Preaching With the Fathers

The article examines the question of the usage of patristic exegetical texts in the composition of homilies, focusing on one historical examples, the so-called Učitelno Evangelie (Didactic Gospel). This is a corpus of fifty-one Slavonic exegetical homilies composed by Constantine of Preslav in late-ninth-century Bulgaria. They were written on the basis of excerpts from patristic biblical commentaries included in Greek New Testament catenae manuscripts, which were translated by Constantine of Preslav from Greek into Old Church Slavonic. The Didactic Gospel presents a practical example of how the rich Greek patristic exegetical tradition can be fruitfully employed in pastoral practice.