PORPHYRY AND AUGUSTINE

I T ISlosopher
not easy discover which works by the neo-Platonist phi-
to
Porphyry were read by Augustine, or when he read
them. My purpose in the present essay is not to argue for the influence
of any particular works but to pause and reflect upon four motifs that
play a major role in Augustine's writings around the year 400, pri-
marily in order to trace Augustine's attitude toward certain ideas
attributable to Porphyry, and then, to the extent that it is possible,
to ask what works he was using and when they came into his hands.
I am in no way prejudging the possibility that some of these works
might have been read as early as Augustine's conversion; I am simply
bypassing that period and concentrating my efforts on the focal period
around 400 when the evidence becomes more abundant and sometimes
more explicit.l

I. The Platonists and Romans 1

The first motif we must examine is Augustine's interpretation

of Romans 1, 19-25, the passage in which Paul says that even the

1 The problem is especially acute with respect to two works, On the Return
of the Soul, which Augustine is often thought to have read at the time of his
conversion, and On the Philosophy from Oracles, which Courcelle thinks he read
at that time ('Saint Augustin 'photinien' A Milan [Cont. VII, 19, 25)" Ricerche
di storia rdigiosa 1 (1954) 63-71). In view of the fact that On ~ Return 01 the
Soul is mentioned nowhere else than in book X of The City Of God, O'Meara has
argued that it is sinlply a different title for the Philosophy from Oracles and that
Augustine read it at the time of his conversion (John J. O'Meara, Porphyry's
Philosophy from Oracles in Augustine [Paris 1959); 'Porphyry's Philosophy from
Oracles In Eu.ebius'. Praeparatio Evangelica and Augustine's Dialogue. of
Cassiciacum·. RA 6 [1969] 103-39). I shall make no judgment on O'Meara's
thesis here, though it appears to me that the first evidence of anything resembling
known passages from the Philo$ophy from Oracles is in the first book of On the
Agreement 01 the Evangelists, written about 400, while there is earlier evidence of
ideas akin to those known to be contained in On the Return of the Soul. For
fragments see, respectively, Gustav Wolff (ed.), Porphgrii de philosophia u
oraculis haurienda, librorum reliqlliae (Berlin 1856, reprinted 1962) and Joseph
Bidez, Vie de Porphyre le philosophe neo-platonicien, avec les [ragment8 des
iraites ll£~l aYaAptlTCtW et De regre3su animae (Ghent 1913, reprinted. 1964).

Augustinian Studies, Vol. 5, 1974 113

Eugene TeSelle 114

Gentiles are "without excuse" because God is known to them and yet
they have fallen into idolatry and worshiped the creation rather than
the Creator. In a difficult passage in the Confessions Augustine takes
this to be confinuation of the neo-Platonists' knowledge of God-and,
simultaneously, an'indictment of their acquiescence in idolatry:
And accordingly [with reference to Romans 1, just quoted] I also
read there the glory of your incorruption, travestied into idols and
various images, in the likeness of the image of corruptible man and
birds and animals and reptiles, that Egyptian food, surely, by which
Esau lost his birthright, for it was the head of an animal which your
ftrst-born people worshiped instead of you, returning to Egypt in their
hearts and bowing down their souls. which were your image, before
the image of a calf that eats hay. These things I found there, but I
did not eat of them, for it pleased you, Lord, to take away from Jacob
the reproach of beiDB called the second-born, so that the elder should
serve the younger; thus you have called the Gentiles into your in-
heritance. I also came to you from among the Gentiles. and I set my
mind upon the gold which you had willed your people to carry away
from Egypt, for it was yours. wherever it was: thus you had once
said to the, Athenians ~hrough your apostle that in you we live and
move and have our being. as some among them had said; and certainly
the books which I read belonged to that gold. But I did not set my
mind upon the idols of the Egyptians, which are served using your
gold when they change the truth of God into a lie and honor and serve
the creation more than the Creator.'

II Conf. VII.9.15 (Skutella 139-40): "Et ideo legebam ibi etlam inmutatam
gloriam incorruptionis tune in Idola 6t uarla simulacra, in similltudinem imaginis
corruptibills hominis et uolucrum et quadrupedum et serpentium, uidellcet
Aegyptium cilium, quo Esau perdldit priinogenita lua, quoniam caput quadru-
pedis pro te honorauit populus primogenitus, conuersus corde in Aegyptum et
curuans imaginem tuam, animam auam, ante imaginem uitull manducantis
faenum. inuen! haec ibi et non manducaui. placuit enim Ubi, domine, auterre
opprobrium diminutionis ab Jacob, ut malor seruiret minori, et uocasti gentes in
hereditatem tuam. et ego ad te ueneram ex gentibus et intendi in aurum, quod
ab Aegypto uoluistl ut auferret populus tuus, quoniam tuum erat, ubicumque
erat. et dixisti Athenienslbus per apostolnm tuum, quod in te uiuimua et moue-
mm et sumus. sient et quidam secundum eos dlxerunt, et utique lnde erant ilIl
libri. et DOD adtendlln Idola Aegyptiorum, quibus de auro tuo ministrabant, qui
transmutauerunt ueritatem dei in mendacium et coluerunt et serulerunt crea-
turae potius quam creatod".
Concerning the translation of "sicut et quidam secundum eos dixerunt",
Goulven Madec, 'Une lecture de Confe8$ions VII, IX, 13-xxx, 27. Notes critiques a
propos d'une tb~ de R. J. O'Connell', REA. 16 (1970) 91-92 shows that this
was simply the Veto. Latina reading of Acts 17.28; but O'Connell in his reply
Porphyry and AuglUtine 115

What is Augustine saying here? Is he accusing the neo-Platonists of

literal idolatry. or is he using the imagery in a more inward and "spir-"
itual" sense? The former has often been argued, most forcibly, perhaps,
by O'Meara, who sees here, as elsewhere, proof that the libri platonici
which Augustine read before his conversion included the Philosophy
from Oracies.' O'Connell has argued the case for the latter, first in a
footnote to a broader discussion' and then directly and at length.1i
Following out some of the suggestions O'Connell had given in the earlier
article. I developed the "spiritual" interpretation of this passage in
the Confessions and Augustine's other interpretations of Romans I.'
In the meantime Madec was subjecting a number of O'Connell's theses.
including this one, to a hostile critique.' After all of these discussions,
with the new points they have raised and the additional texts they have
brouglit to bear, I should like to try once again to trace AugustIDe's
interpretation of Romans 1 and see how the Platonists fit into it.
First, it must be acknowledged that Augustine frequently gives a
compressed interpretation of the passage on the basis of verse 25 as its
climax or focus. This is only to be expected in a situation in which
idolatry still continued, and especially. perhaps, in the period of eon-
troversy after March, 399, when Gaudentius and Jovius, delegates of
the emperor Honorius, closed the temples in Carthage and overthrew

(' GonfessiolUJ VII, IX, 13-XXI, 27. Reply to G. Madec" REA 19 [1973J 91-96)
points out that this proves nothing, for the Greek original, "a(J' vpa.;, which
was translated literally in the Vetus Latina, is itself ambiguous, and that it could
have been understood by Augustine, either at the time of writing or at the time
of bis conversion, to mean "according to you" (his own view is that it refers to
the report in Plotlnus, Enn. V.5.t).
Concerning the translation of "inde" I am following the opinion of Maurice
Testard, Saini Augustin et Gimon (Paris 1958) I 169 n. 1 that it refers to the
gold, not to Egypt; thus we may simply bypass the debate whether "inde" refetted
to Egypt as the birthplace of Plotinus or to Egypt as the source of so much in
pagan religion that Porphyry found fascinating.
3 See the book and the article cited in n. 1 above.
4 Robert J. O'Connell, 'Ennead VI, 4 and 5 in the Works of Saint Augus-
tine', REA 9 (1963) 31, n. 102.
~ St. Augustine's Early Theory of Man, A. D. 386-391 (Cambridge, Mass.
1968) 87-111.
8 Augwtine the Theologian (London and New York 1970) 243-49.
7 Goulven Madee, 'Une lecture de Confessions VII, IX, 13-XXI, 27. Notes
critiques Ii propos d'une these de R. J. O'Connell', REA 16 (1970) 79-137, esp.
89-106; notice should also be taken of his earlier essay, 'Connalssance de Dlen
et action des grAces. Essai sur Ies citations de l' Ep. aux ROlJlains, I, 18-25 dans
)'reuvre de saint Augustin', RA 2 (1962) 273-309. O'Connell has now repUed in
'Confessio1l3 VII, IX, 13-xxI, 27. Reply to G. Madec'. REA 19 (1973) 87-100.
EugenJ! TeSelle 116

the statues of the gods.· It is from this time of controversy, apparently,

that we get many of Augustine's statements about idolatry.' In these
he is clearly dealing with literal idolatry, both anthropomorphic, as
among the Greeks, -and theriomorphie, as among the Egyptians. And
in answer to those who protest that they worship not the image but
rather the reality which it signifres-that the image of Neptune refers
to the sea, the image of Apollo· to the sun, and so on-he poses a dilem-
ma based upon this passage from Paul: if they worship the image, they
"convert the truth of God into a lie," since God made the sea and the
sun, but man converts this truth into a lie by making an image; if they
worship that to which it refers, they are worshiping a creation rather
than the Creator.1O
In passages like these he is clearly attacking pagan apologists who
rationalize idolatry, or even explain it away, along the lines laid down
long sinee by the Stoics. He says that he is addressing himself, not to
all worshipers of images, but· to the "doctiores interpretatores signo-
nim",ll those who think· themselves to be "purgatioris religionis"u
or ''religiosissimi''lJ or ''peritiores'',1' those who, knowing the vanity
of many of the practices of Roman religion, still thought it proper to

8 De civ. Dei XVIII.54. On the continuity of paganism, see Mary Daniel

Madden, The Pagan Divinities and Their Wonhip as Depicted in the Works of
Saint Augwtine Exclusive of the City 0/ God (Catholic University of America
Patristic Studies 24. Washington 1930); Frederik Van der Meer, Augustine the
Bishop: Religion and Socidg at tIu! Dawn 01 tIu! Middle Ages, trans. by Brian
Batlershaw and G. R. Lamb (New York 1961) chao 3 and 4; and An~ Mandouze,
• Saint Augustin et la religion romaine', RA 1 (1958) 187-223.
11 Anne-Marie La Bonnarciiere. Rechuchu de chronologie augwtinienne
(Paris 1965) 158-63 shows that there are parallels between Enarr. in Ps. 96,
Enarr. in P,. 113 Berm. II, Serm. 62. and Sum. 197, IDggesting that all oC them
come from 399 and that some may have been preached at a counell held in
Carthage late in April of that year.
10 Serm. 197.2 (PL 38, 1023): "Aut simulacrum enim colunt, aut creatu-
ram. Qui simulacrum colit, convert1t veritatem Dei in mendacium • • • . Sed
ne dicant, Non colo :simulacrum, sed solem colo, ideo dixit, •Coluerunt creaturam
potius quam Creatorem "'. Enarr. in P,. 113, senne 2.4 (CC 40, 1644): "Nam
priore parte huius sententiae, simulacra damnauit posterlore autem, inter-
pretationes simulacrorum effigies eoim a fabro faetas appellando nominibus
earum rerum quas fabricauit Deus, •transmutant ueritatem Dei in mendacium';
res autem ipsas pro dits habendo et uenerando, • seruiuntcreaturae potius quam
Creatori, qui est benedictu! in saecuIa·".
11 Serm. 197.6.
U Enarr. in Ps. 113, serm. 11.4.
11 De ver. rtl. 37.68.
1& C. FawL XX.19.
Porphyry and Augustine 117

worship the natures of thingS.15 Augustine shows himself to be aware

of this explanation of idolatry even before 399, for in On Christian
Instruction, written about 396, he refers to it in the course of discussing
the theory of signs and rejects it in the same terms, pointing out that
neither the sign nor the thing signified is divine." The theory might
have come from Varro's writings on religion, either the Antiquities or
On the Cult of the Gods,11 or possibly from an early work by Porphyry,
On Images, which is influenced almost exclusively by the familiar Stoic
line of interpretation.18 Courcelle has pointed out the close correspond-
ence in the order of deities listed in one of Augustine's sermons and in
this work by Porphyry, and in The City of God Augustine actually says
that, since Varro is silent on the point, he will follow Porphyry's inter-
pretation of Attis as the flowers which fall before their fruit appears.111
I have suggested that Augustine, though he was probably aware of
this theory from the days of his classical studies, did not concern him-
self with it theologically until it was brought to his attention, in con-
nection with Romans 1, by the commentary of "Ambrosiaster", which
he read about 395.10
This is the interpretation of Romans 1 in its simplest form. And
yet Augustine recognized that the passage was too complex to be inter-
preted from verse 25 alone. Even in the passages we have just been
examining there is another intrusive element. The pagan "disputator"
is made to say, "It is not the image of wood or stone that I worship,
but the spirit associated with it"~to which Augustine retorts that

