Peter the Iberian

Peter the Iberian (Petre Iberi or Petre Iberieli in Georgian language, secular name: Murvan. 411-491 A.D.) is thought by some scholars to be the real identity of the Christian neo-Platonic philosopher of the 5th century, who wrote under the assumed identity of Dionysius and is generally known to scholars at "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite." (There is more information at that entry.)

Petre Iberi was a well-known Georgian theologist and philosopher, founder of the Christian Neoplatonism. He was a Prince of Iberia. His father was the King of Iberia Buzmar.

In 452-491 Peter the Iberian was Bishop of Majum. He was founder of the Georgian Monastery in Palestine, near Bethlehem (430) and author of well-known philosophical work 'Corpus areopagiticum' – main basis of the medieval Christian philosophy. Georgian Professor Shalva Nutsubidze (1888–1969) and Belgian Professor Ernest Honigmann (1892–1954) were authors of well-known theory about the identity of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Peter the Iberian (Theory of Nutsubidze-Honigmann, 1942–1952).

See also

• List of Georgians
• Georgia
• Georgian people
• History of Georgia
• Culture of Georgia

Links and Literature

• Petre Iberi. Works, Tbilisi, 1961 (In Georgian)
• Ernest Honigmann. Piere l'iberian et les ecrits du Pseudo-Denys l'Areopagite, Bruxelles, 1952
• Shalva Nutsubidze. Mistery of Pseudo-Dionys Areopagit, Tbilisi, 1942 (In Georgian, summary in English)
• Shalva Nutsubidze. Peter the Iberian and problems of Areopagitics.- Proceedings of the Tbilisi State University, vol. 65, Tbilisi, 1957 (In Russian)