Basil Letters And Select Works

It is beyond the scope of the present work to discuss at length the history and relation of the extant Liturgies, which go by the name of St. Basil. St. Basil's precise share in their composition, as we possess them, must be conjectural.

(i) The Liturgy, which St. Basil himself used and gave to his clergy and monks, preserved the traditional form in use in the archdiocese of Cæsarea. [700] It is mentioned in the xxxii^nd canon of the council "in Trullo" of 692. This is no doubt the basis of the Greek Liturgy known as St. Basil's, and used in the East as well as the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom. The form in use is contained in Neale's Primitive Liturgies (1875). Dr. Swainson (Greek Liturgies chiefly 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). This differs entirely from the first named.

(iii) Yet again there is a Syriac Liturgy called St. Basil's, translated by Masius, and given by Renaudot in his second volume. [701]