This study develops a methodology for approaching homilies that draws on a broader understanding of audience as both the physical audience and the readership of sermons. It then offers a case study on the Syriac preacher Jacob of Serguh whose metrical homilies form one of the largest sermon collections in any language from late antiquity.

• Abbreviations


• Conventions


• Introduction


• I: The Audience and Readership of Late Antique Homilies


• II: The Christological Debates and the Miracles and Sufferings of Christ


• III: Jacob of Serugh's Letters as a Context for his Homilies


• IV: Homilies and Reading Communities


• V: Homilies as Tools for Teaching Theology


• VI: Homilies and the Spread of Christological Doctrine


• Conclusion


• Tables


• Bibliography

Philip Michael Forness is Post-Doctoral Researcher in Late Antique Christianity in the Near East at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. His research focuses on Christianity in the late antique Mediterranean and culture exchange between Christian communities in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa in the Middle Ages. He is interested in the transmission of ideas across linguistic boundaries, book culture and manuscript studies, and the relationship between doctrine and religious practices.