preaching. Missionary preaching In missionary preaching the apostles were also assisted, but informally, by the laity, who explained the Christian doctrine to their acquaintances amongst unbelievers who, in their visits to the Christian assemblies, must have heard something of it, e.g., cf. I Cor., xiv, 23-24. This is particularly true of Justin Martyr, who, wearing his philosopher's cloak, went about for that purpose. The sermons to the faithful in the early ages were of the simplest kind, being merely expositions or paraphrases of the passage of scripture that was read, coupled with extempore effusions of the heart. This explains why there is little or nothing in the way of sermons or homilies surviving from that period. It also explains the strange statement made by Sozomen (Hist. Eccl., VII, xix), and by Cassiodorus in his "Tripartite History", which Duchesne apparently accepts, that no one preached at Rome. (Sozomen wrote about the time of Pope Xystus III, in office 432-440) Thomassin's explanation of Sozomen's statement is that there was no preaching in the sense of an elaborate or finished discourse before the time of Pope Leo, with the exception, perhaps, of the address on virginity by Pope Liberius (in office 352-366) to Marcellina, sister of St. Ambrose, on the occasion of her taking the veil, which is regarded as a private discourse. And the reason for this he attributes to the stress of persecution. Neander (I, 420, note) says of Sozomen's statement: "The remark could not extend to the early times; but suppose it did, it meant that the sermon was only secondary. Or the fact may have been that this Eastern writer was deceived by false accounts from the West, or it may have been that the sermon in the Western Church did not occupy so important a place as it did in the Greek Church." Homiletics in the Jewish tradition Preaching as a regular part of worship services in Judaism can be traced back to the time of Ezra, who instituted the custom of reading a portion of the Torah, written in Hebrew, and then paraphrasing or explaining it in the vernacular, which at the time was Aramaic. This tradition was well established by the fourth century BCE. After the destruction of the temple, synagogues became central to Jewish worship and the role of the sermon increased. A regular structure arose: the speaker first quoted a verse from the Bible,