HYPATIUS OF EPHESUS

Sixth-century bishop of Ephesus; d. after 536. Hypatius was one of the chief advisers for ecclesiastical affairs to the Byzantine Emperor justinian i from 531 to 536. About 531 Justinian invited Monophysite leaders to Constantinople in order to persuade them to accept the Christological formula of the Council of chalcedon (451). First mentioned in 531, Hypatius spoke in 532 for the orthodox at a colloquy between orthodox and Monophysite bishops. Here Hypatius' Christology was that of a moderately strict Dyophysite: Jesus Christ is one of the Trinity not so much in His one person as by reason of His divine nature. Hypatius also denied the authenticity of the writings of pseudo-dionysius the Areopagite and the socalled Apollinarian frauds. Justinian sent him to Pope john ii in Rome in 533–534 to win papal approval of the Theopaschite formula "one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh." At the Council of Constantinople in 536, which banished the Monophysites, he played a role second only to that of the Patriarch Mennas. He is not heard of afterward.

Hypatius composed a work called Various Questions, a collection of replies to questions asked by one of his suffragan bishops. Only fragments remain, including his defense of icons in the church. He is perhaps the author also of a commentary on the Minor Prophets. In 1904 an inscription was found in Ephesus containing the promulgation of his directives to his diocese concerning the burial of the dead.

Bibliography: f. diekamp, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 117 (1938) 109–153. c. moeller, in a. grillmeier and h. bacht, Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3 v. (Würzburg 1951–54) 1:661–662, 674–676. e. kitzinger, "The Cult of Images before Iconoclasm," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954) 137–139.

[d. b. evans]