Cyril Tourneur

Written in the 1600’s by Cyril Tourneur, The Atheist’s Tragedy delves deep into different components of atheism. Of these components, the issue of life is given much attention. Throughout the play, D’Amville plays a leading role in plotting certain deaths, hence depriving characters of their lives. He is directly responsible for the death of his brother, Montferrers, just as he is indirectly responsible for the death of Borachio. D’Amville, however, is not fascinated by the lack of life; rather he is driven by the gain of it. Similar to the beliefs of the Roman philosopher Lucretius, D’Amville readily accepts that “death casts up the total sum of joy and happiness…and [that he will] melt into dust.” (Tourneur, 251, 1.1.17-21) This particularly disturbs D’Amville, and therefore prompts him to resolve this issue. To D’Amville, the only way to secure his immortality is through the succession of his lineage. Therefore, D’Amville is motivated to control not only his own life, but the lives of those around him as well. Tourneur presents a rather intimidating opponent to D’Amville, the will of an unknown Supreme Being that arguably oversees his entire plot. Given the…

Its purpose was to resolve a dispute between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius about the nature of Mary and whether or not she should be declared Theotokos (Simonetti, 2006, 808). Nestorius opposed the term because “whenever the sacred scriptures speak of Our Lord’s activity, they never speak of the birth and suffering of the divinity, but of the humanity of Christ. That is why the most accurate way of speaking about the Holy Virgin is Christ-bearer, not God-bearer” (Fouad, 2010). He…