Although scholars have often acknowledged the spirituality in the writings of Clement of Alexandria (cir. 150-215 AD), a thorough study of the Platonic category θεωρία as it appears in this second century Father has never been undertaken. Most studies on Christian spirituality either ignore Clement's role altogether, or rush past him with little comment in favor of the great Origen (cir. 185-255 AD). Stromateis, Clement's most enigmatic work, contains over 75 occurrences of θεωρία. A close examination of these texts reveals that his use of the term is somewhat different from two of his greatest philosophical and spiritual mentors, Plato and Philo. Clement uses this term (usually translated "contemplation") to refer to a spiritual experience which occurs in space and time, as well as an ethereal one and one which occurs in the mind. A possible explanation for this difference lies with Clement's claim in the opening chapter of the work: he is the recipient of an oral tradition which has never been recorded, but which he plans to include in the Stromateis. This thesis demonstrates: 1) that Clement is the first Christian writer to adapt this philosophical category into Christian spirituality; 2) the primary purpose of Stromateis is to present the third stage in a spiritual pathway - to reveal θεωρία as the spiritual "meat" for the advanced believer; and 3) to present God and His contact with the Christian as immediate. In a radical move, going against the philosophical setting of the day, Clement presents this Platonic category as a means for the Christian to experience an immanent God.

Clement of Alexandria played an important role in the development of Christian educational philosophy in a non-Christian culture in the second-century Roman Empire. Born into a pagan society and educated in Greek philosophy prior to his conversion, Clement sought to explain the orthodox Christian relationship between philosophy and theology and that the two are not enemies. His longest and perhaps most significant work, the Stromata, is a collection of the material that he taught to his students. As an educational record, it also provides two primary mechanisms for understanding some principles of his educational philosophy. First, his use of the term “Gnostic” (primarily γνωστικός, but also γνώμη) is unique and shows that he understands education to be crucial to, and even necessary for, Christian growth and development. Clement’s Gnostic figure is not just his ideal Christian, but of his understanding of what an ideally educated Christian would look like. Second, his use of γνῶσις and πίστις, and their relationship to each other throughout the Stromata provide further clues about his understanding of the relationship between education and discipleship. Clement argued for a complementary relationship between the two whereby faith is the ground of true knowledge and knowledge is the protector and aid to faith. Deduced from these elements in the Stromata, seven overarching principles of Clement’s philosophy of education are presented.

In the early 1900's the American chestnut (Castanea dentata (Marsh.) Borkh.) was nearly destroyed by the introduction of the orange-pigmented, chestnut blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica (Murr.) Barr). Chestnut blight is less severe in Europe, where hypovirulent (= reduced virulence) strains of the fungus are found to be associated with healing cankers. These European hypovirulent strains are infected with a dsRNA virus, Cryphonectria hypovirus 1 (CHV1), and have a white phenotype when grown in culture. Transmission of CHV1 in C. parasitica is limited by incompatibility between isolates in different vegetative compatibility (vc) types. In 1982-83, naturally formed blight cankers on American chestnut grafts, derived from large survivors, were inoculated with a mixture of four European (white) hypovirulent strains of C. parasitica. After 14 years the white strains were recovered throughout the inoculated grafts, which had low levels of blight damage. CHV1 had infected at least 45 new vc types, and was present in four different fungal colony morphology groups, including one type that had intermediate or partial pigmentation. However, CHV1 was unable to move throughout a single vc type within a natural canker. The objectives of this study were: 1) to determine the frequency and phenotypic diversity of CHV1-infected C. parasitica isolates recovered from stromata and canker tissue from natural cankers on the grafted American chestnut trees and artificially established cankers on forest American chestnuts; 2) to determine the presence or absence of CHV1 in intermediate-pigmented isolates recovered from the American chestnut research plots; 3) to investigate the roles of colony age, resistance to hypovirus infection, and functional mycelial units in the failure of CHV1 to move throughout a vc type of C. parasitica in vitro, and; 4) to examine the role of low temperatures and a high elevation topographic site on CHV1 survival within C. parasitica colonies in vivo and in vitro. The results indicated that there was no direct correlation between the amount of colony pigmentation and the presence of dsRNA. Within each of the three colony phenotype categories (pigmented, intermediate and white), several C. parasitica isolates tested positive for the presence of CHV1. This presence of CHV1 in intermediate isolates, coupled with the relatively large number of intermediate isolates collected from stromata on cankers, indicates that intermediate isolates may perform an important, and previously overlooked, function in biological control of chestnut blight. In this study, all CHV1 movement trials indicated that the age of the C. parasitica colony limited the movement of CHV1 throughout the colony. The majority of the CHV1 movement through a C. parasitica colony occurred between 0 and 7 days following challenge with an isogenic CHV1-infected strain. Isolation data using a lattice grid did not indicate a consistent pattern of CHV1 movement throughout a C. parasitica colony. Low temperatures associated with high altitude had no effect on hypovirus survival in vivo or in vitro. Additionally, no long-term C. parasitica resistance to CHV1 infection or movement was identified in this study. This research has identified new insights into CHV1 spread and survival that may be important in understanding the role of CHV1 in the biological control of chestnut blight. / Ph. D.