De Beneficentia: A Homily on Social Action attributed to Basil of Caesarea*
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Abstract
This paper introduces an anonymous work attributed to Basil of Caesarea entitled, De beneficentia, or “On beneficence.” The text is known from one manuscript dating to the thirteenth or fourteenth century, Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1467 (gr. 63), a collection of genuine and pseudonymous Basilian homilies. Although pseudonymous and extant (as far as we can determine) only in this sole manuscript, in some quoted fragments from the ninth and twelfth centuries, and in a sixteenth-century Latin translation, De beneficentia, shares a number of characteristics common to social homilies preached in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. This paper discusses the Berlin manuscript text in the context of the known fragments, other spurious, dubious, or pseudonymous homilies attributed to Basil, and its attributed relationship to social preaching in Christian late antiquity, and offers a new edition of the Greek text with its first English translation.
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5)
A. Cataldi Palau, “Les vicissitudes de la collection de manuscrits grecs de Guillaume Pellicier”, Scriptorium 40 (1986), 32-53.
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13)
Michael A. Mullett, The Catholic Reformation (London: Routledge, 1999), 202.
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Francisci Vergarae, D. Basilii Magni conciones novem antehac nusque excusae, nunc primum prodeunt in latinum sermonem translatae (Complutensis: Apud Iohannem Brocarium, 1544). One other work by Vergara known to us is De omnibus graecae linguae grammaticae partibus, libri quinque, in suum et verum ordinem restituti (Paris: Guillaume Morel, 1550). Included within this same book are also three collections of “miscellaneous notes”. Vergara also had published an edition and translation of some treatises by Gregory of Nyssa in 1524, though the publication is no longer extant. Cf. D. J. Geanakoplos, Constantinople and the West: Essays on the Late Byzantine (Palaeologan) and Italian Renaissances and the Byzantine and Roman Churches. (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 286 n. 20.
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Cf., e.g., Origen, On Psalm 36, Hom. 3.11; John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 41.3-5; Cassiodorus Explanation of the Psalms, On Psalm 14 and Basil, Hom. 8.6.
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21)
C. Paul Schroeder, trans., “On Mercy and Justice,” in St. Basil the Great: On Social Justice, Popular Patristics Series 38 (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 106. For the Greek text, see De misericordia et iudicio (CPG 2929), PG 31.1705-1714.
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23)
Basil of Caesarea, hom. 6.3, trans. M. F. Toal, The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1959), 327.
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E.g., Codex Theodosianus 16.2.6 (Theodore Mommsen, ed. Theodosiani libri xvi cum constitutionibus sirmondianis, [Bern: Apud Weidmannos, 1905], 836-837; ET: Clyde Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, The Corpus of Roman Law 1 [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952], 441). Cf. also Peter Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2002), 26-32.
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Cf. Valerie Karras, “Overcoming Greed: An Eastern Christian Perspective,” Buddhist-Christian Studies 24 (2004): 47-53; Robert Slesinsky, “The Doctrine of Virtue in St. Gregory of Nyssa’s ‘The Life of Moses,’” in Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church, Vol. 1, eds. Pauline Allen, Wendy Mayer, and Lawrence Cross (Brisbane, Australia: Watson Ferguson & Company, 1998), 341-352.
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Seneca, De vita beata xxii.4. Cf. Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990).
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See, e.g., Susan R. Holman, “The Entitled Poor: Human Rights Language in the Cappadocians.” Pro Ecclesia 9 (2000) 476-489; and eadem, “Healing the world with righteousness? The language of social justice in early Christian homilies,” in Miriam Frenkel and Yaacov Lev, eds., Charity and Giving in Monotheistic Religions. Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients 22 (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2009), 89-110.
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Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 14.18, trans. Martha Vinson, St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Sermons, Fathers of the Church 107 (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 52, emphasis added.
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BBU, vol. II.2, 1217.
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52)
BBU, vol. II.2, 1217.
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53)
BBU, vol. II.2, 1258.
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55)
BBU, vol. II.2, 1283.
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De Beneficentia: A Homily on Social Action attributed to Basil of Caesarea*
In: Vigiliae ChristianaeSearch for other papers by Susan R. Holman in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Caroline Macé in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Brian J. Matz in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
This paper introduces an anonymous work attributed to Basil of Caesarea entitled, De beneficentia, or “On beneficence.” The text is known from one manuscript dating to the thirteenth or fourteenth century, Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Phillipps 1467 (gr. 63), a collection of genuine and pseudonymous Basilian homilies. Although pseudonymous and extant (as far as we can determine) only in this sole manuscript, in some quoted fragments from the ninth and twelfth centuries, and in a sixteenth-century Latin translation, De beneficentia, shares a number of characteristics common to social homilies preached in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. This paper discusses the Berlin manuscript text in the context of the known fragments, other spurious, dubious, or pseudonymous homilies attributed to Basil, and its attributed relationship to social preaching in Christian late antiquity, and offers a new edition of the Greek text with its first English translation.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 319 | 90 | 13 |
| Full Text Views | 110 | 7 | 3 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 76 | 10 | 2 |
