AUGUSTINE'S PORPHYRY

AND THE UNIVERSAL WAY OF SALVATION*

GILLIAN CLARK
The context of this paper is the current revaluation of Roman religion in relation to
Christianity.' It is essential to this revaluation that philosophy is seen as a spiritual
resource in a religion that is more than correctly performed cult-acts, and that is why
Pohyry has been rising up the late-antique agenda. He represents a cultural context o f
strong interest in religion and in different ethnic traditions of religion. He takes myth and
oracles seriously as expression of religious truth; he is interested in theurgy; he engages
with Christianity, and even if he dislikes it, he has much in common with its intellectual
systems.^ He is also credited with seeking a universal way of salvation, a philosophic
religion for all. This last perception of Pohyry depends on Augustine.
This paper is called 'Augustine's Pohyry' because it is a paper about reception,
about what Augustine makes of Pohyry and has persuaded others to think they know
about Pohyry. It is not about trying to identify which works of Pohyry Augustine read,
when he read them, and what doctrines or, better yet, what fragments of Pohyry are
embedded in his work. So it is only incidentally about the libri Platonicorum that
Augustine read at Milan (Conf. 7.9.13) and the Latin translations made by Marius
Victorinus {Conf. 8.2.3), which were perhaps the late antique equivalent of a Neoplatonist
Reader;' and it is not at all about the content and range of Pohyry's Philosophy from

My thanks to the organizers and members of the Pohyry conference, and to Phillip Gary,
Elizabeth Digeser, Jeremy Schott, Michael Simmons, Christian Tornau, and the Bristol-Exeter
'Monotheisms' group, who have since read a draft version of this paper.
' T. D. Barnes, 'Monotheists all?'. Phoenix 55 (1999) 142-62, a review-discussion with extensive
bibliography; brief account in G. Clark, Christianity and Roman society (Cambridge 2(X)4) 4-15.
Some examples of revaluation: G. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes (Princeton 1986); D. O'Meara,
Pythagoras revived (Oxford 1989); M. Beard, J. North, S. Price, Religions of Rome (Cambridge
1998); P. Athanassiadi and M. Frede (ed.). Pagan monotheism in late antiquity (Oxford 1999).
^ Philosophical interetation of myth: R. Lamberton, Homer the Theologian (Berkeley, Ca. 1986),
L. Brisson, How philosophers saved myths (English translation, Chicago 2Q04). Ethnic traditions:
G. Boys-Stones, Post-Hellenistic philosophy (Oxford 2(X)1). Theurgy: G. Shaw, Theurgy and the
soul (Penn State 1995). Pohyry and Christian theology: J. Dillon, 'Logos and Trinity: patterns of
Platonist influence on early Christianity', in The Philosophy in Christianity, ed. G. Vesey
(Cambridge 1989) 1-13; M. Edwards, 'Pohyry and the intelligible triad'. Journal of Hellenic
Studies WO (1990) 9\-m.
' 1 envisage (without evidence) a collection of texts, rather than anything as well organised as
J. Dillon and L. Gerson, Neoplatonic philosophy: introductory readings (Indianapolis 2(X)4). On the
libri Platonicorum see J. O'Donnell, Augustine: Confessions 3 vols (Oxford 1992) II 421-24.

127
128 STUDIES ON PORPHYRY

oracles, a title attested by Augustine ( C D . 19.23).'' In this, it follows distinguished

precedents for writing on 'Augustine and Pohyry' or 'Porphyry and Augustine' without
repeating the important work done by predecessors.' Some scholars are chiefly interested
in Augustine and want to find lost sources and influences, others are chiefly interested in
Pohyy and want to reconstruct him ft^om Augustine. Three of their observations are the
starting point for this paper.
The first observation is from 'Pohyrianism in the early Augustine', the vigorous
contribution of R. J. O'Connell to the Festschrift for John O'Meara.^ He notes in his
conclusion that Augustine's attitude to Pohyry changed in De vera religione (written
perhaps between 389 and 391): here 'we detect an antipathy to Platonists who refuse to
become Christians' (142), and it would be more correct to talk of Porphyry as adversary,
not as source. It would be even more correct, as Goulven Madec comments, to talk of
Pohyry as adversary as well as source from the outset.' The second observation comes
from the introduction to James J. O'Donnell's great commentary on Augustine's
Confessions} He remarks on the interetation of Augustine that he calls 'gnostic'
because it relies on the 'secret, hidden, inner lore (Augustine's borrowings from lost
Platonic texts), accessible only to the cognoscenti.' A footnote adds believe it is true
that every single Platonic text adduced in the scholarly debates as one that Augustine may
have read is lost to us in the form that Augustine knew. Even Plotinus he read in a Latin
translation we no longer have and, given the difficulty of Plotinus, any translation must
have been a palpably different thing from the original.' This is indeed likely to be true if
the Latin translation of Plotinus was that of Marius Victorinus: the only extant translations
by Victorinus are the passages from Pohyry's Isagoge that, according to Boethius,
Victorinus misintereted.' In later years Augustine could have checked a Latin
translation of Plotinus, or indeed of Pohyry, against the Greek, as he did with

