Ethiopians at the deathbed in the “Testimonies of Blessed Theodora” on the afterlife

There is a text called "The Testimony of Blessed Theodora", in which the spirit of a righteous woman of the tenth century, who lived in Tsargrad, tells the cleric who summoned her in a dream what befell Theodora in the afterlife. The pearl of the tale is, beyond doubt, the description of the dreadful Ethiopians who crowded in a throng around the deceased Theodora.

Gregory, one of the disciples of Saint Basil the Younger, whom the righteous woman had served, begged through prayer for a meeting with her spirit, in order to learn the posthumous fate of this universally adored woman. At Basil's prayer the soul of Theodora descended from her bright abode into Gregory's dream and told him everything:

"You ask me about a terrible thing, which it is dreadful even to recall. I saw faces such as I had never seen before or since, and heard speech such as I had never heard until then. And what shall I tell you? Then there stood before me all the cruel and sinful deeds of mine that I had forgotten...
...I saw a multitude of Ethiopians standing around my bed; their faces were black as soot and pitch, their eyes burned like coals of fire, and their whole aspect was as terrible as the aspect of fiery Gehenna. And they began to make a din and uproar: some roared like cattle and beasts, others barked like dogs, some howled like wolves; and all the while they glared at me with fury, threatened me, flung themselves upon me, gnashing their teeth, and wanted to devour me on the spot. They also made ready charters, as though awaiting some judge who was about to come there, and unrolled scrolls on which all my evil deeds were written. And my poor soul was in great fear and trembling. Then I endured not only the pangs of death that come from the parting of soul and body, but also the cruellest sufferings from the sight of those terrible Ethiopians and their dreadful fury, and this was for me like another death, heavier and crueller still. I tried to turn my gaze from the sight, now to one side, now to the other, so as not to see the terrible Ethiopians nor hear their voices, but I could not rid myself of them in any way, for everywhere there was a countless multitude of them, and there was no one to help me."

Truly frightful, isn't it? The cruellest sufferings from the sight of terrible Ethiopians and from hearing their voices, uttering unintelligible speech!!!

Commentators explain this story by saying that Christian writers called the spirits of malice "Ethiopians", and that in iconography these were sometimes depicted as dark-skinned men. But whom to believe, simple sinners or a holy righteous woman, you must decide for yourselves.

In the meantime, I wish you a less frightening existence beyond the grave