ABSTRACT
It is common knowledge among scholars that many early Christian and Byzantine homilies underwent changes in the course of their transmission. From their first delivery to a congregation, oĞen in an informal, extempore form, through careful editing, and finally publication either in a volume devoted to one preacher’s work or in a collection of multi-authored texts intended for liturgical use in churches and monasteries, homilies and festal sermons experienced, as it were, a multitude of incarnations.1 Unfortunately, owing to the limited number of surviving manuscripts, we oĞen only have access to a single version of a homiletic text. It is always worth asking whether this represents its first appearance, perhaps reflecting stenographic notes taken by a member of the congregation, or a revised and edited version of the text. In addition to this consideration, we should bear in mind that many – if not most – of the Byzantine sermons that survive also reflect their final destiny, as readings that were assigned in monastic and ecclesiastical typika for specific days and offices in the liturgical calendar.
