29 December 2025
Porphyry’s Task
“During his (Plotinus’s)
lifetime, Christianity attracted a diverse popular following, as did movements
which drew on ancient philosophy . . . They deceived many people indeed, they
were themselves deluded. As if Plato had
not come to grips with the profundity of intelligible substance! Plotinus himself refuted them on many points
in the course of our seminars, and he wrote a book which we called ‘Against the
Gnostics’ [Ennead 2.9]; but he left it to us (meaning Porphyry and other
students of Plotinus) to judge the rest.”
(Plotinus, The
Enneads, translated by a committee of scholars, edited by Lloyd P. Gerson,
Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2025,
page 30, paragraph 16, ISBN: 9781009604970)
1. Plotinus lived in the third century of our
era, from 204 or 205 to 270.
Christianity at that time had not achieved complete dominance but was
emerging as a pervasive cultural force.
(It was in the fourth century that Christianity’s political power would
become overwhelming.)
2. The above quote is an interesting look at how
a non-Christian philosopher dealt with the increasing Christian presence both
in its Orthodox forms and in its Gnostic branches. It seems that Plotinus dealt with these
representatives of various Christian groups by engaging with them in the usual
question and answer format of Plotinus’s
gatherings. But Plotinus also took the
time to particularly focus on the Gnostics by writing an essay which is now
called ‘Against the Gnostics.’ The
reason for such a focus is that from the perspective of Plotinus (and Porphyry)
the Gnostics misrepresented Plato and Plotinus wanted to correct these
misrepresentations.
3. This is speculative, but I think this kind of
engagement might be what led Porphyry to write his work ‘Against the
Christians.’ I mean that Porphyry may
have been directly inspired to do so by the precedent of Plotinus’s ‘Against
the Gnostics’ and the instructions of Plotinus to his students to ‘judge the
rest.’
4. Evidently Porphyry’s book, ‘Against the
Christians’, was very offensive and irritating to Christianity and it was
condemned by name by three emperors as well as some councils. This led to its destruction so that we have
only quotes from various sources as surviving fragments. (The latest translation of these fragments is
by David Litwa in his book A Reconstruction of Against the Christians by
Porphyry of Tyre which was published this year, 2025.) The essay by Plotinus, ‘Against the Gnostics’
had a better fate because Orthodox Christianity opposed the Gnostics, though
for different reasons.
5. Thinking about this, I began to consider
Porphyry’s ‘Letter to Anebo’ as in the same vein as ‘Against the
Christians.’ What I mean is that in many
ways the ‘Letter to Anebo’ is a critique of theurgy and shares, I think, a
similar purpose as ‘Against the Christians.’
I started to think of the ‘Letter to Anebo’ as a kind of ‘Against the
Theurgists.’
6. In the quote above Porphyry expresses
irritation with the Christians, particularly Gnostics, who misrepresent Plato
as being deficient because they suggested that Plato did not understand the
intelligibles and the noetic realm.
Porphyry thought of Plato’s insights into this dimension of existence as
sufficient and based on contemplative experience; they did not need to be
reworked into elaborations that were complex and opaque.
7. But it appears to me that Porphyry had
similar views about theurgy and its interpretation of Platonism. Theurgy also unnecessarily complicated
Plato’s insights by multiplying noetic entities and creating additional
hypostases. Because of this he wrote his
‘Letter to Anebo’ in order to counter the growing tendency to dilute Plato’s
teachings by adding unnecessary theurgic complexities and practices. From the perspective of Porphyry theurgy did
not solve any alleged problem in Platonism; instead theurgy created problems
and obstacles that made it more difficult to understand Platonism.
8. I think a reader can also see this kind of
task in Porphyry’s On Abstinence which was Porphyry’s extensive apology
for vegetarianism in a Platonic context.
Porphyry observed that his friend Firmus had abandoned a vegetarian diet
and had returned to eating meat. I
suspect, though Porphyry does not say so, that this was not the first time
Porphyry had observed this kind of return to meat eating, or the sacrificing of
animals; I mean that Firmus may have been a symbol for Porphyry of this kind of
loss of commitment.
In ‘On Abstinence’
Porphyry takes on the same task as he did with ‘Against the Christians’ and
‘Letter to Anebo’ which is to put forth the view of the Platonic tradition as
it had been presented since Plato’s time (and one could argue even before Plato
this was the view of Philosophy as the fount of wisdom and as a way of life.)
