APPENDIX TO THE THIRD VOLUME OF THE WORKS OF ST. BASIL THE GREAT, COMPRISING
Twenty-four sermons on ethics, collected from his works by Symeon Metaphrastes, and the book *On Virginity*, falsely ascribed to the name of Basil.
NOTICE
The twenty-four sermons on ethics rightfully take the first place in this Appendix, for since they are entirely woven together from the works of Basil, they present Basil himself speaking to us, and do not attribute to his name the offspring of another. Symeon the Master and Logothete—accustomed to being called Metaphrastes—stitched these centos together. In this work, he adds almost nothing of his own, except when the connection of the matter demands that a single word be added or changed. For he has by no means neglected the order and sequence; but, if you except a few testimonies which have no connection either with what precedes them or with what follows them, the rest are sufficiently fit and joined to one another. However, as is wont to happen in works of this kind, whereby those things which rested in their proper place are distorted when placed in a foreign one, Metaphrastes did not always escape this fault. For example, Basil denies in Epistle 250 that he ought to be brought to concede his communion to everyone, and maintains that some must be excluded from it; Symeon substitutes "charity" for "communion," and induces Basil to speak most absurdly in Sermon 3, no. 2. He errs no less when, in Sermon 18, no. 1, he reports the impious principle of Eunomius as if it were a splendid saying of Basil. For what Eunomius entreats of his present and future readers—that they should not judge truth by the multitude, with the prize awarded to the greater part, nor pay attention to dignities, nor stop their ears to the later generation, with victory conceded to the host of the former—Metaphrastes has attributed to St. Basil; nor did he perceive in these words the craftiness of the heretic, who, seeing himself pressed by the authority of all antiquity and the consensus of all the Churches, was diminishing the weight of so great an argument by dissembling and quibbling. Furthermore, this work is quite useful, both on account of the very juxtaposition of similar testimonies, which are gathered from various places into one, and also because it sometimes helps to correct the text of St. Basil, and contains many things which, since they do not appear in Basil’s works, may seem to have been derived from those which we have lost. We have marked such testimonies with little stars, distinguishing them from others, which are indicated as having been found in their own places. In the two Royal codices which we have used, the works of Basil, or the orations from which each testimony seems to have been taken, are generally indicated in the margin: for example, from the *Antirrhetica*, from the *Ascetica*, from the Commentary on Isaiah, from the epistles, from the Homilies on the *Hexaemeron*. Only the Psalms are cited more accurately, with the number of the psalm itself added. In these notes in the margin, two orations are listed which do not exist today, namely, the homily *On Almsgiving and Judgment* (a), sermon 4, and the homily *That God is Incomprehensible*, sermon 15.
These Sermons were published, says the most learned Fabricius (b), first in Greek from the library of the Most Christian King, at Paris, by Guil. Morellus, 1556, 8°. Hence, they were translated into the Latin tongue by Simone de Maillé, Archbishop of Tours, ibid. 1558, 8°. Later, in both languages, with a new interpretation by Stanislaus Ilovius, Frankfurt 1598 and 1611, 8°. The Latin interpretation of Simon de Maillé has been preserved in the Greco-Latin editions of Basil’s works. I suspect that among these ethical works are the nine shorter homilies which Nicolaus Antonius narrates in *Bibliotheca Hispana* were translated into Latin by Francisco Vergara. The interpretation of the Archbishop of Tours, which is dedicated to Cardinal Lorraine, is an egregious monument to the diligence of the interpreter and his skill in the Greek tongue, but I have not retained it, because the most learned prelate, while following the context of a faulty codex, fell into many errors which he could easily have avoided had he had in his hands another codex of the same Royal library, which was of great use to me. Therefore, since this work is a text composed of gathered testimonies, it seemed better to append the interpretation that each had in its own place. However, we have corrected many things that were rendered less accurately or less clearly. As regards the context, of the two Royal codices with which it was collated, the one marked 1992 was, as I have already said, of great assistance to me; the other, which is 1910, differs so little from the published editions that it seems to have been used for the first edition of the twenty-four sermons.