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This systematic study of Chrysostom's Homilies on Genesis demonstrates the wide-ranging sources and techniques that undergird his exegesis, shedding new light on networks of Biblical learning in Late Antiquity. It shows the relationship between exegetical traditions and ethical evaluation in specific homiletic discourses, highlighting the importance of name and word meanings for Chrysostom.

For many Catholics in Ghana, one way of dealing with death and grief is the celebration of Mass, also called Holy Eucharist, or a prayer service with the homily serving as both a religious and rhetorical act of teaching and consolation from a Christian perspective. This paper engaged in a rhetorical analysis of a funeral homily of a Ghanaian statesperson, using metaphoric analysis as a unit of analysis, and drew conclusions on the meaning of the metaphors “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” expressed by Jesus in John 14:6 especially as these metaphors relate to human conduct, belief, and hope of a Christian. To write this analysis the author watched the funeral celebration of the late Theresa Aba Kufuor, former First Lady of the Republic of Ghana, published on YouTube, several times and concentrated on the homily delivered by the Auxiliary Bishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Accra, Most Rev. Anthony Narh Asare, and drew some conclusions about the efficacy of the rhetorical act of the homily.

The paper focuses on the composition, lexical, and grammatical features of a Nativity sermon in the 13 th century Old Russian Tolstovskiy Sbornik (National Library of Russia, F.p.I.39). The author considers its Byzantine sources, principles of editorial work, and the differences from original rhetorical structures. Attributed to John Chrysostom, the sermon turns out to be a complicated compilation from various early Byzantine sermons. The compilation is based both on rearranging fragments of the same source and on combining excerpts from different sermons in a small context. Such transformations indicate the lack of cohesion in sermon texts, due to their independence from the causation and time factor. Non-attributed parts of the Old Russian text may be original since they demonstrate a certain similarity with Kirill Turovskiy orations in the same anthology. The lexical level of the sermon contains non-standard solutions that reinterpret the Greek source text, which may indicate either the missionary nature of the translation or a tendency to the poetic decoration. In some cases, the semantic mismatch of lexical units within Greek-Slavonic correlations is due to errors. At the grammatical level, there are also grammatical inconsistencies of Slavonic and Greek units; they affect the categories of time, number, gender, as well as parts- of-speech status.

This essay presents a brief synopsis of the genre of the Hasidic homily, as it occurs initially in classical rabbinic Midrash from late antiquity and later as a component of the classic mystical treatise Book of Zohar from the Middle Ages. The latter is a revival of the Hasidic homily in an esoteric mode, and provides a background for the classic Hasidic homily in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These texts are also built around creative spiritual rereadings of the old rabbinic Midrashic sources. I have provided key examples of the earlier expressions of this genre as a prelude to more detailed instances of Hasidic phenomena. From a hermeneutical point of view, it is important to stress that the homilies were typically recited orally, and were subsequently revised, summarized, and incorporated into textual anthologies of different kinds. The shift from the oral to the written shifts the focus of attention from the living speaker and their voice to a record of that voice in a newly transcribed (and sometimes translated form). The \"reader\" is therefore faced with a new task of reception, recovery, and reinterpretation.

Prominent as both a religious and legal figure, the writings of archbishop Wulfstan (d. 1023) can elude easy categorization. They are, moreover, indebted to both Latin rhetorical and Old English vernacular traditions. Drawing together studies of Wulfstan’s surrounding cultural atmosphere and critical evaluations of Wulfstan’s personal style, this article first assesses the complexity of Wulfstan’s multilingual situation and presents the case that his specific texts are best approached and understood in terms of reconciliation between his different influences. I next develop notions about medieval bilingual sermon writing more broadly and specifically examine Wulfstan’s series of Latin and vernacular homilies addressing the rite of baptism as a case study of individual multilingual writing practice: Sermo Sancti Augustini de Baptismo non Iterando, Incipit de Baptismo, Dominica IIIIa vel Quando Volueris, and Sermo de Baptismate. Beyond a consideration of source material and analogy with modern language practices, I analyze noteworthy instances of cross-linguistic pragmatic awareness and emblematic language use (code-switching, transplantation). This assessment produces a characterization of Wulfstan’s engagement with multilingualism as part of his creative process and as a literary device, ultimately arguing that the overall pattern corresponds with other notable features of his writing style, such as prominent repetition and explanatory clarification.

Although John Chrysostom is critical of the theatre, delivering a homily was never a tiresome monologue of the preacher in Byzantium; it was a theatrical performance combining text-reading and multiple ceremonies, during which spaces, lights, and materials were manipulated to create marvellous spectacles and enslave the audience spiritually and emotionally. At times, orators described the physical features of the venues where they spoke, as did Leo VI the Wise for two newly founded churches and Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus for the second most important church of the Empire, the Holy Apostles. But in most cases, the performance aspect of their speeches could only be known indirectly from two ceremonial handbooks, Kletorologion and De Ceremoniis. It is also necessary to indicate that the spectacles in homilies were not always real and present; they sometimes came to exist in listeners’ minds through picturesque descriptions (ekphraseis) and fictional figures (ethopoiiai) composed by preachers.

This essay focuses on the reception of Pauline ideas in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, commonly dated to the early fourth century. At first, the claim that the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies contain Pauline ideas may seem surprising, since the Homilies are commonly considered “Jewish Christian” and thus anti-Pauline. However, new readings of Paul generated by the “Paul within Judaism” perspective, along with new insights on the Homilies, reveal that the latter work seems to contain Pauline ideas not preserved in other receptions of Paul. The Homilies share with Paul the following traits and ideas: (1) like Paul, the Homilies distinguish between Jews and non-Jews (the term “Christian” never appears) and, like Paul, the Homilies’ teachings about law address gentiles and prescribe a kind of Judaism for them; (2) gentiles must adapt to a Jewish lifestyle and keep the commandments that the Torah prescribes for non-Israelites; (3) Jews and Jesus-oriented gentiles together make up the people of God (called theosebeis in the Homilies), but the distinction between them remains. They have equal status in the eyes of God but differences in their observance of the law remain. An important point where the Homilies deviate from Paul is their insistence that Jews do not necessarily need Jesus. For the Homilies, Jesus is primarily the teacher of gentiles, and they envision two parallel paths to salvation: Moses for Jews and Jesus for gentiles. This essay suggests that the Homilies’ understanding of ideas that we recognize as Pauline developed in a milieu marked by the presence of non-Jesus-oriented (rabbinic) Jews.

In his many homilies, Gregory of Nyssa contrasts Christian belief to earlier forms of belief that were still very present in the Roman empire during the fourth century, namely the classical polytheistic faith and Judaism, with the explicit intention of showing its superiority over them. Even though Gregory is clearly against any belief that is not Christian orthodoxy, he presents these other beliefs from two different perspectives: at times, he presents them as the enemies of Christianity, showing clearly how they seek to harm the true faith; at other times, he also seeks to show how, in a way, they are of benefit to Christianity because their very presence and the behaviour of their followers help to show how much the Christian way of life outshines any other. This discussion on other faiths in relation to Christian belief is present in many contexts; however, attacks on paganism are more evident in the sermons in honour of martyrs, while invectives addressed to Jews are present mainly in his sermons on biblical books. In this paper, an attempt will be made to present in detail what Gregory has to say about these other faiths and their relation to Christianity (desired and factual), concluding with how his attitude towards other faiths can be classified and described.