9. A
counter to this way of interpreting the writings of Porphyry would be Porphyry’s
engagement with the ‘Chaldean Oracles.’
Last week I posted about the Chaldean Oracles and mentioned that both
Iamblichus and Proclus wrote commentaries on them; both of which are now
lost. But Porphyry also wrote a
commentary on the Chaldean Oracles and he did so before Iamblichus (and,
obviously Proclus). This work is also
lost. The question is, does the fact
that Porphyry spent time with the Chaldean Oracles negate, or undermine, the
idea that Porphyry’s ‘Letter to Anebo’ was, in a sense, an overall rejection of
theurgy and had the same function in a theurgic context as ‘Against the
Christians’ had in a Christian context?
It’s a good question. Here are a
few observations:
9.1 I tend to see Porphyry’s involvement with the
Chaldean Oracles as resembling the way Chinese philosophers and sages were
involved with the Book of Changes, also known as the I Ching. There are countless commentaries on the Book
of Changes written over many centuries. Most
of these commentaries are Confucian, meaning that they use their commentaries
to affirm Confucian spirituality. (The
Book of Changes was, after all, a Confucian Classic.) Some of the commentaries are Daoist, some are
Buddhist, and some are more practical in that they are focused on the art of
war, or martial arts, or even business and governing. My point here is that the Book of Changes was
flexible enough to allow for a variety of interpretations and uses.
I think Porphyry’s use
of the Chaldean Oracles follows a similar pattern in that Porphyry seems to
have put forth a traditional Platonic interpretation of its cryptic
sayings. In contrast, it seems to be the
case that Iamblichus would use the Chaldean Oracles to justify a complete
reinterpretation of Platonism. Thus
their purposes greatly differed and the results also differed. (This is speculative since all of the
commentaries are lost.)
9.1.1 I think it is possible for us today to
connect with how Porphyry related to Oracles and other such practices by
connecting with how we in the West use the Book of Changes. We are not Chinese Sages and we have not
inherited a long tradition regarding this work.
We tend to approach the Changes in an open way, but not in a way that
would treat the Changes as infallible.
There is a certain respect a Westerner has when using the Changes, but
it is not what one might call submission.
9.1.2 Relating to the Changes, or the Oracles, resembles
the way we relate to poetry. I say this
because poetry is obscure, the language is often difficult to understand, yet
there is a sense of meaning that speaks to us in the way that music speaks to
us. As philosophers, we subject such
works to dialectic even when, as Plato wrote in Phaedrus, we know that
written works can’t defend themselves. But
is that true? If we enter into dialectic
then these works can ‘speak’ and we can enter into a dialectical relationship
with them. This is how I think Porphyry
treated poetry, Oracles, and how he would have treated the Book of Changes.
9.2 Porphyry spent time studying philosophical
and spiritual traditions other than Platonism, even those contrary to
Platonism. I don’t think that was
unusual in the culture of that time. For
example, in ‘Against the Christians’ Porphyry demonstrates familiarity with
Christian scriptures. (And as an aside,
Porphyry was very familiar with Aristotle and other significant philosophers.) I bring this up because Porphyry’s writings
on the Chaldean Oracles may have been more ‘comments on’ rather than a genuine
commentary; what I’m getting at is that writing about the Chaldean Oracles does
not, by itself, constitute commitment to them as a source of spiritual
nourishment. Porphyry’s studies of
Christianity did not eventuate in a commitment to Christianity, and Porphyry’s
studies of Aristotle did not lead Porphyry to become a Peripatetic. Porphyry interpreted all of these approaches
through a Platonic lens, preserving the view that Platonism was sufficient and
a complete spiritual system. In
contrast, Iamblichus used the Chaldean Oracles to undermine the position of
Platonism by insisting that additions needed to be made, of a theurgic kind,
because wisdom was insufficient to bring practitioners to the salvific goal of
Platonism which is union with the Good and the One.
9.3 I’m not saying that Porphyry was disinterested in oracles; it seems that Porphyry used oracles found at temples in the same
way that today many people use the Book of Changes. And sometimes Porphyry would write about the
oracles he received. I think Porphyry
was interested in the questions surrounding how to interpret such utterances, what
status we should give them, and how we should respond to them. These are the same kinds of questions that
people today ask about the Book of Changes or the Tarot. These strike me as legitimate philosophical
questions that would arise naturally in a Platonic context that is rooted in
Plato’s Dialogues wherein one finds lots of allegorical, mythic, and
metaphorical writing. I say that these
questions would arise naturally in this context because an oracle’s
pronouncements might use some of these devices and Platonists would be familiar
with them and know how to unpack them. The
point is that Porphyry treated the Oracles as opportunities for dialectic
whereas Iamblichus used the Oracles as opportunities for commanding subversion
of traditional Platonism.
