawn, through understanding, into participation in Christ. The study begins with the historical setting and the second chapter sketches Calvin’s life. Chapter 3 considers epistemology and the impact of classical rhetoric on Calvin’s approach to knowledge. The following chapter considers Calvin’s understanding of our relationship with the Father, and of Christ as Mediator and as means of salvation. Chapter 5 considers the work of the Spirit in nurturing faith, a ‘higher knowledge’, through preparing us for knowledge of Christ and mediating our understanding of and participation in him. In this manner the Spirit acts as an instrument of revelation to enable us to participate in Christ. Chapters 6 and 7 move to consider Calvin’s writing on the Sacraments, their nature as sign and seals of the promise made in Christ, their substance and their role in our participation in Christ and, in the light of the duplex gratia, as gateways to participation. In Chapter 8 Calvin’s teaching is examined in terms of his opposition to the doctrine of transubstantiation, and his understanding of substance is considered. The possibility that Calvin ‘re-invents’ the doctrine is proposed. This is not to suggest that there is a conscious copying of the doctrine, but that through the process of forming his doctrine, using an alternate philosophical framework, Calvin’s understanding bears significant similarities to the doctrine he so deeply opposed. His key opposition to transubstantiation can then be seen to be to the materialist interpretations that impede the ability of the believer to lift his attention beyond the physical elements to the divine offer they represent. The study concludes by briefly considering the significance of Calvin’s ‘reinvention’ for contemporary understandings.