Transmission

Byzantine homilies are transmitted mainly in liturgical collections (called homil-iaries), panegyrica, menologia, and mixed collections, arranged in the order of the liturgical year (Ehrhard 1937-52). Most surviving examples were compiled after the ninth century and appear to have been used as readings in church. It is unlikely that such readings, which according to surviving typika were delivered in the course of monastic offices and vigils, ever took the place of spontaneous preaching. These compilations were selective in their transmission of texts, however, with famous early Fathers such as John Chrysostom, John of Damascus, Andrew of Crete, and a number of others being favoured over less well-known preachers of the later period. After the ninth century, special collections containing the homilies of just one preacher, such as Photios, Leo VI, and John Xiphilinos, began to appear. It is likely that these authors edited their sermons carefully before publication even if these had originally been delivered in a less formal manner. The use of stenography, or the copying down in shorthand of preachers’ extempore homilies is well attested in the early centuries of the Church, with the works of Origen, the Cappadocian Fathers, John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Jerusalem representing the best-known examples. The ninth-century patriarch Tarasios employed stenographers, as did his contemporary, Theodore of Edessa. Whether or not preachers spoke spontaneously, according to the best traditions of Greek rhetoric, or wrote out their sermons beforehand, it is likely that most edited them carefully before they were published in liturgical or special collections (Antonopoulou 1997:100-1). Preachers throughout the Byzantine period quoted freely or even incorporated sections of earlier homiletic works; as in other genres of literature, plagiarism does not appear to have carried the stigma that it does today.