L’Éloge de Denys l’Aréopagite par Michel le Syncelle (BHG 556) : tradition et sources

Abstract

The Encomium for Dionysius byMichael the Synkellos (BHG556) was an important step in the development of the Greek tradition pertaining to Dionysius. By examining the direct and indirect tradition of the text and especially the sources used by Michael the Synkellos, one can add to the information provided by Pietro Podolak in his 2015 edition. The presence of a lengthy excerpt from the Encomium in the Souda, a Byzantine encyclopaedia compiled at the end of the tenth century, testifies to the success of the work in the first decades after it was composed. Michael the Synkellos certainly used the Greek translation (BHG 554) of the Latin Passion of Denis, but he drew mainly from the Greek writings that had been associated with the Dionysian corpus from the beginning. The author, well informed on the old controversies surrounding the authenticity of Dionysius, produced a work that was primarily Eastern but it also borrowed significantly fromWestern hagiography. Its reception followed an essentially similar pattern : the oldest manuscripts and the indirect tradition of the text testify to its early fortune in the East, but its later circulation was almost exclusively limited to theWest.