One of the most consistent features of Christian life has been the extensive use of the biblical texts in sermons; to evangelise, to educate, to edify, to exhort, and even to terrify those who heard them. Yet, surprisingly little scholarly attention has focused on the dynamics at work as these texts were taken by preachers and transformed into the largely aural experience encountered by their audience. Pre-formed and performed thus, scripture was communicated and made relevant through the use of the sermonic form to audiences inhabiting a broad range of socio-historical settings, including those whose social status or illiteracy might otherwise have completely precluded any access to biblical texts. In this volume, case-studies of biblical reception within and through preaching have been taken from two millennia of homilies, with each being examined to see how the text-preacher-audience dynamic has influenced the interpretation, understanding and impact of the Bible. Examples include Paul, Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Hildegard of Bingen, Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aimee Semple McPherson and Chris Brain.

Antioch was the fourth great city of the Roman world, and yet it is often written off as a lost ancient city. Founded in 300 BC by Seleucus I as part of his plan to colonize Syria with Greeks, the city had from its inception been home to Greeks, Macedonians, Syrians, Egyptians and many others. From the early 60s BC, when Syria was established as a Roman province, the physical appearance, culture and institutions of the city underwent a process of Romanization. Antioch became an important religious centre with both strong pagan traditions and a large Jewish community, and it was soon home to one of the oldest Christian communities and the seat of a patriarch. material on Antioch in the late Roman period (the 2nd to the 7th centuries AD), from the writings of the orator Libanius and the preacher John Chrysostom to the extensive mosaics found in the city and its suburbs. The authors consider the lively issues of identity and ethnicity in this truly multi-cultural and multi-religious city, the effects of Romanization and Christianization on the city and surrounding region, and the central place of the city in the Roman world.

What do we mean when we talk about 'being Christian' in Late Antiquity? This volume brings together sixteen world-leading scholars of ancient Judaism, Christianity and, Greco-Roman culture and society to explore this question, in honour of the ground-breaking scholarship of Professor Gillian Clark. After an introduction to the volume's dedicatee and themes by Averil Cameron, the papers in Section I, `Being Christian through Reading, Writing and Hearing', analyse the roles that literary genre, writing, reading, hearing and the literature of the past played in the formation of what it meant to be Christian. The essays in Section II move on to explore how late antique Christians sought to create, maintain and represent Christian communities: communities that were both 'textually created' and 'enacted in living realities'. Finally in Section III, 'The Particularities of Being Christian', the contributions examine what it was to be Christian from a number of different ways of representing oneself, each of which raises questions about certain kinds of 'particularities', for example, gender, location, education and culture. Bringing together primary source material from the early Imperial period up to the seventh century AD and covering both the Eastern and Western Empires, the papers in this volume demonstrate that what it meant to be Christian cannot simply be taken for granted. 'Being Christian' was part of a continual process of construction and negotiation, as individuals and Christian communities alike sought to relate themselves to existing traditions, social structures and identities, at the same time as questioning and critiquing the past(s) in their present.

Studies of religious interaction in the fourth century AD have often assumed that the categories of 'pagan', 'Christian' and 'Jew' can be straightforwardly applied, and that we can assess the extent of Christianization in the Graeco-Roman period. In contrast, in this 2007 text, Dr Sandwell tackles the fundamental question of attitudes to religious identity by exploring how the Christian preacher John Chrysostom and the Graeco-Roman orator Libanius wrote about and understood issues of religious allegiance. By comparing the approaches of these men, who were living and working in Antioch at approximately the same time, she strives to get inside the process of religious interaction in a way not normally possible due to the dominance of Christian sources. In so doing she develops approaches to the study of Libanius' religion, the impact of John Chrysostom's preaching on his audiences and the importance of religious identity to fourth-century individuals.

Studies of religious interaction in the fourth century AD have often assumed that the categories of 'pagan', 'Christian' and 'Jew' can be straightforwardly applied, and that we can assess the extent of Christianization in the Graeco-Roman period. In contrast, in this text, Dr Sandwell tackles the fundamental question of attitudes to religious identity by exploring how the Christian preacher John Chrysostom and the Graeco-Roman orator Libanius wrote about and understood issues of religious allegiance. By comparing the approaches of these men, who were living and working in Antioch at approximately the same time, she strives to get inside the process of religious interaction in a way not normally possible due to the dominance of Christian sources. In so doing she develops approaches to the study of Libanius' religion, the impact of John Chrysostom's preaching on his audiences and the importance of religious identity to fourth-century individuals.