'* J. O'Meara, Porphyry's Philosophy from oracles in Augustine (Paris 1959); P.-F. Beatrice,
'Quosdam Platonicorum libros: the Platonic readings of Augustine in Milan', Vigiliae Christianae
43 (1989) 248-81, and 'Towards a new edition of Pohyry's fragments against the Christians', in
Sophies maietores, 'chercheurs de sagesse': hommage Jean Pepin, ed. M.-O. Goulet-Cazo,
G. Madec, D. O'Brien (Paris 1992) 347-55; see further Barnes, 'Monotheists all?' (n.l, above)
157-59.
' G. Madec, 'Augustin et Pohyre: ibauche d'un bilan des recherches ei des conjectures', in
Sophies maietores (n.4, above) 367-82; further bibliography in G. O'Daly, Augustine's City of God.-
a reader's guide (Oxford 1999) 257 n.54.
R. J. O'Connell, 'Pohyrianism in the early Augustine: Olivier DuRoy's contribution', in From
Augustine to Eriugena, essays on Neoplatonism and Christianiry in honor of John O'Meara, ed.
F. X. Martin O.S.A. and J. A. Richmond (Washington D.C. 1991) 126-42
' Madec, 'Augustin et Pohyre: 6bauche d'un bilan des recherches et des conjectures' (.5, above)
368 n.9, citing De ord. 2.5.16, and 372.
" O'Donnell, Augustine: Confessions (n.3, above) I xxii and n.I.
J. Barnes, Porphyry: Introduction (Oxford 2003) xx and n.45. On Marius Victorinus as translator,
see further S. Cooper, Marius Victorinus' Commentary on Calatians (Oxford 2(X)5) especially
17-20.
 GILLIAN CLARK: AUGUSNE'S PORPHYRY 129

translations of the Bible.'" He could even have read the Greek text, if he was seriously
concerned to find out what it said; but as Eugene TeSelle gently remarked thirty-seven
years ago, 'it may be that Augustine is not making an effort to assess Porphyry's views
fairly'." Augustine, then, saw Pohyry as an adversary rather than as source of
enlightenment, and we cannot check Augustine's use of Pohyry against the text of
Pohyry. The diird observation is now widely accepted in work on Augustine: he was a
highly trained and experienced practitioner of rhetoric, of persuasive speech. As professor
of rhetoric he taught aspiring advocates and made public speeches; as priest and bishop he
used forensic skills in his preaching, in theological debates, and in exegesis.'^
'Reception' is concerned with transmitting as well as receiving: Augustine reworked
and presented the Pohyry he wanted. So instead of dealing with Augustine's possible
response to Pohyry in his early works, this paper focuses on City of God, because that is
the work in which Augustine consciously takes Pohyry as representative of Platonist
philosophy, and because book ten in particular is a major source for Pohyry. The
explicit puose of City of God is to defend the city of God, that is, the community of all
who love God, against those who prefer their own gods to its founder ( C D . 1, pref.). That
means, in the context of the early fifth century CE, those who worship the gods of Rome.
Augustine devotes his first five books (of twenty-two) to those who worship the gods for
benefits in this present life, his second five to those who worship them in hope of a
blessed life to come (6.1). In book eight he briefly surveys the history of philosophy, then
identifies Platonic philosophy as the highest achievement of Greek and Roman
philosophical tradition, and the closest to Christian beliefs. Of the recentiores who like to
be called 'Platonists' rather than 'Academics' (8.12), the Greek writers Plofinus,
lamblichus, and Pohyry (in that order) are very well known {valde nobilitati), and
Apuleius, who writes in Greek and Latin, is also nobilis. Of the three Greeks, Augustine
merely mentions lamblichus; there is no sign (here or elsewhere) that he had read any."
He occasionally cites Plotinus, but he engages chiefly with Pohyry, who features
especially in book ten.'"* Augustine probably reread some Pohyry, and may have read
more, when he was working on City of God. Pohyry gets almost sixty mentions by

P. Courcelle, Late Latin writers and their Greek sources (English translation. Harvard 1969)
149-208; J. Loessl, 'Augustine in Byzantium', Journal of Ecclesiastical History 51 (2000) 267-95
(268-72), discusses Augustine's limited use of Greek texts in theological debates of the early 5""
century.

" E. TeSelle, Augustine the Theologian (New York 1970) 239. Compare Dillon, 'Logos and Trinity:
patterns of Platonist influence on early Christianity' (n.2, above) 10 n. 12, on Augustine's discussion
(C. D. 10.23) of what Pohyry meant by 'principles': One might be forgiven for regarding
Augustine here as indulging in deliberate obtuseness'.
On forensic rhetoric, see for example C. Humfress, 'Roman law, forensic argument and the
formation of Christian orthodoxy' in Orthodoxie. Christianisme, histoire, ed. S. Elm, E. Rebillard,
A. Romano (Paris 2000) 125^7.
D. O'Meara, Platonopolis: Platonic political philosophy in late antiquity (Oxford 2003) 151 n.28
thinks Augustine may have known something about lamblichus, and provides bibliography. Cf also
Mark Edwards, above, p. 116.
O'Daly, Augustine's City of God: a reader's guide (n.5, above) 257-58.
130 STUDIES ON PORPHYRY

