This thesis endeavours, first of all, to examine the attitude of English and Scottish Protestant reformers towards the problem of poverty as it existed in the sixteenth century, and more particularly between the years 1528 and 1563. This period represents a logical phase in English social history marking at one end the start of the Reformation and at the other what might be referred to as the Elizabethan settlement of 'commonwealth' matters. In Scotland the same period witnessed the beginnings of a national awareness of social problems, together with the steady growth of the reform movement culminating in the Reformation of 1560 and the compilation of the first Book of Discipline. [...]

Zugl.: Jena, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 2005

Thesis (D.Phil.)--University of Oxford, 2008. / Supervisor: Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch. Bibliography: leaves 279-298.

Univ., Habil.-Schr.--Heidelberg, 2001. / Literaturverz. [589] - 609.

[pt] Esta tese tem como tema o amor, estudado como uma dentre as demais paixões, e abordado por Vieira com muita propriedade nos seus sermões. Vieira segue o pensamento aristotélico-tomista, acreditando que a paixão é boa, desde que seja regida pela razão. O orador discorre sobre os remédios do amor, sobre o conhecimento de si como forma de conhecer o amor, da contraposição do amor divino ao humano, destacando-se a questão do fino amor, reconhecida através do contraponto entre a fineza dos dois amores; sobre a correspondência amorosa, procurando dar-nos uma definição do sentimento amoroso. O orador relaciona estas questões, procurando enfatizar que o amor é o instrumento de ligação entre Deus e o homem, e que este não é um ser autônomo, já que tem a sua existência embasada no relacionamento amoroso entre o homem e Cristo. Para Vieira, o conhecimento de si significa o homem admitir a sua fragilidade e dependência de Deus. / [en] The theme of this thesis is love, studied as one among the passions, and broached by Vieira with propriety in his sermons. Vieira follows the Aristotelian- Thomist ideas, believing that passion is good, once it is ruled by reason. The preacher discourses about remedies for love, about self-awareness as means to perceive love, about the contraposition between divine and human love, highlighting question of fine love, recognized by the confrontation between the fineness of the two loves; about the loving agreement, aiming to offer a definition of loving-feeling. The preacher associates these questions, in the quest of emphasizing that love is the linking tool between God and man, and that the latter is not an autonomous being, considering that his existence is firmly set on a loving relationship between man and Christ. To Vieira, self- knowledge depends on the admittance, by man, of his fragility and his dependence upon God.

Artists creating images of demonic possession during the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation communicated theological messages by accentuating the most famous and dramatic exorcisms. This project proposes an interpretive structure, called cultural theatrics, for analyzing these works. Brian Levack’s theory of cultural performance provides the framework from which cultural theatrics develops. Levack’s cultural performance includes the demoniac and the exorcist as participants in religious dramas who act in a way that their religious communities expected them to act. However, this thesis proposes that images of possession and exorcism (rather than the historical events of alleged possession and exorcism themselves) are more appropriate subject matter for studying the theatricality of possession because artists held the interpretative leverage of conveying theological messages through depictions of exorcisms. This research shows how the artist, patron, and learned advisor mobilize cultural theatrics in images of demonic possession.

No description available.

Zugl.: Bayreuth, Univ., Diss., 2007

This thesis takes as its starting point recent variations on the old narrative that seeks to make the Reformation, and Calvinism in particular, the catalyst for generating modern liberal politics. Using David VanDrunen’s Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms as an example, I show how these narratives often involve attempting to accomplish a “transfer” from the realm of spiritual liberty to that of civil liberty, a transfer against which John Calvin warns in his famous discussion of Christian liberty. In making such a transfer, such narratives are often insufficiently attentive to the theological complexities of the Reformation doctrine of Christian liberty, and the tensions that could lie concealed in various appeals to the doctrine. Accordingly, adopting as a lens John Perry’s concept of the “clash of loyalties,” (the conflict of religious and civil commitments which helped give rise to liberalism), I attempt to trace how different understandings of Christian liberty, and its accompanying concept of “things indifferent,” served both to mitigate and to exacerbate the clash of loyalties in the sixteenth century. This narrative culminates in the attempt of English puritans in the reign of Elizabeth to resolve the conflict by subjecting all ecclesiastical, political, and moral matters to the bar of Scriptural law, thus undermining earlier understandings of what Christian liberty entailed. Against this backdrop, I survey the work of Richard Hooker as an attempt to recover and clarify the doctrine of Christian liberty. This involves a careful distinction of individual and institutional liberty, and different senses of the concept “things indifferent,” a rehabilitation of the role of reason in moral determinations, and a harmonization of the believer’s loyalties by clarifying the relation of divine and human law. The result is a vision of a Christian commonwealth free to render corporate obedience to Christ while at the same time enabling the freedom of its citizens.

No description available.