16 De cil}. Dei IV.29.

111 De dod. chr. I1I.7.11 (CC 32, 84): "Quid ergo mihi prodest, quod Neptuni
simulacrum ad illam signiflcationem refertur, nisi forte ut neutrum colam?
tam enim mihi statua quaelibet, quam mare uniuenum, non est deus".
17 Concerning these two works see Harald Hagendahl, Augustine and the
Latin Classics (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgens1a 20, GQteborg 1967),
both the fragments collected on pp. 270-92 and the discussion on pp. 601-20.
18 The fragments are collected In an appendix to Joseph Bidez, Vie de
Porphyre (note 1 above). Bidez comments that this work exhibits, in addition
to the usual Stoic interpretation in terms of the four elements and their interac-
tions, a number of themes drawn from astral religion: the nine spheres, the
divinities in the planets and especially the sun, the sigilli of the Zodiac, and the
like; these probably come from Posidonlus, Chaeremon, and Apollodorus (pp.22-
24, 84-85, 152:'54).
18 Pierre Courcelle, Late Latin Writers and Their Greek Sources, trans. by
Harry E. Wedeck (Cambridge, Mass. 1969) 185 and n. 158, points out the sim-
ilarity between Enarr. in Ps. 113, serm. 11.4 and the order followed by Porphyry
(frags. 4-8, Bidez pp. 7*-14*). The interpretation of Attis is given in De ciu. Dei
VII, 25 (cf. trag. 7, Bidez lOt).
20 Augustine the Theologian, 247-48.
Eugene TeSelle 118

this is really the worship of daemons.11 This theory of powers associated

with the images is not Stoic; it is more akind to neo-Platonism and to
its background in the so-called "Chaldaean Oracles" and other religious
movements of later antiquity. In contrast to the pantheistic mono-
theism of the Stoics, which views all the deities as parts or aspects of
Zeus, this explanation assumes a multiplicity of powers. Whether they
are called daemons, gods, or angels, they are all evil daemons if they
seek worship for themselves; and if they are loyal servants of God who
are mistakenly worshiped they will steadfastly refer this worship to him.u

11 Enarr. in Ps. 96.11 (GG 39, 1362-63): "Sed exsistit nesdo quis disputator
qui doctus sibi uidebatur et ait: Non ego mum lapidem colo. nec illud simula-
crum quod est sine sensu ... non ego illud colo, sed adoro quod uideo, et semio
ei quem non uideo. Quis est iste? Numen quoddam, inqu1t, inuisibile quod
praesidet illi simulacro. Hoc modo reddendo rationem de simulacris suis, di<;erti
sibi uidentur, quia non colunt idola, et colunt daemonia .... Non ergo hinc se
excusent, quia idolls insensatis dediti non sunt daemonUs magis dediti sunt,
quod est periculosius". In Enarr. in Ps. 76.15 (CG 39, 1062), Augustine traces
another path of escape, with which we are aiready familiar: "Non, inquit, ea
colo. Et quid colis? Numen quod ibi est? Certe hoc colls quod alibi dictum est:
• Quoniam dii gentium daemonia'. Aut Idola colis, aut daemonla. Nec idola. nec
daemonia, inquit. Et quid colis '1 Stellas, solem, lunam, ista caelestia. Quanto
melius qui fecit et tenena et caelestia I" And in Enarr. in Ps. 113, serm. II.4
(GC 40, 1644), after listing all of these, a further one: "De quibus rursus cum
exagitari coeperint, quod corpora colant, maximeque terram, et mare. et aerem,
et ignem, quorum nobis usus in promptu est .•• , respondere audent non se
ipsa corpora colere, sed quae mis regen dis praesldent numIna". Thus there are
really three explanations for idolatry on the part of those who wish to retain it
but reInterpret It: the daemons associated with the images, the natural world to
which the images refer, and the powers administering the natural world. These
last-named powers are either the cosmic World Soul of Stoicism and Platonism
(cr. De veT. rei. 20.39) or the animated celestial bodies and the powers which
administer the earth (see note 22 below).
U Enarr. in P,. 96.12 (GC 39, 1363-64): " ..• qui sibi exlgunt superbe sa-
crifictum, et uolunt se coli tamquam deos, .maligni sunt, superbi sunt ....
Respondent: Non coUmus mala daemonia; angelos quos dicitis, ipsos et nos
colimus, uirtutes Dei magni et ministeria Dei magni. Utinam ipsos colere uel-
letis: facile ab ipsis disceretis non illos colere. Audite angelum doctorem n. (Then
he goes on to quote the Apocaiypse, 19.10, in which the angel refuses to be
worshiped and calls himself a fellow servant with men). cr. G. FaU&t. XIV.11-12,
where Augustine comments that the sun and moon do not rejoice in the praises
given them (though the Devil rejoices), indeed, tbese unfallen powers of heaven
regard their proper praise to be that by which their Creator is praised in them;
he goes on to say that the sun and other heavenly bodies bear with ("tolerant")
their misguided worshipers until the judgment, which wtll be executed by the
Creator of all. During this period Augustine, while always acknowledging some
uncertainty, was inclined to give credence to the Platonist view that the planets
and stars are animated by rational souls (Serm. 241.8 De Gen. ad litt. II.18.SS),
and even to the notion of a World Soul animating the whole (De cons. ev. 1.23.35).
Porphyry and Augruline 119

One of the many puzzles which we shall confront is that Porphyry made
a similar differentiation between good and evil powers.23
We have seen that Romans 1 can be interpreted as applying to
idols, or to the daemons associated with those idols, or to the natural
world and its elements, which the idols are said to signify, or to the
unfallen powers which animate or at least administer the world. But
Augustine also understands it in the more inward way suggested by
verse 21, as focused in the heart. Thus those who become vain in their
thoughts and fail to honor God "as God" or to give thanks may be
idolaters in the sense that they serve the images in their own imagina-
tion.
Our clearest proof of this is in several passages which state spe-
cifically that the most abject form of worship is that in which men honor
their own phantasmata-or, perhaps more accurately but less provo-
catively. in which they worship according to their own phantasmata,
supposing God to be as they have imagined.24 This also is idolatry;
and the heart itself then becomes a temple of idols.u What it involves
is spelled out most fully in a passage in the Confessions which gives an
interpretative paraphrase of Romans 1:

23 De du. Dei X.26 (CC 47, 3(0), paraphrasing .Porphyry: "Num igitur hos
angelos, quorum minlsterium est declarare uolnntatem Patris, credendum est
ueUe nos 5ubdi ei, cuins nobis adnuntiant uoluntatem? Vnde optime admonet
etiam ipse Platonicus imitandos eos patiIIS quam inuocandas". See further note
60 below.
14 De ver. rel. 10.18 (CC 32, 199): "Quamobrem sit tibi manifestum atque
perceptum nuBum errorem in religione esse potuisse, si anima pro Deo suo non
coleret animam [this is the World Soul, as Augustine shows in Reu. 1.12.2 in
discussing .the passage] aut corpus aut phantasmata sua aut horum aliqua duo
coniuncta aut certe simul omnia". Ibid. 38.69 (CC 32, 232): "Est autem alius
deterlor et inferior cultus simulacrorum, quo phantasmata sua colunt .....
In C. Faust. XIV.l1 Augustine accuses the Manichaeans of serving their own
phantasmata in imagining that some of the foods which God created are not
to be eaten. Elsewhere in the same work, comparing the Manichaeans with the
"Gentiles", he says (XX.19, CSEL 25, 560): "uos autem et in eo, quod eis dis-
similes estis, uani estis, et in eo, quod eis similes estis, peiores estis. ad hoc euim
non cum ipsis creditis monarchism, quod Ill! uerum credunt, ut ipsius unius dei
substantiam expugnabilem corruptibilemque credatis-quod est impiae uanita-
tis-in pluribus autem diis colendis doctrina daemoniorum mendaciloquorum
illis persuasit multa idola, uobis multa phaniasmala". Again (XV. 6, CSEL 25,
426): "inuitat enim te doctrina daemoniorum mendaciloquorum ad flctas domos
angelorum ... et credidisti et /inxisti hatc in corde tua, ubi uanis recordatlonibus
luxuriata et dissoluta lacteris".
Zfi Coni. VII.U.20 {Skutella 1H)~ Ilet inde rediens leceral slhi deum per
infinita spatia locorum omnium et eum putaverat esse te et eum collocaverat in
corde suo et facta erat rursus templurn idoli sui abominandu"t Ubi". The earliest
use of this theme is to be found in De tid. el symb. 7.14, written in 393.
Eugene TeSelie 120