name, in comparison with thirteen other mentions spread over six works;" admittedly,
many of these mentions in City of God are accounted for by Augustine's technique of
identifying and haranguing an opponent.
Why choose Pohyry among the recentioresl Augustine calls him 'the most learned
of the philosophers, though the most bitter enemy of the Christians' (19.22) and 'the most
renowned philosopher of the pagans' (22.3), just as he calls Virgil 'their most famous
poet' and Varro 'their most learned author'.'* N o w Virgil was undoubtedly the most
famous Latin poet and a core text of the late-antique classical curriculum," but it is not so
easy to show that Varro and Pohyry, in the early fifth century, were recognised
authorities on religion and philosophy, and it is risky to use Augustine as evidence for
this. In City of God (4.1) he is quite open about his tactics. His opponents argue that
Christianity has damaged Rome, whereas the traditional religion benefited it. Uneducated
people accept what they think is the authority of educated people, who know better but do
not disabuse them of their false beliefs. So Augustine sets out to show, from the authors
his opponents regard as authoritative, that the facts are quite otherwise. In practice, he
selects a small number of authors, then homes in on quite small sections of their work that
provide him with damaging admissions, which he repeats at every opportunity as if he
were challenging opponents in a court of law.'^ Thus when Augustine argues that it is
pointless to worship the gods for blessings in this life, two lines of Virgil recur: 'the
Trojans carrying their conquered gods' and 'all the gods left, abandoning shrines and
altars'.'^ When Augustine discusses Varro on Roman religion, the damaging admission is
that Varro classified stage plays in 'divine matters' because they were offered to the gods
(C. D. 4.1): this allows Augustine to argue (4.26, 4.31) that the supposed gods of Rome
demanded performances of immorality in order to corrupt their worshippers. Where the
relevant texts are extant, as they are in the case of Virgil and some of Augustine's other
sources (notably Sallust and Apuleius), we can show just how narrowly Augustine selects
his material and how forcefully he interets it to suit his argument. But this is not
possible for Varro, where Augustine is himself a major source, or for Pohyry.^

" O'OomeW, Augustine: Confessions (n.3, above) II 422.

Virgil: poeta insignis illorum 5.12, nobilissimus eonim poeta 15.9, and see next note. Varro: vir
doctissimus eorum 3.4, vir doctissimus apud eos et gravissimae auctoritatis 4.1; Cicero's
endorsement, 6.2.
" S. MacCormack, The shadows of poetry: Vergil in the mind of Augustine (Berkeley, Ca. 1998); G.
Clark, 'City of God(s): Augustine's Virgil': Proceedings of the Virgil Society 25 (2004) 83-94;
R. Rees (ed.) Romane memento: Vergil in the fourth century (London 2004).
Cf O'Daly, Augustine's City of God: a reader's guide (n.5, above) 258-59.
'"Aen. 1.67-68,2.351-52.
Augustine's sources: O'Daly, Augustine's City of God: a reader's guide (n.5, above), 234-64;
specifically Latin sources, H. Hagendahl, Augustine and the Latin classics (Gteborg 1967).
. Tarver comments 'What Hagendahl does not discuss is how small a cross-section of Varro's
work was in fact used by Augustine for such a preparation': T. Tarver, 'Varro and the antiquar-
ianism of philosophy', in Philosophia Togata //, ed. J. Barnes and M. Griffin (Oxford 1997) 130-64
(159).
 GILLIAN CLARK: AUGUSTINE'S PORPHYRY 131

Did Augustine target Varro and Pohyry because they were the obvious authorities,
or because, literally, they suited his book? T o establish the learning and authority of Varro
on Roman religion, he relies on the recognised authority of Cicero, another core author in
the late antique curriculum. Cicero says that Varro was 'easily the most acute and beyond
doubt the most learned of all' (6.2). (Augustine remarks that this comment is from the
Academica, so Cicero should not have said that anything was 'beyond doubt'; and that
Cicero is noticeably silent about Varro's eloquence.) Cicero says that Romans were
wandering around like tourists in their own city until Varro provided the books that
brought them home and showed them who and where they were. But how widely was that
assessment shared? The jury is still out on Varro as authority on religion, whether in
Cicero's time or in Augustine's. Was he the main or the obvious or the only literary
source for Roman religion, or was he a convenient adversary for Augustine? I think both
of these are true, but it would take another paper to explore the case of Varro.^'
For the puoses of this paper, it is important that Varro provided a very acceptable
account of Roman religion. He combined loving detail of ancient traditions with
acknowledgement that myth, civic ritual, and philosophical understanding are different
strands of religion.^^ But this distinction allows Augustine to make the essential point that
Roman religion fails to provide moral or religious teaching. Civic cult is separate from
philosophic understanding, so if Augustine's readers look for traditional religion in action,
all they will find (sacrifice being now banned) is stage shows that present overt
immorality.^' They will not find any attempt to explain. A few years before Augustine
started on City of God, his correspondent Nectarius suggested that everyone knows myths
and rituals have hidden meanings. 'Yes, of course,' Augustine replies, 'only the other day
we heard such a wholesome interetation read out to the people assembled in the
temples'.^" This is heavy irony, not a report of late antique religious practice. In City of
God Augustine demands evidence that the traditional gods are concerned for the moral
life of their worshippers, and is not impressed by allusions to the secret teachings of
mystery cults:

out si prohibebant, hoc ostendatur potius, hoc probetur. Nec nobis nescio quos
susurrus paucissimorum auribus anhelatos et arcana velut religione traditos
iactent, quibus vitae probitas castitasque discatur; sed demonstrentur vet com-
memorentur loca talibus aliquando conventiculis consecrata, non ubi ludi
agerentur obscenis vocibus et motibus histrionum [ . . . ] , sed ubi populi audirent

^' I have begun to do so in 'Documentary evidence: Augustine and the Roman past', a paper
delivered to the AGM of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, June 2004. For
Augustine's use of Varro see O'Daly, Augustine's City of God.- a reader's guide (n.5, above)
236-38 and C. Ando, 'Introduction', in Roman religion, ed. C. Ando (Edinburgh 2003) 13-15.
" C. D. 4.27, 6.5.
Augustine assumes (4.1) that traditional cult and sacrifice, comprehensively banned by a law of
391 (C.Th. 16.10), was performed only in secret. On the continuing practice of traditional religion in
Africa, see S. Lancel. St Augustine (English translation London 2000) 306-10; throughout the
empire, G. Fowden, 'Polytheist religion and philosophy', in Cambridge Ancient History XfH: The
late empire, AD 337-42, ed. A. Cameron and P. Gamsey (Cambridge 1998) 538-60.
^"E/j. 91.5 (408/9 CE).
132 STUDIES ON PORPHYRY

quid dii praeciperent de cohibenda avaritia, ambitione frangenda, luxuria

refrenanda ...

