Porphyry's Task

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 disinterest 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 the Academy, 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.