ABSTRACT
Among the considerable body of prosaic theological work translated into Georgian, certain works deserve to be treated as though they were original texts. Following the conjectures of Nutsubidze in Georgia (1942) and Honigmann in Belgium (1952), some scholars identify the Neoplatonist philosopher Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagiticus with the fifth-century Georgian Prince Murvan, known as Peter the Iberian. There are persuasive arguments to the contrary, notably the fact that Eprem Mtsire and Georgian hymnographers of the tenth century consistently treated Peter the Iberian and Dionysius Areopagiticus, the saint and the Father of the church, as distinct figures. 1 If they were one and the same person, then the translation five centuries later of Pseudo-Dionysius’ work, such as On Divine Names (საღმრთოთა სახელთათვის), stripping it of monophysite terminology, by Eprem Mtsire may be repatriation, rather than importation, from Greek into Georgian. A Georgian origin has been less plausibly proposed for other Fathers of the Greek church. But the corpus of Georgian dogmatic literature was Greek in origin: the Athos school, first Ekvtime, then Giorgi, provided translations of works such as the Symbolon of Mikel Synkelos, On Belief by Gregory the Theologian, and The Search for the Soul by Gregory of Nyssa. By the twelfth century Arsen Vachesdze had compiled the Dogmatikon, ‘a book of teachings’, from sixteen key authors, from John Damascene to Pope Leo the Great.
