Sien De Groot: A Cycle of Three Book Epigrams on Ps.-Dionysius the Areopagite

The texts of Ps.-Dionysius the Areopagite were well-read throughout the Byzantine period. As a consequence, the corpus is transmitted to us in about 150 Greek manuscripts. A typical feature of these Byzantine codices is the presence of book epigrams or metrical paratexts on the author and his texts.In this presentation, I will focus on three book epigrams preserved together in the codex Scoraliensis Σ.ΙΙΙ.10 (15th century). Two of these epigrams are related to the main texts and the persona of the author, the third poem is a colophon epigram and, as such, rather related to the production of the manuscript. The two text-related epigrams occur in other Byzantine manuscripts as well, both in association with the texts of Ps.-Dionysius and as parts of literary anthologies. I will present my analysis of these poems, with special attention for the way in which they connect to the treatises of Ps.-Dionysius. Most attention will be devoted to the main manuscript, namely the Scoraliensis mentioned above, but other manuscripts will be considered as well, including examples where the epigrams occur within literary anthologies.These book epigrams can be very helpful for our understanding of the reception of Ps.-Dionysius. Throughout the presentation, I will argue that, apart from the main texts, the author of the poems used other paratexts about Dionysius to flesh out his image of the Areopagite. In particular, I will elucidate parallels with hagiographical texts.