The Homiliae Morales, Hexaemeron, De Litteris, with Additional Coverage of the Letters

The second volume of the Bibliotheca Basiliana Vniversalis covers all the extant mss, translations and editions of Basil of Caesarea's Homiliae morales, and more than 300 homiletic type adaptations. In addition, it provides descriptions of a number of the mss and editions of the letters that were left out volume one, and of all the editions and translations both of the homilies and the letters from ca.1470 to the present. Besides the native tongue of Basil, some twenty other languages are represented. Throughout an attempt has been made at correcting some of the descriptions of the sixteenth- century composite editions which the homilies share with the letters and the ascetica. Also in this volume have been included many mss, editions and translations of the Vita s. Basilii of Ps.-Amphilochius (CPG 3253), the Laudatio of Ps.Ephraem (BHG 246) and the Laudatio of Ioannes XIII Glykys, Patriarch of Constantinople (1315-1319; BHG 262h) even when they were found in mss containing no works of Basil. The method employed in this volume is very similar to that adopted in the first volume. In the first three chapters all the corpora of the Homiliae and the Hexaemeron are described, in Greek and in eight ancient languages into which Basil has been translated, namely Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgian, Latin, Old Slavonic and Syriac. Chapters Four to Ten are home to some 6000 mss written both in Greek (Classical en Demotic) and the eight languages. The mss are housed in some 400 libraries whose locations span from the Atlantic Ocean to the Volga River. Chapters eleven and twelve provide extensive coverage of all the editions from ca.1470 to the present. In Chapters thirteen to fifteen every work whether authentic, dubious or spurious is identified according to its titles, incipits/desinits, its location in the mss of the corpora and single mss, editions and versions. Besides the methodology, the aim of this volume remains also the same as that of the previous one, which is to put in the hands of any genuinely interested reader as much primary information as possible. Rather than withholding from the readers the information on which scholarly conclusions are based and giving them only the results of the research, the BBV has been conceived as a tool for judging the accuracy of the premises on which the conclusions of the investigations rest. A further goal of the BBV is to preserve for posterity many of the works considered inferior, particularly the so-called 'adaptations' and 'mathemataria' which are, as a rule, discarded by many a modern editor. Closely related to this objective is the commitment of the BBV to salvage for history manuscripts and books destined to perish long before their time, due to natural or less natural causes: fire, vandalism, wars.