If they did prohibit [moral corruption], show that, prove that! Don't boast to us
about whispers breathed into the ears of a very few, handed down in some sort of
secret religion, teaching how to lead a pure and moral life. Point out or record the
places that were at some time sacred to such little gatherings, not where shows are
performed by actors singing and dancing obscenely [ . . . ] but where the people
could hear the teachings of the gods on controlling greed, bridling ambition,
restraining luxury.

If the traditional religion provides teaching, Augustine wants to know when and where
it happens. If it is philosophy that offers moral and religious teaching, there are no temples
to Plato where his books could be read and explained. N o city has attempted to resolve the
disputes of philosophers, which are continued by 'a few talkative people engaged in
litigious debates in lecture-rooms and gymnasia'; by contrast, the teaching of Scripture is
coherent, and has reached country and town, learned and unlearned. Christian preaching,
Augustine wrote to Marcellinus, is open to everyone who cared to come 'as if in a lecture-
room open to both sexes and all ages and ranks'.^*
Varro, then, provides an account of religion that allows Augustine to score some
important points. Does this also apply to Pohyry? Augustine affirms Pohyry's
learning and reputation, and says he is 'regarded as a greater authority than Apuleius'
(10.10), but does not provide supporting testimony as he does for Varro. This might show
that Porphyry, like Virgil, was so widely recognised that he needed no support; but if so, it
is odd that Eunapius (V. Soph. 4.9-11), writing a decade or so before City of God, found so
little to say about Pohyry's career after 368, where the Life of Plotinus ends.^' It is
possible that Pohyry was, in Courcelle's famous phrase, 'le maitre de la pensde
occidentale'}^ influential in the west because of his years in Rome and because some of
his work was available in Latin translation, but less well known in the eastern
Mediterranean diadochai which were of interest to Eunapius. Perhaps Augustine simply
assumed that Pohyry was a famous philosopher because some of his work was
translated (if it was) in the libri Platonicorum. But in Augustine's early works it is

C. D. 2.6; cf 2.26: in adytis suis secretisque penetralibus dare quaedam bona praecepta de
moribus quibusdam velut electis sacratis suis; 'in the inmost shrines and hidden sanctuaries giving
some good moral teaching to a few as it were elect initiates'. I am indebted to Dr Peter van Nuffelen
for pointing out that late antique philosophic texts often use mystery-cults as a source of religious
truth and as an image of philosophic understanding.
Better a temple to Plato, C. D. 2.7; unresolved philosophical disputes contrasted with Scripture,
C. D. 18.41; church as lecture room, Ep. 138.10.
" G. Clark, Porphyry: On abstinence from killing animals (London 2000) 5.
The phrase (my italics) occurs in the contents-summary of P. Courcelle, Les letters grecques en
Occident (Saint-Amand 1943) 440; see his discussion 394-97 (415-18 in the English translation, n. 10
above).
 GILLIAN CLARK: 8'8 PORPHYRY 133

Plotinus, not , who gets the reverential mentions as Plato redivivus?'^ Plotinus is
linked with Plato in the Soliloquia (1.4.9) and most strikingly in a letter from Augustine's
friend Nebridius {Ep. 6.1) who says that Augustine's work will breathe 'Christ, Plato, and
Plotinus'. Plotinus' style and imagery, even in translation, would also be more attractive
to Augustine than Pohyry's; that is, in so far as we can identify Pohyry's own style as
distinct from that of the many authors he quoted. (As Joseph Bidez put it, 'dans tout ce qui
nous reste de ses ecrits, il n'y a pas une pensde, pas une image dont on puisse affirmer
coup sOr que c'est de lui.''") So perhaps Pohyry attracted Augustine's attention rather
later, and chiefly because of his attack on Christianity?" I have argued elsewhere that
Pohyry was not a single-issue anti-Christian philosopher: he attacked any sacred text
that he thought incompatible with Platonism. But that would not stop Christians
classifying him as anti-Christian.'^
So Augustine's choice of Pohyry as an opponent does not demonstrate that Pohyry
was already 'le maitre de la pens6e occidentale' and the obvious authority on philo
sophical religion; it does show that Pohyry was an opponent who suited Augustine's
puoses in City of God. In book ten, his major engagement with Pohyry, Augustine
does not set out to explain Pohyry's own religious position. Only later (not until book
nineteen) does he provide the one citation he specifically ascribes to Pohyry's
Phosophy from Oracles: the oracle of Hecate that praised Christ as a devout and holy
man, whose soul is now immortal like the souls of other devout men, but blamed his
followers for misguidedly worshipping that soul ( C D. 19.23 = 343-44F Smith)." As later
ages put it, 'Jesus proclaimed God and the church proclaimed him.' But Augustine does
not engage with this important argument, which would have allowed Christian belief to be
incoorated into the Platonist teaching that recognised wisdom in a range of local
traditions.'^ Instead, he presents Pohyry, the notorious anti-Christian, as a philosopher
who came very close to being a Christian. Pohyry, Augustine says, should have been
less tentative about theurgy in his letter to Anebo: any Christian little old lady 'would
have no doubt that demons exist and would vigorously denounce them' (10.11).