They say many true things about the created world, but they do not
seek the Truth, the Creator of these things, with reverence; therefore
they either do not find him or, if they do find him, they do not honor
him as God or give thanks. They become vain in their thoughts and
think themselves wise, attributing to themselves what is yours; as a
consequence they attempt, with the most misguided blindness, to
attribute also to you what is their own, namely, projecting lies upon
you. who are the Truth. and changing the glory of the uncorrupted
God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man and birds and
animals and reptiles, and convert your truth into a lie and worship
and serve the creation rather than the Creator. sa
Perhaps I was too hasty, in my earlier discussion. in taking the gram-
matical structure of this passage as a clue to its logical interpretation,
for the matter is perhaps too complex to be stated in any single"form of
words, and some elements of the passage may be in parallel rather than
in sequence. Yet I do feel that Augustine was trying to make distinc-
tions, even though it was with a kind of Hegelian logic of opposition.
Therefore I would like to try once more. When men in pride attribute
to themselves what is God's, then they try to attribute to God what is
really their own; this consists either in projecting their lies upon God,
who is the Truth-and this, I take it, is the idolatry of the imagination
which we have just been examining-or in changing the glory of God
into the "likeness of the image" of corruptible things-and this is
idolatry in the literal, external sense; and the latter involves either
idolatry as such ("converting the truth of God into a lie") or, if the
images are viewed as signs of something else, the worship of the crea-
tion rather than the Creator (worship of daemons, or of the physical
world, or of its animating powers). Thus I would now associate "chang-
ing the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of changeable
man" with what follows, literal idolatry, "converting the truth of God
into a lie";17 but I would still associate the projection of lies upon God

u ConI. V.3.5 (Skutella 80): "et multa vera de creatura dicunt et veritatem,
creaturae artificem, non pie quaerunt et ideo non 1nveniunt, aut s1 inveniunt,
cognoscentes dewn non sicut deum honomnt aut gratias agunt et evanescunt
in cogitationibu8 suis et dicunt se esse sapientes sibi tribuendo quae tua sunt, ac
per hoc student perverslssima caecitate etiam tibi tribuere quae sua sunt, men-
dada scilicet in te conferentes, qui veritas es, et irunutantes gloriam incorrupti
dei in similitudinem imaginis corruptihllis hominis et volucrum et quadrupedum
et serpentium, et convertunt veritatem tuam in mendacium et colunt et serviunt
creaturae potius quam creatorl".
27 This is clearly Augustine's interpretation of the passage in Serm. 197,
where "et mutaverunt glorlam incorruptibills Dei in simllitudinem Jmaglnis
corruptibills hominis" is immediately followed by "lam simulacra sunt" and then
Porphyry and Augustine 121

with the misuse of the imagination, which is the first effect of the pride
with which man regards as his own the gifts which come from God.
In the former. it is clearly a matter of faulty predication: "This idol
(or the world, or the animating power of the world) is divine"; in the
latter. it is more a matter of positing a new and imaginary subject:
"This image. this representation, this myth, is that in accord with which
I will worship". In either case a valid understanding of God may be
involved. and in the case of faulty predication it is even presupposed;
the "lie" need not be total, for, as Augustine points out, "no one desires
falsehood to the extent that he will not know anything that is true".-
We are now in a position to consider the passage (Conf. VII.9.15)
in which Augustine recounts the things that he read, and did not read,
in the books of the Platonists. The "Egyptian food", we discover upon
consulting Augustine's exposition of Scripture, is the lentils whlch
Jacob cooked and Esau ate, for lentils are a product of Egypt and are
taken to symbolize "all the errors of the Gentiles". Esau and Jacob are
of interest to Augustine chiefly as types of Israel and the Church of
the Gentiles, for the first·born people have lost their birthright by
"returning in their hearts to Egypt" and worshiping according to Gentile
errors, while the elect among the Gentiles have abandoned those errors
and worshiped God properly.ao The Egyptian food. while it could mean
idolatry in the literal sense, could also apply more broadly to all the

the differentiation of the anthropomorphic idOls of the Greeks from the therio-
morphic idols of the Egyptians. This interpretation is in line with Ambrosiaster
(In Rom. 1.25, CSEL 81, 48-49), who says that to "change the truth of God into
a lie" is to ascribe the term "God", which has truth when used with proper
reference, to wood and stone and metal, which have their own true and ap-
propriate names different from God's; thus even when God is not directly denied
there is a confusion of the true and the false.
28 Conf. X.41.66 (Skutella 260): "tn es veritas super omnia praesidens. at
ego per avaritiam meam non amittere te volui, sed volui tecum possidere menda-
cium, sicut nemo vult ita falsum dicere, ul nescial ipse, quid lJerum sit. itaque amisi
te, quia non dignaris cum mendacio possideri". Cf. De doel. ehr. II.40.60 (CC
32, 74): "sic de ... ipso uno Deo colendo nonnulla uera inueniuntur apud eos;
quod eorum tanquam aurum et argentum ... de quibusdam. quasi metallls
diuinae prouidentiae , .. eruerunt, et quo peruerse atque iniuriose ad obsequia
daemonum abutuntur .... "
211 Serm. 4.12 (CC 41, 29): "Ergo qui temporalibus uolnptatibus seruiunt
in ecclesia, lentem manducant. Quam quidem coxit Iacob, sed non manducauit
Iacob. Idola enim magis in Egipto uiguerant. Lens cibus est Egipti. Per leniem
omnes errores gentium slgnificantur. Quia ergo ecclesia eminentior et manitestior
in Illio minore de genHhus uenlura slgnUlcahaiur, lentem coxisse dicitur lacob,
et man.ducasse Esau. Etenim dim1serunt idola gentes, quae colebant. Iudaei
autem serulebant idolis. Nam conuersi corde in Egiptum ducebantur per here-
mum".
Eugene TeSelie 122

errors of the Gentiles. AB O'Connell has pointed out, Augustine else-

where in the Confessions used the imagery of food with reference to
the imaginings of the Manichaean mythology and called their external
communication through speech or writing "dishes".80 Even the israe-
lites' worship of the calf cannot be taken as a straightforward reference
to idolatry. for Augustine makes the calf, which, he notes, was slowly
ground up and mixed with water and given to the people to drink, a
symbol of the mystical body whose head is the Devil, a body which is
gradually consumed by the body of Christ as members are transferred
from one to the othcr.U The fact that the calf was of gold is not inci-
dental, for gold is a symbol of wisdom. Thus the sacrilegious rites of
the Gentiles come from a wisdom that has known o-od but has not
honored him as God or given him thanks.a: And in the passage in the
Confessions the calf is not even called golden; rather it is said that the
idols of the Egyptians are served with God's gold. The gold there refers
to the knowledge of God which the Platonists and other philosophers
have gained but have misused-a knowledge which the Christians, as
they leave Gentile society, should take with them as something which
properly belongs to God, just as the Israelites, acting on divine com-
mand, took with them the gold of their Egyptian overlords.as Thus the
calf can symbolize not only literal idolatry but any kind of false religion,
and the gold can symbolize any kind of wisdom, either that which comes
from the general knowledge of God or the pretended wisdom of the
pagan holy men.
Thus we are left in an uncertain situation as we seek to answer the
question which Platonist works Augustine read just before his conver-
sion and what it was that he found faulty in them. It could have been a
work like Porphyry's On Images which actually interpreted the idols

30 In his article, 31 n. 102; in his book, 90-91. He calls special attention to

ConI. 111.6.10 and V.3.3.
3l All the features of this interpretation are present in C. Faust. XXII.93,
written about 400. It is repeated in a number of Enarrationes in Psalmo8 which
are dated by 2arb between 411 and 414 (In Ps. 34, serm. 11.15; In Ps. 61.9;
In Ps. 73.16; In Ps. 88, serm. 1.24; In Ps. 103, serm. III.2).
32 C. Faust. XXII.93 (CSEL 25, 699-700): "occurrat ergo lam Intentis
mentlbus tamquam diaboli corpus in uitulo, id est homines in omnibus gentibus,
quibus ad haec sacrilegia caput, hoc est auctor, est diabolus, aureum propterea,
quia uidentur idolatriae ritus uelul a sapieniibus instituti. de quibus dicit apostolus
[Rom. 1.21-23) ... ex hac quasi sapientia isle uitulus aereus, qualia solebant
Aegyptiorum etiam lpsi primates et tamquam doctl homines adorare figmenta.
hoc ergo uitulo significatum est omne corpus, id est omnls societas gentilium ido-
latrine deditorum".
33 This interpretation first appears in De doM. eM. 11.40.60; cf. also Enarr.
in Ps. 46.6 and De bapi. IV.5-6.
Porphyry and Augustine 123

as symbolizing various aspects of the animated world. But it could

just as easily have been almost any writing of Plotinus or Porphyry, for
they not only accepted the customary idolatry of the ancient world
but found some limited value in it. And possibly what Augustine had
in mind was not literal idolatry at all but the readiness of these philoso-
phers to take the myths of the pagans as allegories of philosophical
truth.
We can be sure, however, that Augustine did not have in mind the
pride of the philosophers-Madec has put to rest. I think, O'Connell's
suggestion that it was pride as such, understood as "seH-idolatry",
that Augustine was criticizing in the Platonists, or at the very least he
has forced a reformulation, since all that O'Connell need say is that the
soul became "the temple of an idol", and this is not pride itseH but the
consequence of pride3f.-and, on another side, we can be sure that he
did not have in mind their deception by the daemons and their bondage
to them, a theme which, despite its importance in subsequent criticisms
of the Platonists, does not enter at all into this passage in the Confes-
sions, written about 397. Yet a few years later, in 399 or 400, he begins
to make it a routine feature of his critique of the Platonists, brings it
into closer relationship with the motif of pride, and makes both themes
central to his interpretation of Romans 1.

II. False And True Mediation

One of Augustine's criticisms of thePlatonists is that, although

they are able to glimpse the goal (God himself, of course) in the distance,
they are unable, because of their pride, to find the way to that goal,
since it lies in the humility and the cross of Christ.3Ii The imagery of
way and goal had come from the Platonists, and Augustine used it
from the first. as. Quite early he applied it to the interpretation of Romans
1, giving the passage a kind of dynamic pressure, both in thought and
in life, from the temporal to the eternal, and from change to penna-
nency.:n

34 O'Connell, St. Augustine's Early Theory 01 Man, 93, 99, 106-7; Madec,
"Une lecture", 89-106, esp. 95-99; O'Connell, "Reply to G. Madec", 90-91.
35 Coni. VII.20.26-21.27; De Trin. IV.15.20; De eiv. Dei X.29.
3& De beata vita 1.4; C. Acnd. II.2.5; De ver. rei. 3.3; De doctr. eM. I.4 and lO-
ll. The source is Plotinus, Eimead I, 6.8.
11 In De ver. reI. 52.101 (CC 32, 252) Ronums 1.20 is interpreted along these
lines: "Haec est a temporalibus ad aeterna regressio et ex uita ueterls homlnis
in .nouum hominem reformatio". cr. De duct. ehr. 1.4.4 (CC32, 8): " .•• in huius
mortalitatls uita •peregrinantes a domino', sl redire in patriam uolumus, ubi beaU
Eugene TeSelle 124

It was also from the Platonists that he learned of the need for
mediation if man is ever to move, either in thought or in life, toward
God. Indeed, the necessity of mediation becomes especially poignant
in a quasi-mystical philosophy like that of Plotinus, and of Augustine
after him. Plotinus emphasized that there is "nothing intervening"
(oviJt, ps-raEV) between the highest part of the human soul and the
divine Intellect,38 and Augustine followed him in his representations of
the final destiny for which man was created in the image (or Image--the
Word) of God.3~ The pathos enters whenit is remembered that the soul
not only is finite but is alienated from the divine and its affections are
bound to finite values. Under such conditions. Augustine says, im·
mediate union with God is impossible. and even if it could be attained
the soul would not be able to endure the contrast with its own state of
being.40 Mediation is necessary, then, in order to establish some relation,

