the same; as also you were called. One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father, who is over all, and through all, and in all. Behold then, what is good, or what is pleasant, but for brothers to dwell together in unity? Not in a bodily house alone, but also in this holy and spiritual one. For, "My house," He says, "shall be called a house of prayer." But we too, who have been enlightened, have been deemed worthy of the same ointment. For Christ, our Savior, has anointed us all with His righteousness; through whom and with whom to the Father and to the Holy Spirit be glory and majesty for ever and ever. Amen.
MONITUM
That commentary, concerning which we must now speak, if not from other sources, is nevertheless rightly commended by its antiquity. For it is sufficiently agreed among the learned that this work either belongs to the fourth century, or approaches very closely to that age. This interpretation, however, is imperfect as it appears in the common editions, and also in the manuscripts; it extends neither in the former nor in the latter beyond the sixteenth chapter of Isaiah. Yet there was a time once when it stood complete, if Possevino is to be believed: who, when reviewing the ancient books of the Messana library, writes thus in the Appendix, page 37, at the foot of the work: "A very complete interpretation of D. Basil on the prophet Isaiah. A complete and rare work in folio." If the explanation of the remaining chapters of Isaiah was as full in this Messanian book as is that part which we have for the first sixteen chapters, I do not see how it could have happened that so great a mass of commentaries could be contained in one volume. Be that as it may, we have written about this matter to our procurator general in the Roman curia: but we have learned nothing certain. Now, therefore, I do not know what rumor remains, except that at Messana, the three most famous codices, formerly written by hand, were exported from the library of the Reverend Fathers of the Order of Saint Basil by some viceroy of Sicily, and for that reason it could have happened that this Basilian codex was taken away with two others. But since neither Possevino nor anyone else could say that he had either seen or read this book, there is no reason for us to labor much in searching for it: all the more so, because it is most probable that such a book never existed.
That that imperfect Commentary on Isaiah has for a long time been attributed to Basil the Great is established. Among others, we shall number Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Symeon the Logothete, Antonius Melissa, Tarasius patriarch of Constantinople, and the author of the Greek Scholia on the Apostolic Epistles. But if we were to set out to enumerate the more recent authors, who also make Basil the Great the author of such a work, day and paper would fail us. Famous are Tilmann, Ducaeus, Combefis, Natalis Alexander, Dupin, Tillemont, Lequien, and others almost innumerable. On the other hand, there are few who think otherwise, and those are of no great authority in literature, except for Petavius, a man of great learning: who, indeed, brought forth no argument to prove his opinion, but nevertheless firmly pronounced that it was not a work of Basil. His words, however, are these, *Tom. III Theol. dog., lib. 1, c. 2, n. 4*: "Again, the author of the Commentaries on Isaiah, which are accustomed to be inscribed to Basil, but are not his, seems also to make the angels corporeal." That I have embraced this opinion, is sufficiently understood even from that place where I took care for this Commentary to be published (a): but I would wish you to read the arguments themselves, which I have brought forward to prove this, in the Preface in their proper order and place.
(a) That is, among the doubtful works. From the arguments, however, brought forward by D. Prud. Maranus in the *Life of Basil*, it is to be numbered among the genuine works; but that we may preserve the order instituted by L. Jul. Garnerius, which the learned would bear with annoyance if it were inverted, we change nothing. EDIT. PATR.
ENARRATION ON THE PROPHET ISAIAH. PROOEMIUM (20-21)
1. Pray that your flight may not occur in winter or on the Sabbath.
(20-21) Antique codex of Combef.: "Exposition of Basil the Great on the prophet Isaiah, prooemium." The second Royal: "Interpretation of Basil, etc., prooemium." The edited versions: "Discourse I," ineptly. For this is not the first discourse of those which the author, whoever he is, wrote on the prophet Isaiah: but it is a certain