^ De beata vita 1.4; c. Acad. 3.18.41. C. D. 9.10 says that Plotinus is praised for having the best
understanding of Plato.
J. Bidez, Vie de Porphyre, le philosophe neoplatonicien (Gent 1913) 133; Clark, Porphyry: On
abstinence from killing animals (n.27, above) 21, on Pohyry's own style.
^' O'Donnell, Augustine Confessions (n.3, above) II 422; E. Digeser, The making of a Christian
empire: Lactantius and Rome (Ithaca NY 2000) 93 for Christian reaction to Pohyry. Cf also Mark
Edwards, 'Pohyry and the Christians' in this volume, pp. 111-26.
"^ G. Clark, 'Philosophic Lives and the philosophic life', in Greek biography and panegyric in late
antiquity, ed. T. Hgg and P. Rousseau (Berkeley CA 2000) 29-51.
He also cites the oracle in de consensu evangelistarum (399/400 CE) 1.15.23, his earliest mention
of Pohyry by name. In Relractationes (2.42.1) he says that book 1 of Cons. ev. was written against
those who pretend to honour Christ as an exceptionally wise man, but say that the New Testament
presents the beliefs of his disciples, who held him to be divine.
^ Digeser, The making of a Christian empire: Lactantius and Rome (n.31, above) 97 on the denial
of Christ's divinity; Boys-Stones, Post-Hellenistic philosophy (n.2, above) on wisdom in different
traditions.
134 STUDIES ON PORPHYRY

Nevertheless, it appears from book ten, Pohyry was on the right lines about God and the
soul. He knew there must be a mediator between God and human; he knew that neither
demons nor theurgy could achieve the return of the soul to God; he knew that Plato was
wrong about reincarnation. Later (22.27) Augustine argues that a combination of Plato
and Pohyry would produce Christian doctrine on the resurrection of the body: Plato
knows that the purified souls of the just will return to human bodies, and Porphyry knows
that purified souls will never return to the corruptible body. Moreover, according to
Augustine, Pohyry also acknowledged the need for grace, and knew that there must be a
universal way of salvation for the soul and that no other tradition had provided it; and
these are the two claims I shall use to illustrate Augustine's Pohyry.
Augustine said that he had set down much from Pohyry's books on the return of the
soul {ex qu'ibus multa posui, 10.29), and he is the source for all the fragments assigned by
Smith (and Bidez) to On the return of the soul (De regressu animae) (P42 Smith). All the
fragments are from C. D. 10, except for four that Smith categorizes as perhaps belonging
to works other than Philosophy from oracles; three of those four are from Augustine, and
the fourth is from Claudianus Mamertus De anima, which is often dependent on
Augustine.'" Bidez and Smith do not always agree on the extent of the fragments, and this
difference illustrates well-known problems about delimiting fragments, distinguishing
them from paraphrase and summary, and intereting the context from which Augustine
has removed them. There is a practical problem about fragments: how much of the context
does anyone have space to cite, whether that someone is Augustine selecting passages o f
Pohyry for City of God, or Andrew Smith selecting passages of Augustine for an
already substantial Teubner? Glenn Most remarks, in the introduction to his edited volume
on the scholarly practices of fragment-collecting, 'there is a certain tendency to regard
fragments as partes pro toto, as though they contained locked within their narrow
compass the secrets of the author's work as a whole - secrets that can be conjured out only
by massive erudition and extensive commentary.'"** This also applies to Augustine's
presentation of Pohyry. He uses extensive commentary to conjure out, from the small
fragments he cites, what he thinks are the secrets of Pohyry's work as a whole. But his
technique of commentary is not like that of a modern classicist, or even like that of a late
Platonist philosopher seeking to interet a text. It is forensic commentary.
Pohyry's supposed acknowledgement of grace (C. D. 10.29, 297F Smith) is a classic
example of a fragment that needs its longer context. Augustine makes it explicit in this
context (and in 22.28) that in speaking to Pohyry, who is dead and beyond the reach of
argument, he is speaking to those who now set a high value on Porphyry because they are
interested in philosophy or in theurgy. This is an application of the technique he described
in 4.1: finding authoritative works and showing that the facts are otherwise than their
readers think. Pohyry's readers, who regard him as authoritative, may be brought to
realise that he was close to Christianity. He had some awareness of the Trinity." He

Bidez, Vie de Porphyre, le philosophe neoplatonicien (n.30, above); A. Smith, Porphyrius.

Fragmenta (Stuttgart and Leipzig 1993). Courcelle, Late Latin writers and their Greek sources
(n. 10, above) 245 argues that Claudianus does not depend on Augustine.
G. Most (ed.), Collecting fragments - Fragmente Sammeln (Gttingen 1997) vi.
" C. D. 10.23; see further Edwards (n. 2, above).
 GILLIAN CLARK: 8'8 PORPHYRY 135

would not accept the Incarnation, the supreme example of God's grace (10.24), but he did
in fact acknowledge grace:

Confiteris tarnen gratiam, quando quidem ad Deum per virtutem intelligentiae

pervenire paucis diets esse concessum. Non enim dicis: paucis placuit, vel: pauci
voluerunt, sed cum dicis esse concessum, procul dubio Dei gratiam, non hominis
sufficientiam confiteris. Uteris enim hoc verba apertius, ubi Platonis sententiam
sequens nec ipse dubitas in hac vita hominem nulla modo ad perfectionem
sapientiae pervenire, secundum intellectum tarnen viventibus omne quod deest
Providentia Dei et gratia post banc vitam posse compleri.

