Dionysius the Areopagite in Syriac

Abstract

Abstract This essay presents the first Syriac translation of the Dionysian corpus, which was made in the early sixth century by Sergius, the priest and physician-in-chief of the city of Resh‘ayna. This translation is crucial in many respects: the only manuscript that transmits it (Sinai Saint Catherine Syr. 52) is the earliest witness to the Areopagitic writings overall, and the translation itself attests to a textual stage of the corpus that antedates John of Scythopolis’ scholia. After an outline of Sergius’ life and ecclesiastical and intellectual context, the chapter describes the manuscript tradition of the translation. The next section is devoted to a presentation of Sergius’ linguistic and stylistic idiosyncrasies: his version is an ideal example of the Syriac translation style of the sixth century, which is both reader-oriented and faithful to the original. Particular attention is also devoted to the question of whether Sergius’ version reveals an original ‘Origenist’ character of the Dionysian writings, which would have allegedly been censored by John of Scythopolis. An accurate investigation of Sergius’ vocabulary and wording choices rather seems to stress that Dionysius’ works had been anti-Origenist from the outset.