This project analyzes the role of religion, both institutional and private, in Virginia's dealings with witchcraft during the seventeenth century. The witch trials of New England and Europe during the 1600s have tended to overshadow those that simultaneously took place in Virginia, leaving historians to prematurely regard Virginia as an anomaly of rationality in an otherwise superstitious period of witches and demons. Virginia's failure to prosecute those accused of witchcraft was not due to a lack of allegations, my thesis will argue, but can instead be partly attributed to the nature of the colony's religious experience and the theology and practices of Virginia's Anglican Church. While Virginia's seventeenth-century inhabitants migrated to the New World with firmly entrenched English religious values, their relationship with God and their response to the supernatural world were profoundly influenced by New World experiences and peoples. To protect the social fragility of their colony, Virginia's political and religious leaders consciously chose to prosecute offenses that they felt threatened the social cohesion of the colony, such as fornication, gossip, and slander, and dismissed those, such as witchcraft, that threatened to tear it apart. / Master of Arts

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本論文以十七世紀英國千禧年思想為脈絡，從神學的角度檢視密爾頓千禧年思想的發展。千禧年思想在十六世紀時被斥為異端，但卻在十七世紀初興起，並於英國大革命時達到前所未有的高峰。密爾頓早年並未相信千禧年王國會降臨人世。從密爾頓1640年之前所寫的短詩中，我們發現他期待這個世界結束後，接續而來的是天國。然而隨著內戰爆發，密爾頓也受到當時盛行的千禧年思想所感染；因而在其反對聖公會神職制度文章中，密爾頓熱切企盼基督早日再臨人世，建立千禧年王國。唯此熱度很快就消退，直到1649年查爾斯一世戰敗後，密爾頓又重燃對千禧年王國的渴望。在為弒君辯護的文章中，密爾頓懇求基督速速降臨，在這個世界興起第五王國。但1652年眼睛全盲後，密爾頓對於忍耐有了更深刻的「洞視」，因而也重新調整他的千禧年思想。密爾頓終於體認到主的日子是無法預測的，人只能忍耐等候神。但他仍然持守對於千禧年王國的信仰。1660年當查爾斯二世即將復辟之時，密爾頓最後一次表達他的千禧年思想。他希望英國共和體制能延續到千禧年王國的來臨。然而這次他並未表達對千禧年王國的急切性。在密爾頓的兩部史詩──《失樂園》與《復樂園》──當中，我們看不到任何的千禧年思想。老詩人似乎重拾他早年的思想：天國的盼望。但同時密爾頓也鼓吹大家追求神在人內心創建的樂園；也就是說，神的國已經降臨：神的國並不是外在物質的邦國，而是內在屬靈的國度。 / This dissertation aims to discuss Milton in the context of seventeenth-century English millenarianism. The writer examines the development of Milton’s millenarian ideas through a theological lens. Millenarianism was condemned heretical in the sixteenth century, but it arose at the beginning of the seventeenth century and reached its zenith during the English Revolution. At first, Milton did not believe in the realization of an earthly millennial kingdom. In his early short poems written before 1640, we only find his hope for a kingdom of heaven after the end of the world. However, with the outbreak of the Civil War, Milton was influenced by the then widespread millenarianism, and in his anti-prelatical tracts he expected the imminent coming of Christ to inaugurate an earthly kingdom of God. But his fervency for millenarianism was soon quenched, and was not rekindled until the defeat of Charles I in 1649. In his regicide tracts, he urged the imminence of Christ’s Advent to usher in a terrestrial fifth monarchy. Yet his total blindness in 1652 gave him a deeper “insight” into the value of patience, causing him to readjust his attitude toward millenarianism. After two wrong guesses, Milton finally came to realize in terms of experience that the Day of the Lord was unpredictable, and that all he could do was to wait patiently for God’s time. But he still maintained his belief in the realization of an earthly kingdom of God. On the eve of the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Milton for the last time uttered his millenarian hope. He wished the English Commonwealth would last until the arrival of God’s millennial kingdom. Only this time he did not urge its imminence. Millenarianism was absent in Milton’s two epics—Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. In them the old bard seemed to resume his earlier stance: anticipating a heavenly kingdom of God. But he also emphasized the importance of enjoying a paradise within heart—that is, the kingdom of God has already arrived, and it is not an external, physical monarchy, but an inward, spiritual realm.