PORPHYRY, (c. 232–c. 303), Neoplatonist philosopher. Of pagan family, possibly orig. called ‘Malchus’, he was brought up at Tyre, and in his youth visited Syria, Palestine, and Alexandria. It is possible that he was at one time a Christian (so Socrates and Aristocritus [5th cent.], followed by A. Harnack; denied by J. Bidez), but he clearly did not hold the faith by the time of the persecution of the Emp. Decius in 250. He studied philosophy at Athens and was finally convinced of Neoplatonist principles by Plotinus, whom he met at Rome in 262. Just before the death of the latter (270) he went to Sicily, where he published many of his philosophical works, but towards the end of his life he returned to Rome and taught with considerable success, numbering Iamblichus among his pupils.

After investigating with sympathetic interest the religious systems current in Asia, Porphyry adopted an attitude of scepticism towards all popular religion, marked by esp. bitterness against the Christians. In his Letter to Anebo (Πρὸς Ἀνεβώ) he pointed out the contradictions in popular superstition. Of more lasting significance was his treatise in 15 books Against the Christians (Κατὰ Χριστιανῶν); it was condemned to be burnt in 448 and survives only in fragments in works written mainly to refute it. Porphyry seems to have observed a certain restraint in his remarks about Christ Himself, whom he admired as a teacher; but he considered the apparent failure of His life proof that He was not divine, and he launched his most bitter invective against the Apostles and leaders of the Church, which he finally condemned for its lack of patriotism in resisting the religious revival fostered by the Emperors Decius and Aurelian. His exposure of the alleged inconsistencies of the Gospels and his attack on the Old Testament (e.g. the date of the Book of Daniel) was sufficiently forceful to draw detailed refutations from St Methodius of Olympus, Eusebius of Caesarea, Apollinarius of Laodicea, and others.

His numerous philosophical works, primarily intended to draw the soul from contact with the sensible world and turn it to the contemplation of intelligible reality, are important not so much for their originality as for their clear exposition, development and preservation of much that was obscurely put in Plotinus and others. They include popular expositions of his teaching, such as the Letter to Marcella, his wife, a treatise on abstinence from animal flesh, and a life of Pythagoras, besides various commentaries on the Categories of Aristotle, Περὶ τῆς ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφίας, Περὶ ἀγαλμάτων, Φιλόσοφος ἱστορία and Ἀφορμαὶ πρὸς τὰ νοητά. He also wrote a Life of Plotinus and edited his works (after 300), and composed various treatises on astronomy, mathematics, grammar, and rhetoric, a philological dissertation on Homer, a commentary on Ptolemy’s Harmonica, and on various other technical subjects. His ‘Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle’ (Εἰσαγωγή) became a standard work in the medieval schools.

No collected edn. of Porphyry’s works exists, the different items being pr. in a variety of places; careful list in J. Bidez, op. cit. infra, pp. 63–73. Opuscula Selecta ed. A. Nauck (Teub., 1886). Modern edns. of individual works incl. that of his ‘Letter to Anebo’ (reconstructed from (ibid., 1970); of Ἀφορμαὶ πρὸς τὰ νοητά by E. Lamberz (Teub., 1975); of his ‘Life of Pythagoras’ and ‘Letter to Marcella’, with Fr. tr., by É. des Places, SJ (Collection des Universités de France, 1982); and ‘Of Abstinence’, with Fr. tr. by J. Bouffartigue and M. Patillon (2 vols., 1977–9). Eng. tr. of ‘Isagoge’ by E. W. Warren (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, Mediaeval Sources in Translation, 16; 1975) and of his ‘Introduction’, with comm., by J. Barnes (Oxford, 2003). For Porphyry’s life the chief sources are his own ‘Life of Plotinus’ (crit. edn. in Plotini Opera, ed. P. Henry, SJ, and H. R. Schwyzer, Paris, 1 (1951), pp. 1–41; Eng. tr. by M. [J.] Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints (Translated Texts for Historians, 35; Liverpool, 2000), pp. 1–53, and the entry in Suidas’ Lexicon, s.v.; on the former see L. Brisson and others, Porphyre, La Vie de Plotin (Histoire des doctrines de l’antiquité classique, 6 and 16; 1982–92). The material is fully surveyed in J. Bidez, Vie de Porphyre avec les fragments des traités Περὶ Ἀγαλμάτων et De Regressu Animae (Université de Gand. Recueil de Travaux publiés par la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, 43; 1913). A. Harnack, Porphyrius ‘Gegen die Christen’, 15 Bücher: Zeugnisse, Fragmente und Referate (Abh. (Berl.), 1916, Heft 1; acc. to Harnack and others, Porphyry was the pagan philosopher extensively cited in Macarius Magnes’ Apocriticus, but cf. T. D. Barnes in JTS NS 24 (1973), pp. 424–42). A. Smith, Porphyry’s Place in the Neoplatonic Tradition (The Hague, 1974). F. Romano, Porfirio di Tiro (Università di Catania, Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, 33; 1979). W. Theiler, Porphyrios und Augustin (Halle, 1933); repr. in Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Philosophie, 10; 1966), pp. 160–251. J. J. O’Meara, Porphyry’s Philosophy from Oracles in Augustine (Paris, 1959). H. Dörrie and others, Porphyre (Fondation Hardt, Entrétiens sur l’antiquité classiques, 12; 1966). P. Hadot, Porphyre et Victorinus (2 vols., Études Augustiniennes, 1968), incl. text, with Fr. tr., of frags. of a comm. on Parmenides, attributed by Hadot to Porphyry, in vol. 2, pp. 59–113. G. Girgenti, Il Pensiero forte di Porfirio (Milan, 1996). M. Zambon, Porphyre et le Moyen-Platonisme (Histoire des doctrines de l’antiquité classique, 27; 2002). A. Benoit, ‘Le “Contra Christianos” de Porphyre: où en est la collecte des Fragments?’, in Mélanges offerts à Marcel Simon: Paganisme, Judaïsme, Christianisme (1978), pp. 261–75. L. Vaganay in DTC 12 (pt. 2; 1935), cols. 2555–90, s.v. ‘Porphyre’, with bibl.; R. Beutler in PW 22 (pt. 1; 1953), cols. 275–313,

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