esse possimus, utendum est hoc mundo, non fruendum, ut •inuisibilla dei per
ea quae facta Bunt intellecta conspiciantur', hoc est, ut de corporalibus tempo-
raUbusque rebus aetema et spiritalla capiamus".
38 Enn. V, 1.3 (Henry-Schwyzer II, 266): oviJb ;,de peTa~v II TO neeo"
elvat; ibid. 6 (II. 277) : ·Oeij.lJt ahoy o~ xcol!'(1661~, dl1' lJn pn' ahoJ' xal
f.l-Ha~vov"e'JI, w~ ov6e tpVxij~ xal "Qt)'.
39 Solil. 1.13.22 (PL 32, 881): "Nunc illud quaerimus, qualis sis amator
sapientiae, quam, castissimo conspectu atque amplexu, nullo intuposito vela-
menta quasi nudam videre ac tenere desideras ...." De mus. VI.l.1 (PL 32. 1161):
" ... ut adolescentes .•. quibusdam gradlbus a sensibus carnis atque a cama-
llbus litterls, quibus eos non haerere difficlle est, duce ratione avelIerentur, at-
que uni Deo et Domino rerum omnium, qui humanis mentibus nulla natura
interposita praesidet, incommutabilis veritatis amore adhaerescerent". De Gen.
op. imp. 16.60 (CSEL 281• 550): "Rationalis ita que substantia et per ipsam facta
est et ad ipsam; non enim est ulla natura interposita, quandoquidem mens hu-
mana-quod non sentit. nisi cum purissima et beatissima est-nulli cohaeret
nisi ipsi ueritati, quae similitudo et imago patris et sapientia elicitur". De div.
quaest. q. 51.2 (PL 40, 33): "Quare cum homo possit particeps esse sapientiae
secundum interiorem hominem, secundum ipsum ita est ad imaginem, ut nulla
natura interposita formetur; et ideo nihil sit Deo eoniunctlus". De uHf. credo
15.33 (CSEL 25, 41): "cum enim sapiens sit deo ita mente coniunctius. ut nihil
interponatur, quod separet-deus emm est ueritas nec ulIo pacto sapiens qulsquam
est, si non ueritatem mente contigat-: negare non possumus inter stultitiam
hominis et sincerissimam dei ueritatem medium quiddam interpositam esse ho-
minis sapientiam". De Trin. XI.5.8 (CC 50, 344): "Non sane omne quod in
ereaturis aUquo modo simile est dec etiam eins imago dlcenda est, sed ilIa sola
qua superior ipse solus est. Ea quippe de ilIo prorsus exprimitur inter quam et
ipsum nulla interiecta natura est".
f.O De ver. reI. 10.19 (CC 32, 199): "Non ergo creaturae potius quam crea-
tori seruiamus nee euanescamus in cogitationibus nostris et perfecta religio est.
Aeterno enim creatori adhaerentes et nos aeternitate afficiamur necesse est. Sed
quia hoc anima peccatis suis obruta et implicata per se ipsam uidere ac tenere
Porphyry and Augwline 125

some mutuality, between contraries. If the human soul is alienated

from God, he cannot be accurately known or eagerly sought without the
mediation of finite symbols, events, or persons which cross the chasm
and meet the soul in its actual situation.o.
I know· of no sure evidence that Augustine owed these insights into
the process of mediation to Porphyry. But there are many indications
that point toward that conclusion. If Plotinus' consciousness was al-
ways bathed in the sunlight of the divine realm. so that he could cheer-
fully regard all finite things as imitations and reminders of an eternal
origin to which he once again turned. Porphyry was somewhat more
melancholy. being aware of the opacity of the world and of his need for
help wherever he could find it. And it is evident from his surviving
writings and fragments of others that he looked for that help in many
Greek and barbarian religious traditions and anxiously investigated
all that the daemons and the celestial gods could do to aid the sours
ascent. It would not be impossible that Porphyry used the language
of mediation, not only in its ordinary sense of being "between" but in
the sense that Augustine gives it, of joining two extremes. At least
there is the curious fact that Augustine's understanding of mediation
is similar to the "law of the mean" that was made into a systematic
principle by Iamblichus and Proclus-that two entities which are doubly
disjunct, having the opposed characteristics x and y. not-x and not-y
respectively. can be related only through a mean which is compatible
with at least one aspect of each of the extremes (x and not-y, or not-x
and y).42 The principle is already in Plato's Timaeus, when he speaks of
fire and earth as the elements at the extremes, air and water as the
elements which join them as a "mean" (31B-32B; cf. 36A-B), or of soul

non passel, nullo in rebus humanis ad diuina capcssenda interposito gradu, per
quem ad del simllitudinem a terrena uita. homo niteretur, ineftabiU misericordia
dei temporali dispematione per creaturam mutabilem, sed tamen aetemis legibus
seruientem. ad commemorationem primae suae perfectaeque naturae partim
singularis hominibus ·partirn uero ipsi hominum generi subuenitur".
41 See esp. De mus. VI.l.l (note 39 above), De ver. rei. 10.19 (note 40 above),
De util. credo 15.33 (note 39 above), Sum. 240.5 (note 42 below), and De cons.
eo. 1.35.53 (note 44 below).
uSee E. R. Dodds' historical comments in his translation of Proclus, Ele-
ments of Theology (2nd ed. Oxford 1963) XIX, XXI, 229; also the more general
philosophical discussion of A. E. Taylor, 'The Philosophy of Proclus', Philosophi-
cal Studies (Edinburgh 1934) 160-61 and elsewhere. Augustine states the prin-
ciple in precisely this way in Sum. 240.5 (PL 38, 1133): " ..• [Mediator] con-
stitutus est medius inter Deum et homines (iuter Deum iustum et homines
iniustos, medius homo iustus, humanitatem habens de imo, iustitiam de summo;
et ideo medius: hine unum, tl inde unum: quia si utrumque inde, ibi l!SSet; si
utrumque hinc, nobiseum iacerel, et medius non essef) .... "
Eugene TeSelie 126

as a mean between the ungenerated and the generated (34B), and

Augustine could have learned of it through any of a number of channels.
It appears relatively early, in On the Usefulness of Belief. which comes
from 391-92. The fact that Augustine mentions human wisdom-not,
in the first instance, the incarnate Word-as the mean between divine
truth and human foolishness suggests a non-Christian philosophical
source."
In two places Augustine links the theme of mediation with a quota-
tion from Plato-the statement of the Timaeus (29C) that belief is
related to truth as the temporal is to the eternal." Both of these pas-
sages come from 400 and after, but it is possible that Augustine was
aware of the same point even earlier, at least from the time of writing
On True Religion (about 390), and I have argued, following a suggestion
made by O'Meara, that he learned of it not directly-since I doubt

" That Porphyry used the notion, at least In his theory ot the divine hypos-
tases, is shown by a quotation from him In De elf]. Dei X.23 (CC 47, 296): "Dicit
enim Demn Patrem et Deum Fillum, quem Graece appeUat patemum lntellec-
tum uel patemam mentem; de Spiritu autem sando aut nihil aut non aperte
aliquid dicit; quamuis quem aUum dieat horum medium, non intellego. SI enim
tertiam, sieut Plotinus, ubi de tribus principaJibus substantiis disputat, animae
naturam etiam iste ueUet Intellegi, non uUque diceret horum medium, id est
Patris et Filii medium". For the interpretation of this passage, which shows
Porphyry's dependence upon the Chaldaean Oracles, see, most recently, Pierre
Hadot, Porphyn et Victorinus (Paris 1968) I 260-72.
" De cons. CII. 1.35.53 (CSEL 43, 59-60): .. ac per hoc, cum rebus aetemis
eontemplantium ueriw perfruatur, rehus autem ortis fides credentium debeatur,
purgatur homo per rerum temporalium fidem, ut aeternarum percipiat uerita-
tem. nam et quidam eorum nobilissintus philo80phus Plato in eo libro, quem
Timaeum uoeant, sic ait: 'quantum ad id quod orturo est aeternitas ualet, tan-
tum ad fidem ueritas'. duo illa 8UlSum 8unt, aeternitas et uerltas, duo ista
deorsum, quod ortum est et fides. ut ergo ab imls ad summa revoeemur adque
id quod ortum est recipiat aetemitatem. per fidem ueniendum est ad uerltatem.
et quia omnia quae In contrarium pergunt per aliquid medium redducuntur, ab
aetema iusUtia temporaUs 1n1quita.s nos alienabat, opus ergo erat media iustitia
temporali, quae medietas temporalis esset de imis, iurta de summis, adque ita
se nee abrumpens a summis et cootemperans intis ima redderet summis". De
Trin. IV.18.24 (CC 50, 191): "Mens autem ratlonalls sieut purgata contempla-
tionem debet rebus aeternis, Sic purganda temporalibus fidem. Dixit quidam et
illorum qui quondam apud gra,ecos sapientes habltl sunt: 'Quantum ad id quod
ortum est aeterrutas ualet, tantum ad fidem ueritas· .... Promittitur autem
nobis uita aetema per ueritatem a culus perspieuitate rursus tantum distat
fides nostra quantum ab aetemitate mortalitas. Nunc ergo adhibemus fidem
rebus temporaliter gestis propter nos et per ipsam mundamur ut cum ad speciem
uenerlmus quemadmodum succedit fidei ueritas ita mortalitati succedat ae-
ternitas • . . . cum fides nosUa uidendo fiet uerltas. tunc mortalitatem nostram
commutatam tenebtt aeternitas".
Porphyry and Augustine 127

whether Augustine ever read the Timaeus, even the brief portion trans-
lated by Cieero-but through some writing by Porphyry, probably On
the Return of the Soul.45 It is to be noted that mediation in this more
ordinary sense of symbols that are believed can be linked with mediation
in the philosophical sense discussed above. In book XII of the Literal
Commentary on Genesis Augustine discusses the role of the imagination
(which he ealls, following Porphyry, "spirit") as a "medium" between
the world of sense, in which human life is mired down. and the realm.
of pure understanding." It is in the realm of the imagination that he
locates prophecy and inspiration. attributing them either to angels
who give divine instruction or to daemons who wish to deceive.47
It is known that Porphyry concerned himself with the problem of
mythical representations and their usefulness to philosophical know-
ledge. The most extensive discussion is the one quoted in Proclus'
commentary on the Republic (and also paraphrased in Maerobius'
commentary on the Dream of Scipio), in whieh he answers criticisms
directed against Plato's "myth of Er" by the Epicurean Colostes.t8

... O'Meara, Philosophy from Oracles, 106. 146-48, 166 n. 2; Augustine tire
Theologian. 253-56, and also 124-25. where note Is taken of a suggestion of OlI-
vier du Roy, L'Intelligence de la foi en la Triniti selon saint Augrutin. Genese
de sa thiologie trinitaire jusqu'en 391 (Parts 1966) 366 ft., that Augustine had
read On the Return of the Soul just before writing On True Religion.
" De Gen. ad lilt. XII.~.51 (CSEL 281, 417): "quapropter non absurde
neque inconuenienter arbitror spirltalem uisionem inter intellectualem et cor-
poralem tamquam medielaiem quandam obtinere. puto enim DOD incongruente
medium dici, quod corpus quidem non est, sed simile est corporis. inter mud,
quod uere corpus est, et liud. quod nec corpus est nec slmlle corporis".
., See esp. De Gen. ad lilt. XII. chs. 12-14, 21-22, 25-26, 30, 36 for his dis-
cussion of the problem of visions which are clearly not our own remembering or
imagining but are experienced as "signifying" something. "Divination" of this
sort, he says, cannot be a power of the human soul as such, but must come about
through a "mixing" with another spirit. (It should be noted, however, that in
XII.9.20 he emphasizes the need for good judgment in the light of eternal Truth,
commenting that "prophecy" is to be found more in Joseph, who understood the
meaning, than in Pharaoh, who saw the visions of the seven lean and seven fat
cows). Cf. De Trin. IV.17.23, where he asserts that none, not even the philoso-
phers who have been able to glimpse the eternal Truth, are able to direct their
attention toward it so constantly as to see there, in the ''volumina saeculornm".
all that is to happen; therefore these things must be made known through the
holy angels and be either externally displayed to the senses or internally im-
pressed upon the spirit.
48 The correlation was demonstrated by Karl Mras, 'Macrobius' Kommentar
zu Ciceros Somnium. Ein Beitrag zur Geistesgeschlchte des V. Jahrhunderts
n. ehr'. Sitzungsberichte der preussiachen Akadtmie der Wisstmchaften. phil.-
hist. Klasse, 1933 DO. 6 (pp. 232-86) and is further explored by Angelo Raffaele
Sodano, 'Porfuio commentatore d1 Platone', in the Entretiens sur l'antiquiU
Eugene TeSelie 128

