Saint Basil the Younger

Saint Basil the Younger (died 26 March 944/952) was a Byzantine Greek holy man and visionary. He is the subject of a Greek hagiographical biography, the Vita sancti Basilii iunioris, written by his pupil Gregory. Although the Vita portrays its subject as historical, there is yet no consensus whether Basil or even Gregory were real persons or fabrications. The Vita sancti Basilii iunioris is preserved in whole or in part in a total of 24 manuscripts dating from the 12th to the 19th century. The fullest is the 16th-century Greek MS no. 249 of the Synodal (Patriarchal) Library in Moscow and published in François Halkin, Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, 3rd edition (Brussels, 1957). Two 13th-century manuscripts are also known. Parisinus Gr. 1547 is an abridged text that uses less florid language generally. It has been published by François Combefis in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum, March III (1668). The codex Iviron 478 from Mount Athos contains only the visions and none of the biographical or historical material. It has been published by S. G. Vilinskij in Zapiski Imperatorskogo novorossijskogo universiteta (Odessa, 1911). Despite the publication of parts of these three manuscripts, no critical edition was produced before 2014, when a critical edition with an annotated English translation appeared. In the 14th-century, the Vita was translated into Middle Bulgarian. This text was only found in 1975 in codex no. 20N from St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai. The translation was made by a certain Father Peter. Extant manuscripts of the Vita include the following. The composition of the Vita is usually dated to between 956 and 959. The terminus post quem is provided by the death of the Patriarch Theophylaktos, whom Gregory readily criticizes; the terminus ante quem by the death of Constantine VII, since his joint reign with his son Romanos II is mentioned but there is no reference to Romanos' sole reign.