NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

Liturgical.VI.—Liturgical.It is beyond the scope of the present work to discuss at length the history and relationof the extant Liturgies, which go by the name of St. Basil. St. Basil’s precise share in theircomposition, as we possess them, must be conjectural.(i) The Liturgy, which St. Basil himself used and gave to his clergy and monks, preservedthe traditional form in use in the archdiocese of Cæsarea. 700 It is mentioned in the xxxii ndcanon of the council “in Trullo” of 692. This is no doubt the basis of the Greek Liturgyknown as St. Basil’s, and used in the East as well as the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom. The formin use is contained in Neale’s Primitive Liturgies (1875). Dr. Swainson (Greek Liturgieschiefly from Oriental Sources, p. 75) printed an edition of it from the Barberini ms. in 1884.(ii) There is an Alexandrine Liturgy in Coptic, Arabic, and Greek form, called St. Basil’s,and used on fast days by the Monophysites (Renaudot, Lit. Orient. Collectio, i. 154). Thisdiffers entirely from the first named.(iii) Yet again there is a Syriac Liturgy called St. Basil’s, translated by Masius, and givenby Renaudot in his second volume. 701700 cf. De Sp. Scto. chap. xxvii. p. 41.701 cf. Dict. Christ. Ant. s.v. “Liturgy,” and C. Hole, Manual of the Book of Common Prayer, chap. ii. Fesslernotes: “Extat Liturgia S. Basilii tam fusior quam brevior gr. et lat. in Eucholog. Gr. ed. J. Goar Venetiis 1730 etalia gr. et lat. in E. Renaudot Coll. Lit. Or. Paris, 1716, item alia latine tantum conversa ex Coptico Jacobitarumin eadem collect, ac rursus alia latine tantum ex Syriaco conversa.…De formæ varietate hæc optime monetRenaudot: ‘Liturgia illa, quod extra dubium est, usurpatur in Græca ecclesia ab annis plus mille ducentis; atqueinde originem habuerunt leves aliquot discrepantiæ in precibus præparatoriis aut in aliis orationibus. Quædamexemplaria cæremoniales rubricas habent, quæ in aliis non reperiuntur; at alicujus momenti discrimen in illispartibus quæ canonem sacræ Actionis constituunt, non reperitur.…Varietates in codicibus omnes prope ad ritusspectant, qui enucleatius in aliquibus, in aliis brevius explicantur, in nonnullis omittuntur, quia aliunde peti debebant.’Eo autem sensu Liturgiæ hujus auctor dicitur Basilius, non quod proprio ingenio eam excogitaverit, sedquod preces publicas, eisque contiguos ritus, quoad rei essentiam ex communi traditionis Apostolicæ fonte manantes,ordinaverit et in scriptis codicibus ad certam formam redegerit.”127