There Porphyry makes the point that Plato did not condemn all myth,
but only the unworthy 8lld immoral myths created by Homer and
Hesiod; he quotes Heraclitus' saying, "Nature loves to be hidden",
and goes on to comment that the daemons who administer nature do
not let the naked truth be known at first but rather reveal it in the
imagery that has become familiar in the ancient religious traditions.
Thus the truth remains hidden from the unworthy, but it is disclosed
in such fashion that those whose- minds have become purified can
glimpse what is being intimated in all of this. But we do not even need
to invoke this discussion, which was probably part of Porphyry's lost
commentary on the Republic, for Plato himseH, in the opening part of
the Timaeus (27D-29D) discourses on the value of narrative as a "likely
story" which reflects, more or less accurately. the less evident structural
relationships among the primal causes of things; and the almost universal
view of the later Platonists was that Plato intended his narrative of
the forming of the world by the Demiurge to be a representation, in
the alien medium of temporal consciousness, of an eternal structure-in
other words, that Plato's "creation story" is one instance of the relation
of temporal to eternal. belief to truth, which is mentioned in this pas-
sage.eII
There is sufficient evidence, then, that the theme of mediation, in
various forms, was a commonplace in both Platonist and Christian
throught. What is of special interest to us is that Augustine began to
concern himseH with the problem of false mediators, the Devil and his
angels. And although he soon accused the Platonists of being duped by
these false mediators, I suspect that the notion was originally sug-
gested to him by Porphyry.tiO In many of these passages Augustine

cia3sique sponsored by the Fondation Hardt, 12 (1965) 193-223 and the discus-
sion 224-28.
411 Porphyry may even have discussed the problem of the temporal or eternal
duration 01 the world in the passage Augustine used, for in De CiD. Dei X.3t (CC
47, 309) he mentions that the Platonists deny a beginning in time and allow
only a causal priority and posteriority: "Sicut enim, inquiunt, ai pes ex aeternitate
semper fuisset in puluere, semper ei subesset uestigium, quod tamen uestigium a
calcante factum nemo dubitaret, nee alterum altero prius esset, quamuis alterum
ab altero factum esset: sic, inquiunt, et mundus atque in ilIo dli creati et semper
luerunt, semper existente qui fecit, et tamen facti sunt". The passage is at-
tributed to Porphyry by Courcelle, Late Latin Writus 186-87 n. 165.
60 Let us layout the major passages together at the beginning, so that they
can be referred to as we go along. De dod. ehr. II.23.35-36 (CC 32, 57-58):
"Hine enim ftet, ut occuito quodam iudicio diuino cupidt malarum rerum homines
tradantur inludendt et decipiendi pro mentis uoluntatum suarum, inludentlbus
eos atque decipientibus praeuaricatoribus angelis, qulbus lsta Mundi pars infima
secundum pulcberrimum ordinem rerum diuinae prouldentiae lege subiecta est.
Porphyry and Augustine 129

assumes that it is necessary to fmd a "way of salvation", certainly a

major concern of Porphyry-'s.51 And at least one important way of

Quibus inlusionibu8 et deeeptionibus euentt, ut istis superstitiosis et perniciosis

diuinaUonum generlbus multa praeterita et futura dicantur nee aliter acclda,nt,
quam dicuntur multaque obseruantibus seeundum obseruationes suas eueniant,
quibus implicati euriosiores tiant et sese magis magiaque Inserant multipllclbus
laqueis perniciosissimi erroris .... (36) Omnes igitur artes hulusmodi uel nuga-
toriae uel noxiae superstitionis ex quadam pestifera socletate homlnum et dae-
monum quasi pacta infidelis et dolosae amicitiae eonstituta penltu8 sunt repu-
dianda et fugienda christiano.... In omnibus ergo istis doctrinis societas
daemonum formidanda atque uitanda est, qui nihil cum principe suo diabolo
nisi reditum nostrum claudere altjue obserare conantur". ConI. VII.21.27 (Skutella
152): "et aliud est de silvestri cacumine videre patriam pads et iter ad eam non
invenire et trustra conari per invia circum obsidentibus et iruidiantibus fugitivis
desertoribus cum principe sub leone et dracone, et aliud tenere viam illue ducen-
tem cura caelestis imperatoris munilam, ubi non latrocinantur qui caelestem
militiam deseruerunt •.•• " Cont. X.42.67 (Skulella 260): "Quem invenirem, qui
me reconeiliaret tibi'1 ambiendum mihi fuit ad angelos'1 qua prece'1 quibus
sacramentis'1 multi eonantes ad te redire neque per se ipsos valentes, sieut audio,
tentaverunt haec et Incldemnt in deslderium curiosarum visionum et digni
habiti lunt inlusionibus. elati enlm te quaerebant doctrinae fastu exserentes
potius quam tundentes pectora et adduxerunt slbi per simllitudlnem cordis
sui conspirantes et socias superbiae suae potestates aeris huius, a quibus per
potentias magicas declperentur, quaerentes mediatorem, plr quem purgarentur,
et non erat. diabolus enirn erat 'transfigurans se in angelum lucls·". Sam. 197.1
(PL 38, 1022): "Quia vero superbia eral In cis, interposuit se falsus et /alla:& et
superb us, qui eis promitteret quod per partes nescio quas superblae purgarentur
animae illorum, et fecit cultores daemoniorum". Ep. 102, q. 3, n. 20 (CSEL 341,
562): "quam ob rem etiam cum se homines superioribus caelestibus potestatlhus,
quae non sunt daemonia, sacrificare dicunt et solius nominis interesse arbitran-
.tur, quod ilil deos, nos eos angelos apellamns, non se opponunt eis ludificandis
multiplici tallacia nisi daemones, qui errore delectantur et quodam modo pas-
cuntur humano ..•. " De Tr'in. IV.15.20 (CC 50, 187): "Sunt autem quidam qui.
se putant ad contemplandum deum et inhaerendum deo uirtute propria posse
purgari, quos ipsa superbia maxime maculat. Nullum enim uitium est cui magIs
diuina lege resistitur et in quod maius accipiat dominandi ius ilIe superbissimus
spiritWJ ad ima mediator, ad summa inlcrclusor, nisI occulte insidians alia ula
deuitetur •... " De Trin. XIII.19.24 (CC 50A, 416): "Non potuerunt enim in
his remm infimis constituti nisi quaerere aliqua media per quae ad illa quae
intellexerant lublimia peruenirent, atque ita in deuptores daemoms incidemnt
per quos factum est • ut lmmutarent gloriam incorruptlbilis dei in similitudinem
imaginis corruptibilis hominis et uolucrum et quadrupedum et serpentium·.
In talibus enim formis ctiam Idola instituerunt siue coluerunt". De cill. Dei,
IX.15 (CC 47, 262); "DOni 'gitUI angc111nter m13er05 mortales et beatos inmor·
tales medii esse non possunt, quia ipsi quoque et beati et inmortaJes sunt; pos·
sunt autem medii esse angeli mali. quia irunortales sunt cum illis, miseri cum istis.
His contrarlus est mediator bonus, qui adueraus eorum inmortalitatem et mise-
Eugene TeSelle 130

salvation was that which the daemons claimed to offer. We know that
Porphyry, following a theory that had become widespread in later
antiquity, held that the gods of civil religion, who must be appeased
with the blood of animals and the smoke of sacrifices, are really evil
daemons; and although he contemptuously concluded that cities, whose
responsibility it is to concern themselves with external things, probably
should propitiate the daemons to keep them from doing harm, he advised
more philosophic individuals to seek something better.1ii One of the
characteristics of these malefic daemons is their decepb'veness. They
are the cause of the calamities that beset this lower part of the cosmos,
but they induce men to propitiate the heavenly gods as though it were
these who in anger sent the calamities; they impersonate the gods and
fill the minds of men with impure desires and vain aspirations in order
to cause discordjU they are even involved in exorcisms and apotropaic
rites, for Pluto or Sarapis, their chief, drives away the daemons he rules
in order to reinforce men's faith in the value ofa debased form of re·

riam et mortalls esse ad tempus uoluit, et beatus in aetemitate persistere po-

tuit •... " .
We may also note an early instance, from the Cassiciacum writings, which
sounds the theme of deception, though not of deceptive mediation. It is De
ord. II.9.27 (PL 32, 1007-8): "In qua metnenda est aeriorum animallum mira
fallacia, quae per rerum ad Istos sensns corporis pertinentlum quasdam divi-
nationes nonnullasque potentlas decipere animas faclllime cOIlSnerunt, aut
periturarum fortunarum curiosas, aut fragilium cupidas potestatUID, aut inanium
formidolosas miraculorum n. .
61 Note the beginning of his Philosophy from Oracles, Eusebius, PrfUp. eD.
IV. 7-8 (GCS 431 ,177-78), where he speaks of the "hope of being saved" and the
"salvation of the soul"; or the famous passage quoted inPraep. eIJ. IX.10and XIV.
10 (GCS 431, 496 and 43 2, 287), where he evokes the difficulties with which
"the way to the gods" is strewn; or his anxious question in the Epistle to Ambo
46 (= De ciIJ. Dei X.H) about "the way to happiness". In the work called On
the Return of the Soul, according to De civ. Dei X.32, he raised the possibility of
finding some "universal way for the liberation of the soul", only to conclude in
despair that no such way-a way that would be both exclusive and suited to
all-had shown itself, either among the religious traditions 01 the nations or in
the true philosophy of the Platonists. See the discussion of the various pas-
sages in O'Meara's article, pp. 128-30.
63 De abst. II.37-43, a passage summarizing the views of "certain Platonists",
whom Bidez and Cumont, La mages ~llenises. Zoroasire, Ostones et Hyslaspe
d'apres fa tradition grecque (Paris 1938) 1178-80, 186-88 show to be a Magusaean
work by .. Ostanes .... The notion of strUe among different factions in the spiritual
world was probably suggested and constantly reinforced by "Iranian dualism",
but it is found in many writers who were not immediately influenced by Oriental
currents.
63 For both of these, see De abst. II.40.
Porphyry and Augustine 131

Jigion.64 Thus when Angustine mentions deception or "the Deceiver",

he is probably following a train of thought which he read some-
where in Porphyry, who was much concerned with the problem.u The
daemons, who claim to offer a way of salvation, actually close the
way."· and it becomes necessary, as a consequence, to find "another
way" .i7 The influence of Porphyry is conceivable in all these connec-
tions; and it does not count against that possibility when we discover
that Augustine makes of Porphyry's "other way"-the teletai of the
mysteries, or perhaps· philosophical contemplation-another means of
deception by the Devil, who entraps men by posing as an angel of
light58 and encourages philosophers to take pride in their ability to
achieve salvation on their own,Q for Augustine was always skilled at
turning his opponents' weapons against themselves, and in this partic-
ular matter he and Porphyry, despite all that they had in common,
pressed their arguments in quite different directions.
Porphyry made a distinction between three aspects of man, each
of which has its own characteristic religious forms. Body and sense are
the realm of the daemons, who are propitiated by the smoke of sacri-
fices and are attracted by the incantations and drawings, the special
herbs and stones, used in magic. The "spirit", the material ''vehicle''
acquired by the soul in its descent, is the locus of the imagination;
iUs addressed by the celestial "gods" or "angels" in dreams and visions,
and it is purified by theurgical exercises and the mysteries. The intel-
lect has a special kinship with the Father and his Intellect, and it can
rise above both body and spirit, and above both daemons and gods, in
an immediate, inward communion with the supreme God, no longer

