Saint Basil the Younger[a] (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,[b] 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.[1][2][3][4][5]
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- ^ Magdalino 1999, pp. 89–91: "Basil the Younger is firmly grounded in the historical reality of the tenth [century], and his hagiographer gives the impression of knowing that reality at first hand. ... [Yet] even if Basil was real, he had more in common with an imaginary fifth-century holy fool than with his sainted monastic contemporaries."
- ^ Foxhall Forbes 2018: "Despite the references to known historical individuals in the text, it is not at all clear whether Basil himself or Gregory his hagiographer were real or fictional characters, though there are scraps of evidence which make it just possible that there was indeed a 'real' Basil the Younger."
- ^ Angelidi 2015, p. 26: "it is debatable whether Basil the Younger, the Life of whom has historical background firmly placed in tenth-century Constantinople, ever existed."
- ^ Rydén 1983, p. 576: "Basil does not appear as a distinct historical person. He has no family background. There is no development in his life. The chronology is inconsistent and has serious gaps. He moves in circles that are semi-historical [and] in the shadow of other characters. In large sections of the work Basil is used as a mere pretext for writing apocalyptic fiction. If Basil was a real person, certainly very little of him remains in this Vita. But there is good reason to doubt that he ever existed."
- ^ Marinis 2017, p. 29: "likely a fictional saint".