18 - Porphyry and his school

Summary

LIFE AND WRITINGS

Life

Porphyry was born in 234 in Tyre, of probably wealthy parents. His original name, Malchos, which suggests a non-Greek or at least mixed Greco-Syrian background, was Hellenized to Porphyry (Malchos means ‘king’). This seems to have occurred through his teachers and fellow students rather than at his own instigation. He may have studied locally at Caesarea, where he is said to have at least seen Origen, before enrolling with Longinus in Athens (cf. 12T). It is doubtless with the polymath Platonist Longinus that he developed his own taste for learning and scholarship in literature and history as well as in philosophy. He joined Plotinus in Rome in 263, a bold but not altogether unorthodox move as Plotinus was at this time clearly making a name for himself both in Athens and further afield, judging by Longinus’ interest in his work and a number of adherents of international origin, such as Amelius. This encounter with Plotinus had a major impact on Porphyry’s Platonism as he slowly began to accept and enthusiastically defend many of Plotinus’ new interpretations. It is, however, important to realize that he would hardly have regarded Plotinus as the harbinger of a totally new phase in Platonic philosophy, a status first accorded to him by Proclus over a century later (Procl. Theol. Plat. 1.1, vol. 1.6.19). For Porphyry, Plotinus was another, if highly thoughtful and stimulating, exponent of the Platonic tradition that we, following Proclus, rightly see as taking a new direction with Plotinus.