Hypatios of Ephesos and Ps.-Dionysios Areopagites

Abstract

This article demonstrates, first, that Hypatios of Ephesos did not consider all the writings of Ps.-Dionysios the Areopagite to be forgeries, but only those citations from this author which the Syrian Orthodox (‘Severan’) bishops offered in support of their claims during the Collatio cum Severianis in 532. It then argues that Hypatios’ text Περὶ τῶν ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις οἴκοις, preserved in Cod. par. gr. 1115, should be considered an important testimony to the pre-Iconoclast reception of Ps.-Dionysios’ doctrine of images (in the sense of Biblical and liturgical symbols). Finally, it shows that this text was altered during the Iconoclast period in an attempt to use the statements that originally were not meant to refer to painted images (icons) in the new polemical context but was ultimately discarded because the arguments it contains appeared unsatisfactory both to the Iconoclasts and Iconophiles