Here is all that is known, and rather more than is known, of the homilies, fragments of homilies and letters (synodal and ‘to Seleucus’) of the distinguished metropolitical bishop who was cousin to Gregory Nazianzen, spiritual heir to, and protégé of Basil the Great. I summarise the facts of his life as set out in Michel Bonnet's admirable introduction which now replaces the incomplete and inaccurate notices to be found in the established encyclopedias and works of reference. Born sometime between 340 and 345 at Diocaesarea into the cultured class to which belonged also the other better known ‘Cappadocian Fathers’, Basil and the two Gregories, he was trained as a rhetor under Libanius in Antioch. He entered public life in the provincial governor's office, as it were, not in Constantinople (as commonly stated) but nearer home in Cappadocia, a fact which can be deduced from his cousin's appeal to him to act in a tax assessment case. From this letter amongst other references by Gregory and especially from Basil's numerous letters to him (his own to Basil are not preserved) the shaping of an episcopal career can be discerned. It started with his becoming part of Basil's scheme, elaborated with a persistence and capacity for manipulation worthy of Bismarck, to establish a united and doctrinally coherent Church on pro-Nicene lines. He consulted Basil frequently, was advised and in effect instructed on a variety of issues spiritual and practical (including how to spell a Greek word: ep. ccxxxvi.5) but came into his own on the master's death in 378. His Synodal letter, probably not actually delivered at or from any synod, rehearses faithfully Basil's teaching on the Holy Spirit, including its reticence on the title ‘God’ as applied to the Spirit (because, of course, that designation appears neither in the Bible nor the Nicene Creed). He was one of the official guarantors of orthodoxy designated by Theodosius under the new imperial religious settlement and it is suggested that the emperor's list of proscribed heresies is indebted to Amphilochius’ Against the heretics (which is not included in these volumes). He co-operated in the suppression of the Messalians, a disquieting pietistic ‘movement’ (perhaps not quite a ‘sect’) with a literary legacy in the Liber graduum and the Pseudo-Macarian Homilies (Gregory of Nyssa, by contrast, was more open to their style of religion). He died, a much respected figure, in old age, apparently sometime after 394.

Of the works published here in Greek (and Syriac where direct transmission does not exist) with French translation under the editorship of Michel Bonnet and with the collaboration of Sever J. Voicu, only some may confidently be ascribed to Amphilochius. The Letter to Seleucus is certainly not genuine and out of the nine homilies which were brought together in Datema's edition for the Belgian corpus and form the textual basis for their publication here, four are found spurious by Voicu whose arguments though not finally conclusive I am inclined to credit. The determination of authorship in the case of patristic or allegedly patristic homilies is difficult and often impossible. As with our contemporary sermons the same ideas and even the same words recur: I have heard on many a Maundy Thursday and Corpus Christi Gregory Dix's eloquent rehearsal of the many and varying circumstances in which the eucharist has been celebrated; and at least twice, B. K. Cunningham's address on the words ‘Can ye?’ ‘We can’ ‘Ye shall’. Homilies are not ‘owned’ in the ordinary sense now and certainly not then, as Voicu rightly points out. They are refurbished by different preachers, remodelled and re-published. Several examples of that are supplied here in this collection. Where external attestation is available, through manuscript ascription or citation in florilegia, and internal through coherence in style and known historical context probable authorship may reasonably and after a fashion be granted. These necessary conditions all together and at once do not obtain for nos 1, 2–3 and 7. Of course the contrary is also true: disproof of authorship is often impossible for the same reasons. An example of this is provided in the first homily where a part has been found in a Coptic version dating, so it is said, to the middle of the fifth century; the existence of this passage does not disprove Voicu's argument that the homily we have here as a whole belongs to a much later milieu than Amphilochius’: ‘authorship’ in the case of patristic homilies is, I repeat, an ambiguous concept. To Datema's nine are added here a nearly complete tenth in Syriac with attestation from Facundus, and fragments from others.

Each of the pieces here, regardless of authorship, has points of interest. Homilies 9 and 10, with the Synodal letter, are doctrinal. Though everything worth saying by Basil and the two Gregories in reply to Eunomius had already been said these pieces mark the current state of play, as it were, de Trinitate et de Christo. The first homily is for the Nativity. Full of apostrophes and grand gestures it is an effective piece in a style which requires historical sensitivity for its just appreciation. The second is a beautiful and affecting piece, rightly praised by its editor, on the BVM, Symeon and Anna. Virginity is lauded but marriage also valued: in contrast with homily 4, on the sinful woman who anointed Jesus, where Amphilochius displays an embarrassing disgust with women. Homily 3 is on the raising of Lazarus: a straightforward exposition with a faint whiff of anti-Eunomian polemic. Homily 5 is for Easter Eve and is about Christ's descent into Hades; it also berates the Jews. Homily 6, on Matthew xxvi.39, is directed against Eunomius as are 9 (on John v.19) and 10 (on John xiv.28). Homily 7, for Low Sunday, is an amalgam of two different pieces: it opens with a pleasing and perhaps customary (it can be found in Cyril of Alexandria's Festals) evocation of the joys of Spring. The second part expatiates on the different names and attributes of Christ rather as Gregory Nazianzen does more systematically in his Or. 30. Homily 8, on Zacchaeus, is a scarcely coherent congeries of good bits.

The editorial work and the translation are up to standard in these two volumes. They make a useful contribution to church-historical studies.