9.4 I don’t see any evidence that Porphyry signed
on to theurgy under the influence of the Chaldean Oracles. As far as I can tell, Porphyry never suggests
that theurgic ritual is higher than wisdom, or that theurgic ritual is
necessary for the philosophical ascent to bear fruit. That would happen with Iamblichus and it is a
striking difference between the two.
10. I’m not saying that this task of passing on
the inherited tradition of Platonism by critiquing deviations from it, such as
theurgy and meat eating, was the only thing Porphyry did during his productive
life as a philosopher. For example,
Porphyry also wrote works that were addressed to beginners, such as Porphyry’s Letter
to Marcella and works such as his Sentences which is a subtle
presentation on the finer aspects of Platonism.
Nevertheless, I think much
of what Porphyry did was to write what might be called apologetic treatises for
Orthodox, or traditional, Platonism at an historical moment when multiple
attempts were being made to subvert that inheritance.
11. Was Porphyry successful in these apologetic
efforts? In the immediate historical
context I think we would have to say ‘no’, he wasn’t. I mean that Christian Platonism found a place
and created a way of interpreting Platonism that presented Platonism as
incomplete and deficient. In addition,
theurgy undermined Platonist ethics, its metaphysics, and shifted the tradition
from Philosophy, love of wisdom, to Theurgy, love of ritual, and to a focus on
theology rather than philosophy. (Those
who follow Theurgy today retain these anti-Platonist views to some extent which
varies from person to person and group to group.)
On the other hand, when
looked at from a longer historical view, Porphyry passed on to the future the
tradition that he loved and made it available and accessible to many
people. This reconnection to Orthodox
Platonism via Porphyry’s writings began in the Renaissance; one example is a
reconnection to vegetarianism with the discovery, and then the wide distribution,
of his On Abstinence in Europe. In
some ways, I think the full significance of Porphyry’s writings, and the full
impact of those writings, has not yet emerged but is likely to blossom in the
future; that is, of course, speculation.
But I think it is informed speculation.
I say this because I sense that some people, more with the passing of
time, seem to be interested in learning Platonism on its own terms instead of
through the distorting lenses of Christianity and Theurgy. And Porphyry’s writings are an excellent way
to access the tradition as it existed before it was subject to these
distortions; that is my hope and perhaps the hope of others as well.
12. What about today, our contemporary situation? I think that Porphyry offers us a model of
how a Platonist can interact with other philosophical and spiritual systems
without succumbing to those traditions and at the same time retaining a sense
of one’s own place and wisdom. I mean
that in our contemporary situation we have many people wanting to adjust,
reinterpret, or in some way undermine Orthodox Platonism so that it will serve some
other system’s purposes. For example,
the practice of Theurgy is advocated for by a number of non-academic Platonist
groups who configure the practice of Theurgy as in some way a significant
Platonic practice. I think Porphyry
shows us how to relate to these kinds of claims.
We also have those who
want to subsume Platonism under their own political agenda. Some examples of this have had significant
influence such as the teachings of Leo Straus.
Porphyry does not write specifically about politics, but he offers a
sense of stability when faced with misinterpretations of Platonism that can be
applied to a political context.
In contemporary Universities there is a strongly held view that Platonism is best understood through the analytic
tools of contemporary philosophy thus transforming Plato into a proto-analytic
philosopher and relegating mystics like Plotinus to the fringes. Porphyry shows us that misinterpretations of
Platonism can be subjected to dialectical investigation and that this leads to
understanding Platonism on its own terms rather than interpreting Platonism
through a different, in this case secular, lens.
I also think that
Porphyry informs us how to retain our equanimity in the thick of the confusion
of competing claims and critiques. As
mentioned above, in the short term, Porphyry’s apologias for traditional
Platonism did not win out. But if one
looks at this kind of situation from the perspective of wisdom, from the
perspective of eternity, that is not disturbing.
In short, I think
Porphyry is the ancient Platonist who is best equipped to show us moderns how
to move forward in a world that feels just as chaotic as the world in which
Porphyry lived; a world in which, if we take the long view, he thrived.
