in the several portions. The Acts and Epistles con- J very loose and defective. When Tischendorf was at tain a text <>f no great importance ; but the text of the j Rome in 1843, although forbidden to collate it anew, Gospels (now bound at the end of the vol.) is very re- i he was permitted to make a few extracts, and im- markable, adhering pretty closely to the oldest class j proved the privilege so well as to compare the whole of uncials. The lasl has recently been collated (in- text with a Greek Test. He published the result in dep ndentlj | by Tregelles and Dr. Koth. There are ' his Monumenta Sacra Inedita (1846, p. 407-432), which 88 lines in each page, elegantly and minutely written, Tregelles, who was allowed to make a partial exami- witli breathings, accents, and iota subscript*, and a few j nation of the codex in 1845, has since somewhat cor- illuminations. It. has, apparently on good grounds, j rected. Card. Mai has published it, in order to supply been assigned to the tenth century. Codex 118 of the j the text of the Apocrypha in his edition of the Cod. Bodleian Library seems to be a copy from it. — Trc- ' Vatieanus, but the work is very imperfectly done. In gelles, ni sup. p. Jos Bq. . Scrivener, p. 142. | form this MS. is rather an octavo than a folio or quar-
to. The letters are of a peculiar kind,
die place between the square and the ob- Iong character. Several of them indi- cate that they belong to the latest uncial fashion. The breathings and accents are by the first hand, and pretty correct. It probably belongs to the beginning of the 8th century. — Tregelles, in Home's
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lie Manuscript (Matt. w. 1, !
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BASILTANS
685
BASILICA
_nt Habit of the Nuns of St. Basil.
Introd., new ed. iv, 20G sq. ; Scrivener, Introduction, p. 140 sq. See Manuscripts, Biblical.
Basilians, monks and nuns following the rule of St. Basil the Great, first published A.D. 363. The or- der spread with so great rapidity that it is said to have numbered at the death of the founder about 90,000 members. In the West it established convents in Spain, Italy, Germany, and Sarmatia, and the Basilian rule, up to the time of St. Benedict, was the basis of all mo- nastic institutions. Af- ter the separation cf the Greek Church from the Roman, the Basilian or- der remained the only one in the Greek church- es of Russia (where there are about 400 mon- asteries of monks with about G000 monks, and about 110 monasteries of nuns with some 3000 nuns), Austria (which in 1849 had 44 monas- teries of monks with 271 members, but no nuns), and Greece, and in the Armenian Church. In Turkey, where especial- ly the monastic estab- lishments of Mt. Athos A (q. v.) are celebrated, all the convents of the
Greek Church follow the rule of St. Basil, with the ex- ception of those on Mts. Sinai and Lebanon.
In the Roman Church, the monks of St. Basil, for- merly constituting several independent communities, were placed by Pope Gregory XIII, in 1579, under an abbot-general. They were divided into the provinces of Borne, Calabria, Sicily. Spain, Germany, and Po- land, and followed partly the Greek, partlj' the Roman rite. A congregation of Reformed Basilians (Tardon- ites) was established by Mutteo de la Fuente in Spain in 1557, and joined by a part of the Spanish convents. In Germany and Spain they disappeared with the other convents. In Russia, large numbers of Basilians, to- gether with the whole body of United Greeks, sepa- rated from the Roman Church in 11-39. At present only a few convents of Basilians acknowledge the ju- risdiction of the pope. They arc divided into four con- gregations: (1.) the Ruthenian, in Russia, Poland, and Hungary, with 24 houses; (2.) the Italian, the princi- pal convent of which is that of St. Saviour at Messina, in Sicily, which still preserves the Greek rite ; (3.) the French, which has its principal house at Viviers ; (4.) the MelcMte, in the United Greek Church of Asia Minor, which held, a few years ago, a general chapter, under the presidency of the popal delegate in Syria. According to the historians of the order, it has pro- duced 14 popes, numerous patriarchs, cardinals, and archbishops, 1805 bishops, and 11,805 martyrs; One house of Basilians is at Toronto, Canada. Altogether there arc about fifty houses with 10C0 members. See Helyot, Ordrcs Reliyieux, i, 379 sq.
Basilica (from aroa /3«ctiXi;>-/;, one of the porches or colonnades facing the Agora at Athens), the name of an ancient secular building, afterward applied to Christian church edifices. On the overthrow of the kings at Athens, their power was divided among sev- eral arclions. The remains of the old power were, however, too strong to be swept all away, and the charge of the Eleusinian mysteries, of the flower-feasts of Bacchus, of all legal processes concerning matters of religion, and of all capital offences, was referred to the apx<*>v fiacriXcvg (comp. with rex sacrorum in the
republic of Rome). This archon held his court in the sioa basilica. Basilicas for similar purposes were built in all the chief cities of Greece and her colonies, and later in Rome and the Roman colonial cities. They were built with as great splendor and architectural merits as the temples themselves. Those in Italy were devoted to purposes of business (like our modern bourses or exchanges), and to general legal processes. They had a central nave, separated from two side aisles by grand colonnades. This space was devoted to business. Above the side aisles were galleries for spectators and others. At the rear end was a semi- circular space, separated from the main part by grat- ings when court was held. In Rome there were 29 (others say 22) of these basilicas.