Our Mission

Equipping you for life's journey with Jesus:

Now a team of 60 – we've been serving the Church since 2004
Together we've raised over £1,000,000 for UK Christian charities
25,000 churches are using the Eden Plus account

An Eden team member standing among warehouse book shelves

Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East: A Study of Jacob of Serugh

Name: Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East: A Study of Jacob of Serugh
Price: 132.34 GBP
Availability: InStock
Author: Philip Michael Forness
ISBN: 9780198826453

by Philip Michael Forness

Hardback
340 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
15.8 x 23.7 x 2.8 cm

Today‘s price £132.34

Free UK Delivery

Available - Usually dispatched within 4 days

Buying for a Church or School? Get 10% off every order and Buy Now Pay Later

An Eden warehouse team member picking orders in Chester

Every order is picked and packed with care by our warehouse team in Chester

Bookmark this item

For students of late antique Christian preaching

Shows how clergy taught deep doctrine in the past

Learn how ancient sermons reached ordinary hearts

Explore how Jacob of Serugh used powerful homilies to share complex theology with everyday people.

Our Mission

Equipping you for life's journey with Jesus:

Now a team of 60 – we've been serving the Church since 2004
Together we've raised over £1,000,000 for UK Christian charities
25,000 churches are using the Eden Plus account

Free delivery on orders over £10

Preaching formed one of the primary, regular avenues of communication between ecclesiastical elites and a wide range of society. Clergy used homilies to spread knowledge of complex theological debates prevalent in late antique Christian discourse. Some sermons even offer glimpses into the locations in which communities gathered to hear orators preach. Although homilies survive in greater number than most other types of literature, most do not specify the setting of their initial delivery, dating, and authorship. Preaching Christology in the Roman Near East addresses how we can best contextualize sermons devoid of such information. The first chapter develops a methodology for approaching homilies that draws on a broader understanding of audience as both the physical audience and the readership of sermons. The remaining chapters offer a case study on the renowned Syriac preacher Jacob of Serugh (c. 451-521) whose metrical homilies form one of the largest sermon collections in any language from late antiquity. His letters connect him to a previously little-known Christological debate over the language of the miracles and sufferings of Christ through his correspondence with a monastery, a Roman military officer, and a Christian community in South Arabia. He uses this language in homilies on the Council of Chalcedon, on Christian doctrine, and on biblical exegesis. An analysis of these sermons demonstrates that he communicated miaphysite Christology to both elite reading communities as well as ordinary audiences. Philip Michael Forness provides a new methodology for working with late antique sermons and discloses the range of society that received complex theological teachings through preaching.