SOURCE: "Spokesman for Truth (Continued): Christian Preachers," in The Art of Rhetoric in Alexandria: Its Theory and Practice in the Ancient World. Martinus Nijhoff, 1974, pp. 73-107.

In this excerpt, Smith examines Origen's use of the homily and how in his hands it became an occasion for explaining the meaning of the Scriptures. Discussed as well is Origen' s theory and method of preaching. The editors have included only the footnotes that pertain to the part of the chapter devoted to Origen.

The homily … as a speech form came into its own in the third to fifth centuries in the Byzantine church, but the idea originated centuries earlier. Aeschylus spoke of it (Thebes, 599) in the sense of intercourse with or company of people, and Jews had used it in a didactic and explanatory sense of understanding Scriptures. It remained for later and Christian writers and speakers, Clement and Origen...