" Eusebius, Praep. ev. IV.23, quoting from Porphyry's Philosophy from
Oracles.
&0 In Augustine, see especially Cont. X.42.67 and Serm. 197.1 (note 50
above). He shows in De civ. Dei X.ll that he knew the Epistle to Ambo, and
even mentions "the spirit called the Deceiver" (cf. Ep. ad Aneb. 26 and 46).
Note also the phrase "et falluntur et fallunt" in the work by "Ostanes" quoted
by Minucius Felix, Oclavius 26 and Cyprian, Quod idola dii non sint 6 (Bidez-
Cumont II, 291).
66 De doct. eM. 11.23.36 ("reditum nostrum claudere atque obserare conan-
tur"); Cont. VII.21.27 ("obsidentibus et insidiantibus fugitivis desertoribus");
De Trin. IV.12.15 ("obsidens intercludit uiam").
67 This image, used by Augustine in De Trin. IV.12.15 with an allusion to

the story of the Magi, was probably first suggested to him by Porphyry, for in
De civ. Dei X.9 (GC 47, 282), in a passage that summarizes au. argument of
Porphyry's, Augustine says that Porphyry "aliam uero uiam esse perhibeat ad
angelorum superna".
58 De Trin. IV.IO.13.
59 Ibid. IV.12.15.
Eugene TeSelie 132

invoking the gods -but rather imitating them with an immediate worship
of the Father.eo
Porphyry often draws a sharp contrast between these three levels
of religion. He rejects (or sometimes appears to reject) sacrifices and
magic as being means by which the daemons deceive men. He has
more good things to say about theurgy and the mysteries. Yet these
can purify only the material "spirit", not the intellect itself; they
enable the soul to return to the "etherial and empyrean" regions, but
without freeing the intellect for communion with the Father. The
purification of the intellect can be achieved, he thinks, without any
special attention to the teletai which act upon the imagination, for
ignorance and vice are purged only by "the Father's Intellect" alone.1l
And yet he is unable to reject popular religion entirely. The
purely intellectual way is for only a few, the philosophers. Therefore
the wise man will abstain from sacrifices-but cities will still take care
to propitiate them, since they cannot rely upon purity of soul to protect
them.82 Augustine appears to be able to convict Porphyry of incon-
sistency even in the higbly ascetic work On the Return of the Soul, for
in it he advised the cultivation of a friendship with some good daemon
who could lift the soul at least some distance above the earth after
death;83 he noted the complaint of the Chaldaean that even the good
gods could not act because they had been bound by the spells of some-
one else; and he even reported the opinion (though ascribing it to
others) that the good gods cannot become present in theurgy unless
the evil spirits are first propitiated."

110 In De cio. Dei X.26 Augustine quotes Porphyry as saying that the angels
are "imitandos ... patius quam inuocandos". This is, of course, one of the
recurring points in Augustine's polemic against pagan religion (see note 22 above).
Whlle it is obviously a Biblical principle, there was apparently some confirmation
of it in the philosophy of the Platonists. Note also the related conception that
all true sacrifice is the inward sacrifice of love for God and likeness to God,
stated by Porphyry in his Philosophy from Oracle3 as quoted in De civ. Dei
XIX.23 and used extensively by Augustine in De civ. Dei X, chs. 3-6. For
passages in Porphyry on this theme see the O'Meara article, pp. 115-16.
61 De cio. Dei X.27 (CC 47, 301): " ... quibus diuinis te tamen per intellec-
tualem uitam facis altiorem, ut tibl uldellcet tamquam philosopho theurgicae
artis purgationes nequaqnam necessariae uideantur . . . ."
62 De abst. 1.47-48; II.3, 43.
83 De cio. Dei X.9.
II( De civ. Dei X.9 (CC 47, 282): "Conqueritur, inquit, UlI' In Chaldaea
bonus, purgandae animae magno in molimine frustratos sibi esse succes8us,
cum uir ad eadem potens tactus innidia adiuratas sacris precihus potentias alll-
gasset, ne postulata coneederent. Ergo et llgauit ille, inquit, et iste non soluit".
Ibid. X.21 (CC 47, 295): "Ex qua opinione Porphyrius, quamuis non ex sua
Porphyry and Augwtine 133

Porphyry's dilemma is that he sees the need of mediation between

man and God, but that he finds mediation being offered only by the
daemons and the celestial gods, all of whom he distrusts as being limited
in their powers and subject to evil as well as good influences. Therefore
the philosopher, although he is himself able to rise above both daemons
and gods in pure contemplation, must adVise the common people to
cultivate them and make use of their rituals, and Augustine taunts
Porphyry for sending more clients to the theurgists than to Plato.a
His difficulty is that he can offer no way of mediation that joins man
directly with God; his mediation is hierarchical, proceeding step by
step, and the demands of the last stage-the union of the intellect
with God-are incompatible with the first and second stages. Hence
his despair at ever finding a "universal way of salvation", one which
will be the sole way and be available to all; the philosophic way is only
for the elite, and the way of popular religion is not one way but the
many ways followed by the various nations and the various cults.-
Augustine has the polemical advantage, for the Christian doctrine of
incarnation presents a different kind of mediation, one which joins God
not only to the human intellect but to the life of the body and of the
imagination as wel1. 67
The difference between Porphyry and Augustine with respect to
the return of the soul to God and the nature of mediation is related to
two other points of contact. In the case of one of them, which concerns
the nature of beatitude, Augustine learned something important from
Porphyry; in the case of the other, which concerns the resurrection of
the body, Augustine found himself radically at odds with the philoso-
pher's assumptions.
sententla, sed ex aliorum, dicit bonum deum uel genium non uenire in hOminem,
nisi malus fuerit ante placatus .... " Cf. the texts from the Philosophy from
Oracles gathered together in O'Meara's book, pp. 114-15, which demonstrate that
this notion was conveyed in at least that work. The question, of course, is whether
Porphyry took a "purer" view in On the Return 01 the Soul, or whether the two
works are in fact identical, as O'Meara believes. Although it is difficult to know
to what extent Augustine.is presenting Porphyry's views in the worst possible
light, it is clear thllt Porphyry posed many damaging questions about popular
religion, especially in his Epistle to Anebo, and that his own resolution of these
aporiai, presented in De regressu and De abslinentia, was accomplished chiefly
by placing the various religious options in the hierarchical ordering that we have
already traced (see Bidez, Vie de Porphyre, 87 and 101).
a De civ. Dei X.27 (CC 47, 301): "Tu autem hoc didiclstl non a Platone,
sed a Chaldaeis magistris ... quoniam istorum, quos philosophari piget, In-
comparabiliter maior est multitudo, plures ad secretos et inlicltos magistrDs
tuos, quam ad scholas Platonicas uenire cogantur".
66 De czv. Dei X.32.
67 See the long argument spanning De civ. Dei X.27-29.
EugelU! TeSelie 134

II1. The Nature of Beatitude

Augustine informs us that Porphyry criticized and improved upon

Plato in two crucial ways: he rejected the opinion that souls return into
the bodies of animals, holding instead that metempsychosis is only into
other human bodies; and, more to our purpose, he rejected the classic
Platonist doctrine that all souls, even those that are brought to celestial
beatitude because of their virtue, are fated to return again to corruptible
bodies in an endless cycle, holding instead that the soul which recognizes
the evils of material life and returns to the Father by being purified
will never again be entangled in matter and will have endless beatitude.1S
There is no independent evidence outside the passages in Augustine
that Porphyry envisaged the possibility of a lasting beatitude with the
Father through a permanent escape from matter, and Zeller suspected
that Augustine had overemphasized an isolated statement of Porphyry's,
perhaps misinterpreting a passage in which he was stating the usual
Platonist dogma that the purer souls. rather than returning immediately
into other bodies, were exempted for the duration of that world period.It
And yet Augustine shows himself aware of precisely that distinction.
Though it is in a series of sermons preached perhaps ten years before
he wrote The City of God, we cannot easily suppose that he completely
forgot the point during the intervening time.'IO Augustine also knew
that Porphyry acknowledged the difficulty of an escape from the cycle

18 De eiv. Dei X.30 (CC 47, 307-8): "Dicit etiam ad hoc Deum animam
mundo dedisse, ut materiae cognoscens mala ad Patrem recurreret nee aliquando
lam latium polluta contagione leneretur ••. mundatam ab omnibus malis ani-
mam et cum Patre constitutam numquam lam mala mundi huias passuram esse
confessus est •.. purgatam animani ob hoc reuertl dixit ad Patrem, ne ali-
quando iam malorum polluta coniagiolU! ienealur".
till Eduard Zeller, Die Philo&ophie du Griechen in wer Geschichtlichen
Eniwicklung (5 th ed. Leipzig 1923) I1L2 715-16 n. 2.
10 Sum. 240.4 (PL 38, 1132); "Hoc ergo interesse voluerunt inter animas
peceatorum et animas iustorum, quia peccatorum animas de proximo statim
cum exierint de corporibus, dicunt revolvi ad altera corpora; iustorum autem
animas diu esse in requie; non tamen semper, sed rursus delectari corporibus, et
de summis coells post tantam iustitiam ad ista mala tacere ruinam". Serm.241.4
(PL 38, 1135): "Elteunt animae malae, inquiunt; et quia immundae sunt, con-
tinuo in alia corpora revolvuntur; exeunt animae sapientium atque iustorum;
et quia bene vixeront, volant ad caelum . • . • Et quid ibi? Ibi erunt, inquiunt,
et requlescent cum diisj sedes eorum eruot stellae. Non malum habitaculum
illis invenistis: vel ibi illas dimittite, nolite illas deiieere. Sed, inqulunt. post
longa tempora, facta penitus obliviolU! veterum miseriarum, incipiunt velIe re-
verti in corpora •.•• "
Porphyry and Augustine 135

of descent and return, for he adds that it could be achieved only "after
many revolutions through different bodies".'11
The consistent impression that Augustine likes to give is that
Porphyry, living in "Christian times", was embarrassed by these beliefs
of the Platonists and wanted to present, in effect, a philosophical
religion that could rival Christianity; and this required a similar promise
of eternallife.71 It is difficult to know to what extent Porphyry engaged,
in this connection, in an explicit polemic against Christianity. Augus-
tine's statements condemning Porphyry's pride in offering a way of
salvation that dispensed with Christ and relied only upon the soul's
own powers'18 could be merely his own later judgment about what was
occurring. But in one passage, usually overlooked, he seems to suggest
that Porphyry was engaged in a direct and explicit rivalry with Chris-
tianity:
A great philosopher among them, one of the more recent, was Por-
phyry, a very bitter enemy of the Christian faith, who lived during
Christian times; although he was ashamed of this madness [the cyclic
reincarnation of the soul], when he was reproached in part by the
Christians he said, or rather wrote, "Flee the bodily altogether".7'
The context shows just what the point of controve as. Although
Porphyry affirmed the possibility of eternal be ltude with the Father,
he held that the bodily can only work at cross purposes to the beatitude
of the soul. Augustine continues:

71 De civ. Dei XXII.12 (CC 48, 833): "post multas itidem per diuersa cor-
pora reuolutiones aliquando tamen eam, sicut Porphyrius, finire miserias et ad
eas numquam redire fateantur".
72 Sum. 241.7 (PL 38, 1137): "Magnus eorum philosophus posterius Por-
phyrius, fidei christianae acerrirous inimicus, qui lam christianis temporibus
fuit, sed tamen ab ipsis deUramentis erubescendo, a Cbrlstianis ex allqua parte
correptns, dixit, scripsit~ Corpus est omne fugiendum". De ciIJ. Dei XIL20 (CC
48, 378): " ... de lstis ctrcuitibus et sine cessatione altemantibus itionibus et
reditionibus animarum Porphyrius Platonicus suorwn opinionem sequi no1uit,
siue ipsius rei uanitate pennotus siue iam tempora Christiana reueritus .... "
Ibid. XII.19 (CC 48. 402): "De quo Platonico dogmate lam in Ubris superiori-
bus diximus Christiano tempore erubulsse Porphyrium •.• ltaque ne a Christo
uinci uideretur uitam sanctis pollicente perpetuam, etiam ipse purgatas animas
sine uDo ad miserias pristinas reditu in aeterna felicitate constituit; et nt Christo
aduersaretur, resurrectionem incorruptibilium corporum negans non solum sine
terrenis, sed sine ullis omnino corporibus cas adseruit in sempitemum esse uictu-
ras".
73 Dt civ. Dei XII.19 (not. praec.): ct. ConI- VIr.20.26-21.27, De 1'rin.
IV.15.20, De civ. Dei X.29.
7' Sum. 241.7 (note 72 above). I defer to future new editions of this sermon,
which may clarify several grammatical perplexities.
Eugene TeSelle 136