Yet you acknowledge grace when you say it is granted to few to reach God by
virtue of intelligence. You do not say 'few people have decided' or 'few people
want', but when you say 'it is granted to few', you acknowledge beyond any doubt
the grace of God not the competence of man. You use this word more openly
when, following the opinion of Plato, you yourself do not doubt that in this life
man cannot in any way achieve the perfection of wisdom, but for those who live
according to intellect, God's providence and grace can after this life fulfill all that
is lacking.'*

When Pohyry 'used this word more openly', he may well have used xapis, the
favour of the god, which would naturally be translated as gratia. But Augustine himself
shows that Pohyry used the word in a contrast between the limited achievement o f
wisdom in this life and the fulfilment of wisdom after this life, not to suggest that God's
grace helps those who are working for wisdom in this life.'' Augustine's interetation o f
'it is granted to few' seems to rely on a Latin translation and to exploit its idiom. If paucis
esse concessum translated one of the gerunds or impersonals that are frequent in Pohyry,
how much weight can the language bear? ^
Few people, then, reach God by virtue of intellect. Did Pohyry think there must be a
way for everyone to reach God? Augustine says he did:

Haec est religio, quae universalem continet viam animae liberandae, quoniam
nulla nisi hac liberari potest. Haec est enim quodam modo regalis via, quae una
ducit ad regnum, non temporali fastigio nutabundum, sed aeternitatis firmitate
securum. Cum autem dicit Porphyrias in prima iuxta finem de regressu animae
libra nandum receptum in unam quandam sectam, quod universalem contineat
viam animae liberandae, vel a phUasophia verissima aliqua vel ab Indarum
moribus ac disciplirui aut inductiane Chaldaearum out alia qualibet via,

38
Bold type, as in 297F Smith, indicates presumed translation of Pohyry.
For bibliography on 'grace* in relation to Platonist philosophy, see M. Laird, Gregory of Nyssa
and the grasp of faith (Oxford 2004) 121 n.60.
An English comparison: in a seminar many years ago, R. W. Southern mentioned a text that John
Sparrow, then Warden of All Souls, had edited at the age of seventeen. 'It is not given to many of us
to reach our intellectual peak at the age of seventeen.'
136 STUDIES ON PORPHYRY

nondumque in suam notitiam eandem viam historiali cognitione perlatam,

procul dubio confitetur esse aliquam, sed nondum in suam venisse notitiam.

This [ i e . Christianity] is the religion that contains the universal way of liberating
the soul, since no soul can be liberated except by this. For this is, so to speak, the
royal way, the one way which leads to the kingdom that is not tottering on the peak
of time but secure in the stability of eternity. N o w when Pohyry says in his book
on the return of the soul, near the end of the first book, that there is not yet in any
single school an established teaching that contains a universal way of liberating the
soul, not in a school of authentic philosophy, or in Indian morality and training, or
in Chaldaean 'drawing up', or any other way, and no such way has yet come to his
notice in his historical research: he acknowledges, beyond any doubt, that there is a
way, but it has not yet come to his notice."'

Does Pohyry acknowledge that? N o : as in the passage on grace (10.29), procul

dubio, 'beyond any doubt', is as much a warning signal as 'quite honestly' in a political
interview. It is much more likely that Pohyry denied any claim that there is a single way
of liberating the soul. ' W a y ' here is a road, not a method: Latin via translates Greek ,
which occurs in the parallel passages cited by Smith for 'the blessed way to the gods' and
'the way of saivation'."^ The parallel passages do not include a Greek equivalent of
universalis. (Would it be , and if so, how did Augustine resist the conu-ast with
the true Catholica, the church? Or was it 'a way for all', or Porphyry's preferred
, or, better, 'for all peoples'?"^) It is Augustine who introduces the theme of the
universal way. In a modern text this theme is prominent, because it begins the concluding
chapter of book ten; we need to bear in mind that only the book-divisions arc Augustine's,
and all subdivisions of books are later editorial aids.
For Augustine, Christ is the universal way. In Retractationes, looking back on his
early work, he observes

Item quod dixi ad sapientiae coniunctionem non una via perveniri, non bene
sonat, quasi alia via sit praeter Christum qui dixit: ego sum via. vitanda ergo erat
haec offensio aurium religiosarum, quamvis alia sit ilia universalis via, aliae
autem viae de quibus et in psalmo canimus: vias tuas, domine, notas fac mihi, et
semitas tuas doce me.

When I said 'union with wisdom is not reached by one way', it does not sound
right, as if there were another way than Christ who said am the way'. So I should
have avoided this offence to the ears of religious people, even though this universal
way is different from the ways we sing about in the psalm: 'Lord, make Your ways
known to me, and teach me Your paths.'"'*

C. D. 10.32, bold type as in 302F Smith.

"^ The most important are Marc. 7 and 8.
1 owe the suggestion 'for all peoples' to Elizabeth Digeser. See below, n.47, for Pohyry's
ecumenical approach.
*^ Retr. 1.4.3 on 5o/i7. 1.13.23.
 GILLIAN CLARK: AUGUSTINE'S PORPHYRY 137

If ) did refer to a 'universal way', what did it mean to him? In City of God
Augustine offers two interetations of what 'universal way' must mean: this is not, of
course, the same as what Pohyry meant.

