SAINT BASIL

EXEGETIC HOMILIES

Translated by

sister agnes clare way, c.d.p.

Our Lady of the Lake College

San Antonio, Texas

the catholic university of america press

Washington, D.C.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-12483

© Copyright 1963 by

The Catholic University of America Press, Inc.

All rights reserved

Second Printing 1981

ISBN 0-8132-1359-2 (Ppk)

THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

A NEW TRANSLATION

VOLUME 46

EDITORIAL BOARD

Hermigild Dressler, O.F.M.

Quincy College

Editorial Director

Robert P. Russell, O.S.A. Villanova University	Thomas P. Halton The Catholic University of America
Robert Sider Dickinson College	Sister M. Josephine Brennan, I.H.M. Marywood College

Richard Talaska

Editorial Assistant

FORMER EDITORIAL DIRECTORS

Ludwig Schopp, Roy J. Deferrari, Bernard M. Peebles

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

HOMILIES

1 On the Hexaemeron

2 On the Hexaemeron

3 On the Hexaemeron

4 On the Hexaemeron

5 On the Hexaemeron

6 On the Hexaemeron

7 On the Hexaemeron

8 On the Hexaemeron

9 On the Hexaemeron

10 On Psalm 1

11 On Psalm 7

12 On Psalm 14

13 On Psalm 28

14 On Psalm 29

15 On Psalm 32

16 On Psalm 33

17 On Psalm 44

18 On Psalm 45

19 On Psalm 48

20 On Psalm 59

21 On Psalm 61

22 On Psalm 114

INDICES

INTRODUCTION

The exegetic writings usually attributed to St. Basil include the nine homilies on the Hexaemeron, seventeen on the Psalms, and the Commentary on Isaia in sixteen chapters. These are all found in the ‘Opera Sancti Basilii’ of the Patrologia Graeca, Vols. 29–32. Four of the homilies on the psalms, the first, On Psalm 14, a second one On Psalm 28, one On Psalm 37, and that On Psalm 115, as well as the Commentary on Isaia, are placed by the Benedictine editors in the Appendix of Volume 1 of St. Basil’s works, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. 30, as doubtful or clearly spurious works of St. Basil. Two other exegetic homilies, On the Form of Man, are included by the Benedictine editors among St. Basil’s doubtful works and are also found in the works St. Gregory of Nyssa,1 who says that at the request of his brother, Peter, he had finished the Hexaemeron of St. Basil. Since these two homilies are contained also in St. Gregory’s works and since we do not find the works which St. Basil had promised at the end of homily nine on the Hexaemeron on ‘Man as the Image of God,’ it is quite possible that St. Gregory added these two homilies to his brother’s commentary in place of the two which St. Basil had promised. They are usually attributed to St. Gregory. In my translation I am including only those exegetic homilies generally acknowledge to be genuine.

The high esteem with which the ancients regarded the homilies of St. Basil, especially those on the Hexaemeron, is well known. St. Gregory of Nazianzus says; ‘When I take his Hexaemeron in my hand and read it aloud, I am with my Creator, I understand the reasons for creation, and I admire my Creator more than I formerly did when I used sight alone as my teacher.… When I read his other explanations of ...