"Altogether". he said. as though every body were a troublesome

restraint to the soul. And indeed, if body of any sort is to be avoided,
there is no point in your praising the body to him and explaining how
our faith, instructed by God, praises the body •.. But Porphyry says,
"It is without reason that you praise the body; whatever sort of body
it is, if the soul wishes to be happy the body is to be avoided alto-
gether".711
Is this statement "It is without reason that you praise the body" a
quotation from Porphyry or a rhetorical ascription of the thought to
him? In most passages Augustine only quotes the dictum "Flee the
bodily altogether", sometimes adding, "so that that the soul can abide
in blessedness with the Father"," But on at least one other occasion
he notes that Porphyry denied the resurrection by saying that the soul's
blessedness is "not only without earthly bodies, but without any bodies
at aU"-a statement which could be directed against the doctrine of
resurrection, but could just as well be directed against the Pythagorean
notion that the soul would have an astral body after death.77 Although
it is possible, therefore, that Porphyry directly attacked the Christian
doctrine of resurrection, he may have merely denied in quite general
terms that the soul retains any material "vehicle", or he may have left
this conclusion to be inferred from his exhortation to flee the bodily
altogether. 7B
What makes it doubtful whether Porphyry spoke very suongly
against the doctrine of resurrection in this connection is that Augus~
tine's response was chiefly to Porphyry's description of beatitude. and
only secondarily to the denial of a bodily component in it. We can, I

76 Serm. 241.7 (PL 38, 1137): "Omne dixit, quasi omne corpus vinculum
aerumnosum sit animae. Et prorsus si corpus qualecumque est fugiendum. non
est ut laudes ei corpus, et dicas quomodo Deo docente fides nostra laudat cor-
pus .... Sed ait Porphyrins: Sine causa mlhi laudas corpus; qualecumque sit
corpus, si vult esse beata anima, corpus est omne fugiendum".
76 See the fragments in Bidez, 38*-42 •.
71 De civ. Dei XII.19 (note 72 above),
78 O'Meara, Philosophy from Orat:les 92 and 133, views this passage in Serm.
241.7 as confirmation that On the Return of the Soul was the same work as the
Philosophy from Oracles and that it contained a vigorous anti-Christian polemic.
On the other side, Pierre Hadot in his critique of O'Meara, 'Cltations de Por-
phyre chez Augustin (A propos d'un ouvrage recent)" REA 6 (1960) 221-23
points out that Augustine, like Ambrose, had been able to read the De regressu
at an earlier time without sensing any anti-Christian bias; but Hadot may be
overdrawing hls case when he says that the precept to flee the bodily is within
the context of a critique of the Chaldaean sacraments and has no relation to
the question of resurrection, for the precept appears rather to belong to an ex-
position of the conditions under which pennanent beatitude Is possible.
Porphyry and Augustine 137

think, go even farther. It seems to me that Augustine owed much to

Porphyry's conception of beatitude, and that it pointed him toward an
important new insight in his theology.
In a passage which Bidez does not put in bold face as a fragment
from Porphyry's On the Return of the Soul but which I suspect belongs
to his argument, Augustine traces the reason for his taking a position
that is opposed to the traditional Platonist doctrine of repeated em-
bodiments. It is paradoxical, the passage says. to suppose that purifica-
tion causes a soul to forget its past evils, with the result that, because of
this forgetfulness, it once more desires union with a body which will
again entangle it in those evils; this is to make happiness the cause of
unhappiness, wisdom of foolishness, purification of defIlement. The
nature of beatitude must be conceived quite differently. One cannot
be truly happy if one knows that happiness will end, or if one believes
that it will be unending when in fact one is merely deluded. The only
happiness that fully deserves the name is that which is unending, with
certitude that it is permanent, and with assurance that this certitude is
not erroneous-in other words, beatitude is a rejoicing in the truth,
not in deception.'7D

7t De ciIJ. Dei X.30 (CC 47, 307-8): "Merito dispUcult hoc Porphyrio quo-
niam re uera credere stu]tum est ex illa uita, quae beatissima esse non poterit
nisi de sua fuerit aeternitate certissima, deslderare animas corruptibilium corpo-
rum labem et inde ad ista remeare, tamquam hoe a,gat summa purgatio, ut
inquinatio requiratur. Si enlm quod perfecte mundantur hoc effielt, ut omnium
obliuiscantur malornm, malornm autem obliuio facit corporum desiderium, ubi
rursus implieentur malis: prpfeeto erit infelieltatls causa summa fel1eitas et
stultitiae causa perfectio sapientiae et inmunditlae causa summa mundatlo.
Nec ueritate ibi beata erit anima, quamdiucumque erit, ubi oportet fallatur, ut
beata sit. Non enhn beata erit nisi securaj ut autem secura sit, falso putabit
semper S6 beatam tore, quonlam allquando erit et miaera. Cui ergo gaudendi
causa falsitas erlt, quo modo de uerltate gaudebit~" Ibid. XII.21 (CC 48, 377-
78): "Quid enim illa beatitudlne falsius atque fallaeius, ubi nos tuturos miseros
aut in tanta uerltatis luce nesciamus aut in summa felicitatis arce timeamus?
Si enim uenturam calamitatem 19noratun sumus, peritior est hie nostra miseria,
ubi uenturam beatitudinem nouimus; sl autem nos HUe clades inminens non
latebit, beatius temp ora translglt anima misera, quibus transactls ad beatltu-
dinem subleuetur, quam beata, quibu8 transactis in miseriam reuo]uatur. Atque
ita spes nostrae infelicltatis est felix et felicitatis infelix. Vnde fit, ut, quia hie
mala praesentia patimur, ibi metuimu8 lnmlnentia, uerius semper miseri quam
beati allquando esse possimus". ct. Sum. 241.5 (PL 38, 1136): "Ad hoc, philo-
sophi. perduxistis, ut purgentv.r animae, perveniant ad summam munditlam, et
per ipsam munditlam obUvlscantur omnia, et per obUviones mlseriarum redeant
ad mfserias corporum .... Deinde, lOgO te, seiunt se istae animae in eoelo,
passuras esse rursus huius vitae miserias, an neseiunt., Elige quod volueris.
Si sciunt se passuras esse tantas miserias, quomodo sunt beatae, miserias suas
futuras eOgitantes'1 quomodo sunt beatae, ubi sunt sine securitate? Sed video
Eugene TeSelie 138

This is a line of thought that Augustine made his own. In The

City of God he wrestles with the question whether both the angels who
fell and those who remained faithful were created in the same state of
happiness. The criterion of beatitude that we have just outlined is
brought to bear, and it poses a number of perplexities. If the angels
who fell were created with some kind of beatitude, it could not have
involved an assurance that it would endure eternally; but if they had
from the first some knowledge that they would fall, then they would
not be in a situation equal to that in which the faithful angels began.
Augustine's answer is that all began in the same state of provisional
beatitude, that their remaining faithful or falling away was the outcome
of their own free decision,' and that it was only after this that the faith-
ful angels were given assurance that their beatitude would never come
to an end.80 Augustine's earlier difficulties over the nature of the
initial state of the angels came in large part from the application of
this same criterion of beatitude. In a letter to Jerome dated by Gold-
bacher about 403-4, he poses a dilemma: beatitude involves not only
knowledge but foreknowledge; but the Devil. while he was still one
of the good angels, must have had foreknowledge of his own future fall
and his eternal punishment. He asks Jerome what his answer would
be.81 As for himself, he adopts (or more likely retains) the opinion that
the angels were created in an intermediate state, neither good nor evil,
and simultaneously were issued a divine invitation which was accepted
by some and rejected by others in their first act of willing.st
We can trace the influence of Porphyry's definition of beatitude
back to the period around 400, when Augustine, in the last books of

quid eligas: dicturus es, Nesciunt. Laudas ergo ibi hanc ignorantiam. quam me
nunc habere non sinis, docendo me in terra, quod me nesciturum dieis in ooe10.
Nesciunt, inquis. Sf nesciunt, et non se putant esse passuras. errando sunt
beatae. Quod enim passurae sunt, putant se non passuras: quod falsum putare,
quid est aliud quam errare? Erunt ergo errore felices; erunt beatae, non aeter-
nitate sed falsitate".
80 De ci/}. Dei XJ.13.
81 Ep. 73.7 (CSEL 342 , 271): "Haec porro non tantum scientia, quaIis
quisque sit, uerum etiam praescientia, qualis futurus sit. si est in sanctis et
beatis angelis, quo modo fuerit diabolus beatus aliquando, cum adhuc angelus
bonus esset. seiens futuram iniquitatem suam et sempitemum suppllcium, om-
nino non uideo. de qua re, sf tamen earn nosse opus est, uel\em audire, quid sen-
tias".
82 In De Gen. ad litt. XI.23.30 (CSEL 281 , 355) be says that the Devil at
once (continuo) turned away from the light, since he "did not stand in the Truth
from the beginning" (John 8.44). This is in line with the assumption of De
lib. arb. III.24.71-73 that man was created in a middle state, or or De spiro et
lilt. 33.57 that the will is a middle power between good and evil
Porphyry and Augustine 139

the Confessions and in the Literal Commentary on Genesis, worked out a

theory of nature and grace in connection with his exposition of the
creation narrative.sa What is crucial to this new development in Au-
gustine's thought is that the problem of change and permanency--al-
ways important to Augustine, of course-is resolved not merely in
terms of the beatific vision of God (there had long since been that
emphasis, and it remained) but in terms of a gratuitous act on God's
part. by which not only men but angels are given a constancy of will
which they could never have attained by themselves because of their
finitude and mutability. r have already suggested that this insight
owes much to the passage in Plato's Timaeus (4lA-B) in which the
Demiurge says to the heavenly gods,
Consider those works of which I am the Father and Maker {the
gods themselves, and the corporeal world as a whole, but not the
particular things, which are the work of the gods]. Although what
has been bound together can be dissolved again, only an irrational
will would wish them to be unbound. Because you have come into
being, you are not immortal and indissoluble; nevertheless you will
not be dissolved, and death cannot touch you, for no hazard is stronger
than my own purpose, which is a greater bond of your endurance
through time than those natural bonds with which you were held
together when you came into being.
And I have suggested that Augustine was made aware of it, not by
reading the Timaeus as a whole, or even the portion translated by
Cieero, but through Porphyry's use of it."
In a number of passages- Augustine plays off Porphyry'sexhorta-
tion to "flee the bodily altogether", with its consequent denial of resur-