Nam quae alia via est universalis animae liberandae, nisi qua universae animae
Uberantur ac per hoc sine ilia nulla anima liberatur? [ . . . ] Quaenam est ista
universalis via, nisi quae non suae cuique genti propria, sed universis gentibus
quae communis esset divinitus impertita est?

What other universal way is there of liberating the soul, if not the way by which all
souls are liberated, so that no soul is liberated without it? [ . . . ] What is that
universal way, if not that which is not specific to a people, but divinely conferred
to be in common for all peoples?

Later in 10.32, without immediate reference to the 'universal way', Augustine says
that Christ saves the whole human being, totum hominem, so there is no need for a
different purgatio of the intellectual soul, the spiritalis soul, and even the body. Thirty-
three years ago, Andrew Smith considered these three possible interetations and asked
whether Pohyry meant a way of salvation for all human beings, a way for all nations or
ethnic groups, or a way of total salvation, if not for the body-soul compound, then at least
for all the soul, not just the higher intellectual part. He thought it most likely that
Pohyry wanted a way of liberating the higher souls of all human beings. Pohyry, he
suggested, saw a problem because, according to his own argument in On abstinence (1.27-
28), only some people are capable of the philosophy that liberates the higher soul; Indian
techniques are restricted to one descent group for Brahmans and one ethnic group for
Samaneans (Abst. 4.17); and 'Chaldaean drawing up' is theurgy, which according to
Pohyry is restricted to the lower soul and does not purify the intellectual soul (C. D.
10.9). So there was no universal way. But is there reason to think that Porphyry wanted, or
thought it possible, to liberate the higher souls of all human beings? 'The blessed road to
the gods' (Marc. 7) was travelled by Herakles, the Dioskouroi, Asklepios and other
children of the gods. Did Pohyry ever suggest that the road to heaven should be a 'royal
road', the ancient equivalent of a motorway, that everyone can find and follow?'""
The evidence suggests rather that Pohyry expected a narrow range of people who
could attain liberation of the higher soul, but a wide range of ethnic traditions that
provided ways to liberation.'*' Augustine says that near the end of the letter to Anebo

A. Smith, Porphyry's place in the Neoplatonic tradition: A study in posl-Plotinian Neoplatonism

(The Hague 1974) 136-39.
One example of this assumption is M. Simmons, Arnobius of Sicca: religious conflict and
competition in the age of Diocletian (Oxford 1995) 23: 'well known for his Neoplatonic spirituality
which offered a via salutis to the common masses'.
So also Madec, 'Augustin et Pohyre: dbauche d'un bilan des recherches et des conjectures' (n.5.
above) 381 n.93, citing P. Hadot, 'Citations de Pohyre chez Augustin", Revue des Ultudes August-
iniennes 6 (1960) 205-44 (239) for the view that Pohyry envisaged Platonism for the select few,
and some techniques from non-Greek peoples, but no 'universal way'. Compare Numenius, fr. la
Des Places, for rites and teachings in accordance with Plato established by Brahmans, Jews, Magi,
and Egyptians. For Pohyry's 'ecumenical' approach to wisdom, see J. Schott, 'Pohyry on
138 STUDIES ON PORPH YRY

>'>' asked 'what was the way to blessedness according to Egyptian wisdom'.""
lamblichus replied 'you ask us to show the way to happiness' (Myst. X.4), but Porphyry
had not accepted this claim that 'Egyptian wisdom' was the only or the superior way. His
views are better represented in Eusebius' citation of his comments on another of the
oracles included in Philosophy from Oracles. Eusebius is interested in Apollo's testimony
to the wisdom of the Hebrews, so first cites the relevant lines of the oracle:

1/ re -,
/ -
iaaw ,
'
?
9 ,
re

The road of the blessed ones is steep and very rough, shut off at first by gates
bound with bronze. Within it are unutterable paths: the first of mortals to show
them, for endless action, were those who drink the fine water of the Nilotic land.
The Phoenicians also learned many roads of the blessed ones, and the Assyrians
and Lydians and the race of Hebrews.

Eusebius also cites Pohyry's comment, a characteristically tendentious paraphrase:

? ,
, " ,
'
( )
' .

Bound with bronze is the road to the gods, steep and rough; the barbarians have
found many of its paths, but the Greeks have gone astray, and those who held the
paths have already destroyed them. The god testified to its discovery by
Phoenicians and Chaldaeans (that is who the Assyrians are), Lydians and
Hebrews."'

Christians and others: "Barbarian wisdom", identity politics, and anti-Christian polemics on the eve
of the Great Persecution', Journal of Early Christian Studies 13.3 (2005) 277-314. I am most
grateful to Dr Schott for an advance copy of this paper.
C. D. 10.11; see A. Sodano, Porfirio, lettera ad Anebo (Naples 1958). Fowden, The Egyptian
Hermes (n.l. above) 131-34. discusses the content of this 'Egyptian wisdom', a form of theurgy for
which lamblichus made stronger claims than Pohyry would accept.
"'^ Eus. Prep. Ev. 9.10.2-3 (324F Smith); see further A. P. Johnson, Ethnicity and Argument in
Eusebius' Praeparatio Evangelica (Oxford 2006). There may also be a challenge to Porphyry from
Lactantius (Di'v. Inst. 6 chs 3-4), who uses the traditional 'two paths' of virtue and vice. Lactantius
agrees that the road to heaven is hard going, precipitous, and rough, but says that Christianity
provides the single path for which philosophers seek: see Digeser. The making of a Christian
empire: Lactantius and Rome (n.31, above) 103-04, and 91-114 for arguments that Pohyry is the
unnamed philosopher attacked by Lactantius (Div. Inst. 5.4.1-2). For Augustine's debt to Lactantius
in C. D., see P. Gamsey, 'Lactantius and Augusdne', in Representations of empire: Rome and the
 GILLIAN CLARK: AUGUSTINE'S PORPHYRY 139

