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The Date of Porphyry's Kata Xpiσtianωn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alan Cameron
Alan Cameron
Affiliation:
Bedford College, London
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Extract

The only evidence we have concerning the date of Porphyry's is that it was written during his stay in Sicily, which lasted from 268 until his return to Rome after Plotinus’ death in 270. How soon after is unknown. Castricius’ lapse from the vegetarianism of the Plotinian school and Porphyry's attempt to recall him to the fold with De Abstinentia should presumably be placed after Plotinus’ death, and Porphyry was still in Sicily at the time. Cassius Longinus’ letter from Phoenicia, apparently written after Plotinus’ death, seems to have found Porphyry still in Sicily. Thus he may still have been there in 271, or possibly even later. There is nothing to support the common view that he returned to Rome immediately or even soon after Plotinus’ death.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , December 1967 , pp. 382 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1967

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References

page 382 note 1 Eusebius, , Hist. Eccl. iv. 19. 2;Google Scholar Cf. Bidez, J., Vie de Porphyre (1913), p. 67 n. 4.Google Scholar

page 382 note 2 Bidez, , Vie, pp. 98–99.Google Scholar

page 382 note 3 Zeller, E., Philosophie der Griechen iii. 2,4694Google Scholar n. 1.

page 382 note 4 ‘Porphyrius gegen die Christen’, Abh. Preuft. Akad. 1916, 1Google Scholar, p. 1.

page 382 note 5 Vie, pp. 65 f.

page 382 note 6 R.-E. xxii. 1 (1953), 298.Google Scholar Cf.de Labriolle, P., La Reaction palenne (1939), P. 242, ‘apres 268’.Google Scholar

page 382 note 7 The End of the Ancient World (Eng. Tr. 1966), p. 47 (original edition 1959).

page 382 note 8 according to ‘Suidas’ (K. 231), Sutorius, according to Jerome (for references see text). Most earlier editions of Jerome and most reference works (e.g. R.-E., PIR, FGrH) give Suctorius, but the recent Corpus Christianorum edition by F. Glorie (1964) has revealed that this form has no manuscript authority whatever.

page 382 note 9 For sources see, briefly, PIR2 C. 229.

page 382 note 10 Cf.Courcelle, P., Les Lettres grecques en occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore2 (1948), PP. 64 f.Google Scholar

page 382 note 11 The relevant passages are collected by Harnack, , op. cit., pp. 67–73.Google Scholar

page 382 note 12 Adler K 231,

page 383 note 1 Hermes lviii (1923), 448.Google Scholar

page 383 note 2 FGrH III A, Komm. p. 365.

page 383 note 3 CAH xii. 302 f.

page 383 note 4 It is in any case likely that the was written after Porphyry's History and was made possible by the research that work involved. The History goes down to Claudius II, and cannot therefore have been completed before 270 at earliest. I owe this point to Fergus Millar, who proposes to treat the subject at length.

page 384 note 1 Cf.Labriolle, de, op. cit., pp. 242 f.Google Scholar

page 384 note 2 e.g. Beutler, , R.-E. xxii. I. 298,Google Scholar following Harnack. It should be pointed out, however, that there is really no evidence for the widely held view that Plotinus was hostile to Christianity. After all, writing when he did, he could very easily have said so quite openly (Cf.Baynes, N. H., Byzantine Studies and other Essays [1955], p. 13 n. 12).Google Scholar In particular Porphyry could have had no reason at all to conceal and every reason to mention the fact in his Life of Plotinus, written in the years immediately preceding the Great Persecution. Yet neither did so. For the Gnostics attacked by Plotinus in Enn. 9, some of whose writings were discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945, Cf.Poech, H. C. et al. in Les Sources de Plotin: Fondation Hardt, entretiens sur l'antiquitè classique v (1957), 162–90.Google Scholar

page 384 note 3 Harnack, loc. cit. (n. 4): the possibility seems to be entertained by Frend, W. H. C., Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (1965), p. 468 n. to.Google Scholar

page 384 note 4 Cf.Frend, , op. cit., p. 442.Google Scholar

page 384 note 5 See Magie's, D. note on SHA Claud. xii. 5 (iii, p. 576 n- 4).Google Scholar

page 384 note 6 See the list in Bidez's Vie, pp. 65* f., and by Beutler in R.-E., s.v. Porphyrios.

page 384 note 7 Frend, op. cit. 443 f.