The Way of Virtue

25 February 2023

The Way of Virtue

“You will best honour God by making your mind like unto Him, and this you can do by virtue alone.”

(Porphyry, Porphyry’s Letter to His Wife Marcella, translated by Alice Zimmern, Phanes Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986, page 49, ISBN: 0933999275)

 

“The virtues of the man who tries to rise to contemplation consist in detaching oneself from things here below; this is why they are called ‘purifications.’  They command us to abstain from activities which innervate the organs and which excite the affections that relate to the body.”

(Porphyry, Launching-Points to the Realm of Mind, translated by Kenneth Guthrie, Phanes Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1988, pages 27 & 28, ISBN: 0933999585)

 

1.  The word “God” is loaded with associations that are embedded in monotheistic traditions.  In Platonism, the word God is used, now and then, in a way that is equivalent to the use of terms like ‘the One’, and ‘the Good’.  It is an appropriate word for designating that which is ultimate and fully transcendental.  But it does have some differences in meaning when used in a Platonic context as opposed to a monotheistic context.  For example, Platonists have the view that the cosmos is eternal in the sense of everlasting.  Proclus wrote a treatise on this called “On the Eternity of the World.”  And some early Christian clerics, such as Synesius, accepted this view, arguing that creation was a metaphorical teaching rather than an actuality.  It is good to keep this difference, and others, in mind so that when reading Platonic works that use the word “God” we refrain projecting onto that usage meanings from a monotheistic context that might not apply.

2.  It was Porphyry’s view that the Platonic ascent to the One, or God, was accomplished through the practice of “virtue”, and further, that it is only through the practice of virtue that the ultimate union with God can be accomplished.  Porphyry wrote extensively about the meaning of virtue, dividing virtue into a number of types and categories such as civic virtue, contemplative virtue, etc.  The different types of virtue were united in their purpose of functioning as purifications.  And purifications were united in their purpose of turning the practitioner of Platonism away from attachments that ‘innervate’ the body (such as alcohol) and ‘excite the affections’; I would interpret ‘excite the affections’ as meaning ‘stimulate the senses’.

3.  Porphyry’s understanding of the Platonic Path was fundamentally grounded in what I call the Ascetic Ideal.  I’m not sure, but I don’t recall Porphyry using the word ‘ascetic’ specifically.  Nevertheless, his vision is that of an ascetic, meaning someone who turns away from a life based on sensory stimulation for the purpose of union with the Divine, the One, with God.

4.  Porphyry’s books on vegetarianism, such as “On Abstention from Killing Animals”, and his “Letter to Anebo”, are specific applications of this general understanding of virtue as purification.  Looking at Porphyry’s writings broadly, vegetarianism/veganism is foundational for his understanding of how Platonism works because it both detaches the practitioner from things here below (I take ‘here below’ to mean ‘the material realm’) and establishes a right relationship, or alignment, to the transcendental, to God.

5.  In one sense, the path of asceticism that Porphyry advocates for is not an easy one.  It is not easy in the sense that becoming a talented musician is not easy; one has to put time and effort into becoming a talented musician, and one has to put time and effort into becoming an ascetic.  On the other hand, the ascetic way offers numerous opportunities for embodiment in practice.  I mean that there are numerous opportunities to refrain from stimulating the senses such as refraining from popular entertainment, refraining from luxurious carnist meals, refraining from ostentatious clothing, etc.  Even small ascetic gestures begin to set up a habit of mind that eventually internalizes the Ascetic Ideal.  And once the Ascetic Ideal has been internalized the path to the One, to God, becomes clear.