PORPHYRY. - Philosopher, b. in 232-33 A.D. probably at Tyre (Vita Plotini, VII) or perhaps in Batanea, an obscure land of Syria or Palestine, as one might suppose from the contemptuous epithet given him by certain Christian writers (St. John Chrysostom, Homil., VI, 3 in I Cor.; St. Jerome, Praef. in ep. ad Gal.: "Bataneates et sceleratus ille Porphyrius"). D. probably in Rome at the beginning of the 4th century.
A critical spirit and at the same time prone to every form of superstitious credulity, he traveled to educate himself, visiting Syria, Palestine and perhaps Alexandria. He met Origen (v.) probably at Caesarea in Palestine and was for some time his disciple. To what extent his relations with the great master went and whether he was or was not a Christian it is not possible to affirm or deny with certainty. In Athens P. had as friend and teacher the famous Longinus. But his vocation and his life were decided by his stay in Rome, at the school of Plotinus (v.), who initiated him into metaphysical speculation and kept him for six years as a favorite disciple and almost collaborator. Dissuaded from a plan of suicide caused perhaps by excessive intellectual tension, he went, on the advice of Plotinus, to Lilybaeum in Sicily where he remained until the death of the master (Vita Plotini, 11). He returned a second time to Rome and took over the direction of the school. To him is owed the edition of the 54 books left by Plotinus, gathered into 6 Enneads or groups of 9 books each. To this he prefixed a Life of Plotinus, a precious document for the history of early Neoplatonism (v.).
Although strongly inclined to philosophical and religious meditations, P. is not an original thinker, but a clear writer, learned and often a subtle investigator in almost every field of knowledge (doctissimus St. Augustine calls him). He begins the series of Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle and his name has remained famous above all for the Εὐστινὴ ὁ Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle, which, translated into Latin by Boethius (v.), had great authority in the medieval schools and gave rise to the controversies on the problem of universals (v.).
In that critical epoch in which against the old pagan world the new religion was increasingly asserting itself, P. was a bitter adversary of the Christians against whom he wrote a polemical work in 15 books (Κατὰ Χριστιανῶν). This work was refuted by Methodius of Olympus, by Eusebius of Caesarea (v.) and by Apollinaris of Laodicea (v.). About ten years after the edict of Milan (v.) it was proscribed a first time by the emperor Constantine, and in 448 Valentinian III and Theodosius II again ordered its destruction. Of the Christian refutations too only scanty fragments remain.
Bibliography9 works
Pietro Marrucchi