Library › W. K. L. Clarke › The Ascetic Works of Saint Basil: Author’s Preface and Introduction

The Ascetic Works of Saint Basil: Author’s Preface and Introduction

W. K. L. Clarke

Author’s Preface

THE scientific study of St. Basil’s Ascetica begins with Garnier’s edition (Paris, 1721-1730). The third volume was edited by Maran, who prefixed to it a valuable life of the saint. This Benedictine folio edition was reprinted in 1839 at Paris in a convenient well-printed form and with comparatively few misprints; also in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, vols. xxix-xxxii (Paris, 1857). For prolonged study the 1839 edition is to be preferred.

The intensive patristic study of the nineteenth century left the Ascetica alone. An exhaustive search on my part has failed to reveal any serious first-hand work except for a few monographs which have devoted a chapter to Basil in the course of an investigation of some point of doctrine or practice. Writers have copied from one another without studying the documents, and errors have been perpetuated. For example, Dr. Hormann (Untersuchungen zur griechischen Laienbeicht, 1918, p. 29) merely repeats Dr. Holl’s verdict as regards authenticity. The latter was so convinced of the rightness of Garnier’s results that he abandoned the idea of an independent investigation as unnecessary. But he actually represents Garnier as saying that two Sermones Ascetici are Basilian, which Garnier proves to be non-Basilian¹ (see Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt beim griechischen Monchtum,

. 157).

To Dr. E. F. Morison belongs the credit of the first monograph on the Ascetica (St. Basil and his Rule, Oxford 1912). His book is mainly devoted to an exposition of the contents. It was followed by my St. Basil the Great: A Study in Monasticism (Cambridge 1918), which attempted to trace the origin and effects of Basil’s leading ideas. This referred to all previous writers with such thoroughness that I feel justified in the present book in making Basil illustrate himself for the most part. My earlier work will show that I have not neglected the labours of other scholars. In returning to the subject I suffer from the disadvantage that no serious criticism, so far as I can ascertain, has been passed upon my earlier book. The tentative conclusions which I formed in 1918 have not been tested by other scholars working over the same ground.²

With great regret I have had to abandon the idea of checking the Benedictine text in places by a comparison of ancient MSS. Such an additional task was quite impossible in a life almost wholly given to pursuits other than those of a scholar. My regret is lessened, however, by a conviction that the printed text is in the main satisfactory.³ Such value as the present book has will be found to lie in (1) the translation, the first made into any modern language; (ii) my conclusions as to authenticity, which are based upon objective standards and a great deal of work; (iii) the notes which elucidate Basil by himself.

I began to work on the Ascetica in 1908, and this book has been on the stocks ever since. I relinquish my labour of love with thanks to God for many happy hours, and a prayer that St. Basil may be allowed to know about my devotion to his memory and to pray for me; also that I may be privileged to meet him one day.

My thanks are due to the Directors of Messrs. Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co., for the personal interest they have taken in my book; and in a special degree to the amazing skill and diligence of their “reader,” who saved me from several slips and actually, to carry out his duties the more efficiently, mastered von Soden’s system of classification of New Testament manuscripts. The Rev. W. C. Piercy has kindly read the proofs for me.

Contents · Next