This, of course, is another fragment without its context, but it shows Porphyry arguing
that within the road to the gods there are many pathways, and that these pathways are to
be found in non-Greek traditions, including 'Chaldaean' wisdom.'
If Porphyry thought there were many possible paths, how many people could find and
follow them? Augustine likes to cite the phrase he says was Porphyry's leitmotiv, omne
corpus essefugiendumy In C. D. 10.29 (297F Smith) he gives the context:

/intuentes] Porphyrium in his ipsis libris, ex quibus multa posui, quos de regressu
animae scripsit, tarn crebro praecipere omne corpus esse fugiendum, ut anima
possit beata permanere cum Deo

[considering] Porphyry teaching, as he so often does in those very books on the

return of the soul from which I have quoted extensively, that escape from all body
is necessary for the blessed soul to remain with God.

How many souls are blessed? In On abstinence, escape from the body is essential for
those who aspire to liberate the soul from the body and achieve the blessed life. They are
an acknowledged minority, a spiritual elite of priests and ascetics in various ethnic
traditions and of 'true philosophers' among philosophers, who understand the true puose
of life and practise detachment from the needs of the body so that their soul may return to
God. What about the working classes, the banausoi with their vulgar ideas, their material
satisfactions and their failure to understand, who need the concessions made by civic
laws?'^ Have we any reason to think that Pohyry at any time sought a universal way of
salvation accessible even to them?
Bluntly, no. On abstinence is, admittedly, an unusually isolationist account of the true
philosopher, partly because Pohyry was arguing for a vegetarian lifestyle that excluded
ordinary social and civic commitments, partly because he wrote it (probably) when
recovering from suicidal depression.'' But in his surviving work there is no sign of
interest in the souls of ordinary people. It is sometimes claimed that in the Letter to
Marcella an older and more benign Pohyry allows some merit to traditional religious
practice. The argument for a late date rests on Pohyry's statement (1.1) that he did not
marry Marcella in the expectation of care 'as I decline into old age'. It does not follow
that he was at that time declining into old age: this section of the letter goes through, and
rejects, the standard arguments for marriage. A later passage is usually cited for
Pohyry's acceptance of traditional religion:

Mediterranean world, ed. A. Bowman, H. Cotton, M. Goodman, and S. Price (Oxford 2002)
153-79.
^" On Pohyry's interest in the 'Chaldaean oracles', see Clark, Porphyry On abstinence from killing
animals (n.27, above) 153.
See especially Retr 1.4.3 on Solil. 1.14.24; C. D. 22.26.
^' De absl. 2.41.5 (cf. C. D. 4.1 on ordinary people misled by people who have a reputation for
wisdom); 4.18.6-8.
Clark, Porphyry On abstinence from killing animals (n.27, above) 7 (dating). 15-19 (asceticism).
140 STUDIES ON PORPHYRY

eaeeta? ,
, '
.
, .

This is the greatest fruit of piety: to honour the divine according to ancestral
tradition, not because the divine is in need, but because its most reverend and
blessed majesty calls us to revere it. The altars of the divine do no harm if they are
served, and confer no benefit if they are neglected. (18)

Here, for instance. Des Places has a footnote: 'despite all their objections to traditional
cult, philosophers from Plato to Epicurus agree in maintaining '.'" But what does
Pohyry mean by 'honouring the divine according to ancestral tradition'? In On Abst
inence he argues (borrowing from Theophrastus and Apollonius of Tyana) that the true
ances-al tradition is bloodless sacrifice, in so far as any material sacrifice is appropriate.''
In the next section of the Letter to Marcella he reaffirms that due honour for God is not a
question of ritual acts: 'For you, as it has been said, let the intellect within you be the
temple of God; that is what must be prepared and adorned to be fit to receive him' (19).
Pohyry's wife, the widow of a fellow-student, was not one of the ordinary people. She
was one of those who have realised 'what the fall of the soul into genesis has done to us'
(5), and who are thinking about their return to the gods (6). She has been initiated into
right philosophy (8), and the Letter to Marcella supplies the reminders and encourage
ment that Pohyry would provide in person if he could.
Other scholars may be able to make a better case for Pohyry as a Platonist
philosopher untypically concerned for people outside the spiritual elite. In the meantime,
this paper has a specific puose and a more general conclusion. The specific puose is to
reinforce the standard warning about fi-agments of any ancient author: it is always useful
to check the context, especially if that context is provided by the highly intelligent and
rhetorically skilled Augustine. Augustine's almost-Christian Pohyry sought a universal
way of salvation, but Augustine was wrong about Pohyry. The more general conclusion
is that Augustine was right about the difference between Christianity and the other rel
igious options on offer in the late antique Roman world. Nobody else sought a universal
way of salvation and tried to explain it for anyone who cared to come.

University of Bristol

E. Des Places, Porphyre: Vie de Pythagore: Lettre Marcella (Paris 1982); my translation.
" D e ato. 2.5-32; 2.34; 2.59.1.