The Life of Saint Basil the Younger (or the New) is a probably tenth-century Byzantine vita that became enormously popular in Eastern Orthodox circles in the Middle Ages: twenty-two Greek manuscripts are known to survive, plus a further thirteen in demotic Greek; there are also medieval translations into Slavonic languages. Its popularity is not connected with any cult of the saint (indeed it is not clear that he was a historical figure at all), but rather the result of two visions, disclosed to and related by the author of the vita (who himself may be fictional), which take up nearly two-thirds of the text. It is the first vision that is particularly important, especially for popular Orthodox beliefs about the afterlife: it contains the most detailed account of so-called aerial ‘tollhouses’ (telonia), twenty-one in number, through which the departed soul has to pass after death. At each tollhouse, the soul is examined in respect of a series of sins, beginning with slander and ending with heartlessness and cruelty, demons accusing, angels defending. The vision concerns Theodora, a slave woman who looked after the saint, which she relates in the vision to reassure Gregory, the author, as to her fate. In her case, it is evident from the beginning that she will make it through the tollhouses, assisted not only by her acts of kindness, but by ‘spiritual gold’ provided by the saint from his abundant virtue. Once the soul has passed the tollhouses, it is introduced to the other world, passing through the gates of heaven and visiting the abodes of the saints and the patriarchs, as well as making a visit to Hades. The soul then settles in the ‘place of repose’: it is remarked that this takes place forty days after the soul has been separated from the body in death. This period of time, therefore, corresponds to the period during which services of prayer (Trisagion, Pannykhida) for the deceased take place – on the third, ninth and fortieth day –though in the vita it is only the fortieth day that is remarked. The notions set forth in colourful detail in the vision can be traced back to the fourth or fifth century, the treatise corresponding most closely to the account in the Life of St Basil being a homily attributed to St Cyril of Alexandria, the De exitu animi, argued by M. Richard to be a cento formed from homilies ascribed to Cyril and his uncle Theophilos.

The vita is unusual in several ways: apart from the enormous space devoted to the visions, it omits any account of the early life of the saint, beginning simply when Basil, wandering in the mountains of Asia Minor, is arrested by a couple of imperial agents, on suspicion of being a spy. He is taken to Constantinople, where he is horrendously tortured, but survives because of his acquired apatheia. Eventually he is let alone and his sanctity soon attracts the attention of ladies of the imperial court, including the Empress Helena Lekapene. Shortly after this, he meets Gregory, who becomes his disciple, and eventually his biographer. Gregory meets too the slave woman, Theodora, whose death occasions Gregory's first vision, about the tollhouses and the afterlife. The vita then continues with the saint's life: episodes illustrating his clairvoyance and miracle-working powers, and events in the Queen City, valuable for social history, even if it is difficult to fit them too closely to the history of the period. Gregory then begins to wonder, from his reading of the Old Testament and the veneration of prophets such as Elijah in Byzantine devotion (including icons), whether the Jews may not be correct in their beliefs. He visits Basil, who tells him without prompting what is going through his mind and instructs him in the properly anti-Judaic character of Christian belief. In confirmation of this, Gregory has another, long vision, in which he visits the afterworld and witnesses, among other things, the Last Judgment in great detail, which leaves him in no doubt that very few are saved from the Old Covenant, and none among the Jews after the time of Christ (incidentally, those who did not know Christ and believed in ‘providence’ are treated gently). Following the Last Judgment, there is an elaborate account of heaven, which is clearly modelled on Byzantium: grand houses, beautiful gardens, even monasteries, and (despite Apocalypse xxi.22) a temple with a heavenly liturgy. This is the world that Jane Baun revealed to us in her wonderful book, Tales from another Byzantium (2007). After the recounting of the vision, the vita returns to the saint. The account of his death is, oddly, given at second hand: Gregory missed it as it took place during Lent, which he had spent in seclusion.

This is a magnificent edition of the vita, based on a sixteenth-century manuscript now in Moscow, which represents the fullest version of the vita (some manuscripts contain no more than the account of the tollhouses), with note taken of significant variants in a manuscript now in Paris and another from the Athonite monastery of Iviron, both thirteenth-century. The introduction is brief and informative; the translation is excellent, with valuable comments on difficult or unusual Greek words and obscure passages. Biblical and patristic references are noted, but the influence of the Byzantine liturgy in the accounts of heaven seems largely overlooked. ‘Blessed in the Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit’ has a reference to Mark xi.10; more important is the fact that this is the opening exclamation of the Divine Liturgy (p. 427); elsewhere it is not noted that the phrase, ‘Cherubim and Seraphim, six-winged and many-eyed’ is a quotation from the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (p. 678), partly maybe because the translation assigns the adjectives to the nouns, as Gregory himself does on other occasions (for example, pp. 427, 429). The place allotted to St John the Baptist, immediately after the Mother of God, seems to me to reflect the anaphora of the Byzantine rite. These are, however, scarcely even blemishes in a painstakingly careful edition.