<p>This exercise in constructive Christian theology presents the relation between the testaments as a critical problematic for the figural reading of the Old Testament. The project consists of two parts, the first focusing on Augustine and Calvin, and the second primarily on the Epistle to the Hebrews.</p> <p>The first part provides a typological comparison between Augustine and Calvin on the continuity and discontinuity of the testaments (chapters 1-2), the people of God across the testaments (chapter 3), and the purpose of Scripture in redemptive history (chapter 4). Augustine defines the unity of the testaments according to a sign-referent framework whereby the Old Testament signifies the New. Calvin, on the other hand, locates this unity in the one covenant, grounded in Christ across the testaments. Since Augustine thinks the grace of the New Testament was veiled before the time of Christ, he asserts the necessity of interpreting the Old Testament according to two levels of meaning: the literal and the spiritual. Since Calvin thinks both the Old and New Testaments reveal the knowledge of God, he restricts interpretation to the literal sense, though this sense can have multiple referents: Israel, Christ, the church, and the eschaton. Each figure struggles to account for Israel and the Old Testament saints. For Augustine, the saints belonged to the New Testament as they mediated the Old. Calvin alternately identifies Israel as the church during Old Testament times, and the Old Testament saints as redemptive-historical aberrations.</p> <p>The second part draws upon this typological comparison to consider the Epistle to the Hebrews with reference to its depiction of redemptive history (chapter 5), its appropriation of the Psalms (chapter 6), and its overarching vision of Scripture (chapter 7). Hebrews locates the discontinuity between the testaments in the establishment of Christ as high priest, and the continuity in a common people and a common hope for an eternal inheritance. The author interprets the Psalms neither according to two levels of meaning, nor within an expansive literal sense, but as a living word of address whereby God speaks directly to his people. Old Testament locutions retain their illocutionary force, but adopt new valence in light of Christ. The authority of Scripture, then, rests not in some historically reconstructed sense, but in God's self-communicative act in the redemptive-historical present.</p> / Dissertation

Thesis (doctoral)--Rijks Universiteit te Groningen.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 265-272).

This dissertation examines the narrative of Augustine's Confessions in light of his conception of memory and time. It responds to two long-standing scholarly debates about the work. The first of these concerns the historicity of Augustine's autobiography in Books 1-9, for Augustine's version of events is not always consistent with the historical record. The second concerns what the last four non-historical books (Books 10-13) have to do with this autobiography. The first chapter argues that the story of the Confessions is about the present author as he narrates the content of his mind. Thus, it shows how all thirteen books may be considered equally autobiographical. The second chapter proposes that Augustine judges the veracity of his stories according to his memory of events, since he does not believe that he has access to the events themselves as they once unfolded in time. Due to his unequivocal condemnation of lying and deceit in De mendacio and elsewhere, he must have considered his story in the Confessions to be true from this perspective. The third chapter explains how Augustine's view of memory allows his story to be considered true even when it diverges from the historical record. Memory is imperfect, and Augustine believes that memories, too, have agency in recollection. Thus, the historical innacuracies in Augustine's story may in fact be understood as evidence of the veracity of the account as he recalls it rather than as evidence against the story's historicity. The fourth chapter explores Augustine's proposal that time is a distentio animi, or a fragmented swelling of the mind. Augustine believes that the mind may find respite in an activity called intentio through which one may experience eternity while the body still participates in time. The conclusion suggests that confession was for Augustine a means by which one could practice intentio. Thus, the Confessions is a story about the author/narrator as he progresses through his present, from the presence of his past in Books 1-9 to the presence of God in Books 10-13. / text

In his three major polemical campaigns, that is, against the Manichees, Donatists and Pelagians, Augustine used imagery derived from medicine and was, in tum influenced by the language he used. While much of the language of sickness and disease remained conventional, some usages came to bear significant theological weight, notably infirmitas and contagio. The former became a designation for the culpable weakness affecting each member of the human race since the Fall. The latter became a technical term for the transmission of original sin associated with concupiscentia. Sickness imagery assumes the analogy of the soul and body, advancing his project to integrate the two parts of the human person. It also enabled him to discuss humanity's fallen nature without slipping into Manichaean determinism or Pelagian autonomy. Finally, sickness imagery enabled Augustine to suspend the tension between the inherited guilt and free-will in readily accessible metaphor. Images of health and healing also helped Augustine sustain tensions in his thought. But even more significantly, the image of Christ the Physician proved critical throughout his polemical career. Against the Manichees it is the Divine Physician who lays out the stages of sacred history according to a great therapeutic strategy for the human race. Against the Donatists it is the wisdom of the Physician who prescribes painful means of cure which is urged against Donatist complaints of persecution. Finally, against the Pelagians, Christus Medicus becomes a technical soteriological term. This family of metaphors, drawn from the Scriptures, classical literature, pagan religion and common experience appear time and time again. While they may have become commonplace in the writings of other Christian authors, in Augustine's polemical theology they came to shape and inform key aspects of his thought.

No description available.

This study provides a new reading of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale and considers its purpose within the context of the Canterbury Tales. I argue that the Tale, as an exemplum, demonstrates the dangers of tale-telling, and exposes the moral discrepancies of the Canterbury tale-telling competition and the pilgrims’ use of stories as verbal assaults against one another. I argue that the Tale condemns the unchristian-like “actions” of the Christians within its frame as they respond to the clergeon’s murder; the Tale’s ending presents a cathartic response from this congregation, which indicates their understanding of the clergeon’s martyrdom. It also provokes a similar response from the Canterbury pilgrims, which serves to silence them, and to create a paradox that disrupts possible responses to the Tale. Further, Chaucer’s Retraction at the end of the Tales is intended to silence the poet’s critics through the creation of a similar paradox.

No description available.

This study provides a new reading of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale and considers its purpose within the context of the Canterbury Tales. I argue that the Tale, as an exemplum, demonstrates the dangers of tale-telling, and exposes the moral discrepancies of the Canterbury tale-telling competition and the pilgrims’ use of stories as verbal assaults against one another. I argue that the Tale condemns the unchristian-like “actions” of the Christians within its frame as they respond to the clergeon’s murder; the Tale’s ending presents a cathartic response from this congregation, which indicates their understanding of the clergeon’s martyrdom. It also provokes a similar response from the Canterbury pilgrims, which serves to silence them, and to create a paradox that disrupts possible responses to the Tale. Further, Chaucer’s Retraction at the end of the Tales is intended to silence the poet’s critics through the creation of a similar paradox.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Mich., 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-86).