88 For a more complete discussion of what is involved, see my 'Nature and

Grace in Augustine's Expositions of Genesis 1,1-5', RA 5 (1968) 95-137.
II' Augustine till! Theologian, 253-56. It must 'be acknowledged that certain
anticipations of this understanding of nature and grace are to be found in earlier
writings. For example, in De ver. rei. 55.113 (CC 32, 260) he says: "Quae tamen
omnia neque fierent a patre per filium neque Buis finibw salua essent, nisi deus
summe bonus esset, qui et nulU naturae, quae Db ipso bona use posset, inuidit,
et in bono ipso alia, quantum uellent, alia, quantum possent, ut manereni, dedit.
Quare Ipsum donum dei cum patre et fillo aeque incommutahile colere et tenere
nos conuenit: .•. unum deum, ... principium, ad quod recurrlmus, et formam,
quam sequimur, et gratiam, qua reeonclliamur •... " If this is not simply the
result of Augustine's Trinitarian speculations during that period (see Augustine
the Theologian 116-23), it may manifest the influence ot Porphyry even then-and
there are other indications as well that Augustine read Porphyry's De regressu
about 390, or even in 386.
86 Sum. 241.7-8; De Trin. XIII.9.12; De CiD. Dei X.29, XII.20, XIII.16-18,

XXII.26.
Eugene TeSelle 140

rection, against this passage from the Timaeus and the classic Platonist
doctrine that the gods and the World Soul everlastingly possess their
perfect bodies. On occasion Augustine hints of his own dependence
upon Porphyry, as when he says that those who hold to the possibility
of endless beatitude but without a body refute their own doctrine by
believing in the eternity of the world." And conversely, with respect
to the question whether the cosmos came into being "in time", as the
Timaeus appears to state, or has existed ''from eternity", so that the
Timaeus narrative must be interpreted, with most of the Platonists, as a
partially misleading image of eternal relationships," Augustine poses a
question about the soul and its beatitude. If the soul has always
existed, as the Platonists" say, Porphyry has made the important
concession that it can gain a beatitude which begins at a certain time
and from then on is eternal. This, Augustine suggests. breaks the
consistency of Platonist dogma, for it has introduced at least one in-
stance in which something has a beginning in time but has no end.
Augustine may only be turning one feature of Platonist teaching against
another; but it is possible that Porphyry had enunciated the principle
that nothing can be without end except that which is without begin-
ning, attending only to the duration of substances and overlooking the
importance of changes in their state.·
These arguments for a dependence upon Porphyry, it must be
admitted, are only circumstantial. There is one other piece of evidence,

88 I have already pointed out (Augustine the Theologian 253-54) the expres-
sion ''ipsi redarguant" in De Trin. XIII.9.12, which suggests that the refutation
was somehow present in the same work in which a disembodied beatitude was
asserted. Courcelle, Late Latin Writers 219 n. 82 also calls attention to Serm.
241. 7 (PL 38, 1137): "Sed nolo hinc diutius disputare, libros "utros lego: mundum
istum animal dieitis.". et ipsam animam Mundi vocarl lovem, vel vocari
Hecatem .... " The Identification of Hecate with the World Soul was charac-
teristic of the Chaldaean Oracles, and Porphyry probably mentioned it in con-
nection witbthe perpetulty of the anImated world.
8? See note 49 above.
88 De cil1. Dei X.31 (CC 47, 3(9): "Porro si allquid in illa, quod ex aetemo
non fult, esse coepit ex tempore, cur non fieri potuerit, ut ipsa esset ex tempore
quae anten non fuisset'l Deinde beatitudo quoque eius post experlmentum ma-
]orum finnior et sine fine mansura, sicut iste confItetur, procul dubio coepit ex
tempore, et tamen semper erit, cum ante non fuertt. Ilia igitur omnis argumen-
tatio dissoluta est, qua putatur nihil use posse ,ine fine temporia, nisi qurxl. initiunt
non habet temporis". Cf. ibid. XII.21, where in addition to this argument from
novelty Augustine poses the dilemma that, If souls one by one are being freed
from the cycle, in infInite ages there would have to be a real infinity of souls to
supply this process.
Porphyry and AUfIll8tine 141

however, that is direct. According to Augustine, Porphyry had said

that it is "given to only a few" to reach God through understanding,
and this was in connection with a quotation from Plato (probably
Phaedo 66A-67B) which Porphyry interpreted to the effect that man
cannot attain to perfect wisdom during the present life, but that by
the "providence and grace of God" it might be reached afterward."
The passage in Plato merely says that wisdom is attainable only when
the soul is "by itself, apart from the body", and it comes to a climax
with the exhortation to remain free from bodily distractions "until God
himself sets us free"; but from passages in other writers who also seem
to be dependent upon Porphyry it appears that he added that this is
granted (concessum) by God. and whether he actually used the terms
"providence and grace" or not, at least Augustine understood him to
be implying that.1IO
It may be paradoxical to suggest that Porphyry. whom Augustine
so often reproached for his proud denial of the grace of God, somehow
aided Augustine to come to a better understanding of grace. But Au-
gustine himself implies, in the passage in question, what the difference
is: that Porphyry knew about God as the goal, that he even knew
something about the need for grace in relation to the weaknesses of
finite nature, but that he did not take seriously the depth of sin and
guilt and therefore could not in humility accept the Incarnation as
the only way by which to be reconciled with God. But while Porphyry
was clearly not the person to tell him anything about grace in relation
to fallen nature, he may still have suggested something about grace in
relation to unfallen nature; at least this is where the evidence seems to
point.

88 De civ. Dei X.29 (CC 47, 304): "Confiteris tamen gratlam, quando quidem
ad Deum per uirtutem inteUegentiae peruenire paucis dicis esse concessum.
Non en1m dicis: Paucls placuit, uel: Pauci uoluerunt; sed cum dieis esse conus-
sum, procul dubio Del gratiam, non hominis sufficientiam con/lials. Vteris
etiam hoc uerbo apertiu8, ubi Platonia sententiam sequens nee ipse dubitas in
hac nita hominem nullo modo ad pufectionem sapienti~ pOU1!Rire, secundum
intelIeetum tamen uiuentlbus omne quod deeat prouldentla Del 6t gratia post
hane uitam posse compleri".
110 Courcelle, Late Latin Writers 37-SS notes the parallel with Macrobius,
In Somn. Scip. 1.13.15, and also (242-43) with Claudianus Mamertns, De statu
animae. O'Meara, Porphyry's Philosophy from Oracles, 129-31, 140...U,.calls at-
tention to the presence of the adjective "coneessum" in De civ. Dei X.32 and
XIX.23, both passages having to do with Porphyry; but they do not pertain to
the subject at hand, for they speak of "providence and grace" in relation to
hiatorical revelation, not to life after death.
Eugene TeSelie 142

IV. The Possibility of Resurrection

Our last topic is the most straightforward. and it has already been
touched upon here and there as it became necessary to disentangle other
themes from it; therefore we can be more brief.
It was not during the focal period around 400 but a few years later.
that Augustine began to discuss seriously the philosophical or scientific
objections which had been raised against the doctrine of the resurrec-.
tion, and this problem was usually kept distinct from the previous one.
The objections are of two varieties. There are questions of the sort that
Porphyry is known to have raised in his work Against the Christians:
If Christ's resurrected body was incorruptible, why did he eat 'I Why
did he rise with his wounds? Will all rise similarly, with their blemishes
and wounds 'I Will children rise as children 'I What about infants ,/91
The other objection is of a more philosophical character, based on the
doctrine of the elements: How can an earthly body be in the heavens,
which are pure etherial fire?DS
Augustine answers this second objection by citing numerous
common-sense examples which refute the absolute order of the ele-
ments-ships of wood or metal fioat on water; water floats in the air
as clouds; and so on.83 We must admit that this would not have been
viewed by Porphyry, or the philosophers upon whom he was building.
as an incisive argument. They knew that particular things exhibit all
sorts of exceptions to the natural order of the elements; but precisely
that was the problem: organisms die. things disintegrate. because they
are constituted by a mixture of elements, often taken precariously
out of their proper position. Augustine's other argument, which we
have considered in the previous section-his argument for the resur-
rection of the body from the Platonist doctrine of the eternity of the
animated world-would not have been considered any more incisive.
For they differentiated between particular corporeal things, which

III Serm. 242.2-4.

112 Sum. 242.6-7. The problem is first mentioned in De Gen. ad litt. 11.1-3
in connection with the "waters above the heavens" (Genesis 1.7). Jean Pepin,
TMologie cosmique et thealogie chretienne (Ambroise, Exam. I 1, 1-4) (Paris 1964)
443-57, gives some convincing arguments that Porphyry's work Against the
Christians was the ultimate source of this objection as well. The objection is
already noted in passing in De lid. et symb. 6.13, from the year 393-a fact which
once again serves to highlight the complexity of any chronological investigation
of these matters and probably indicates that Augustine received his infonnation
about Porphyry's attacks on Christianity incrementally, over a period of a
number of years.
83 Serm. 242.8~10; ct. De Gen. ad lilt. II.l~3; De ci". Dei XIII.1S, XXII.4
and 11.
Porphyry and Augustine 143

dissolve because of their precarious constitution, and the world as a

whole, which cannot be dissolved fOf the reason that its elements are
held in their appropriate places, with the extremes of earth and fire
mediated by water and air.N The debate in a sense comes to a draw.
The philosophers are able to hold on to the difference between particular
bodies and the world as a whole. Augustine for his part is able to cite
the familiar address to the gods in Timaeus 41A-B to make the point
that, if the will of God is conceded to hold all things together, then we
cannot make a priori restrictions on what states of affairs, otherwise
impossible, it might effect;9$ for the rest he must simply express his
regret that his opponents will not submit to the authority of the Scrip-
tures, which would make the issue plain.86

V. Conclusion

We have traced four motifs that are pertinent to the relationship

between Porphyry and Augustine during the focal period around the
year 400. They remain distinct from each other (though there is often a
close association between the first and the second, and the third and
the fourth), and when we plot out their chronology we find that they
enter Augustine's writings at different times and under varying cir-

" Pepin, 420-33, traces this tradiUon from the TimUWJl and Aristotle's
lost work De philosophia into the later Stoie and Peripatetic traditions. He notes
that this particular point was made especially by Philo and Cieero, whose com-
mon source was probably Porphyry's as well. (For Porphyry himself, we might
add, the World Soul's own "body" is a pure light which mediates or binds together
the fire of the heavens and the earth and air of the lower regions (Proclus, In
Tim., diss. IS-Kroll II 196-97]). In defense of Augustine's reputation as a de-
bater it should be noted that Pepin thinks that Augustine does not reflect any
awareness of the distinction I have noted between the hazardous constitution of
particular things and the harmony of the elements in the world as a whole
(428, 431); it may be, then, that the problem of the order of the elements was
thrown out as an isolated debating pOint against the resurrection by Porphyry
or by a later follower.
i5 Serm. 242.7 (PL 38, 1141): "Tatum ad voluntatem suam redegit Deus,
qua potest et quod impossibile est. Nam quid est aliud, 'Non potestis esse
immortales, sed ut non moriamini ego facio', nisi, 'Et quod fieri non potest, ego
facio' '}" Cf. De ciu. Dei XXIL25 (CC 48, 853): "Vtrum enim nQn patest facere
ut resurgat caro et uiuat in aetemum, an propterea credendum non est id eum
esse facturum, quia malum est atque indignum Deo'}" As P~pin (447 D. 1) points
out, this is not a mere debate over omnipotence and its scope, for Porphyry, in a
passage preserved in Macarlus Magnes IV.24 says that God "cannot" do some
things, not because of weakness but because of his nature, and Augustine may
even have lifted this distinction for his own use in ollier contexts.
III De Cillo Dei XI.34.
Eugene TeSelle 144

cumstances. As a result the problem of identifying the influences upon

Augustine is made more complex than ever.
Not much can be proved from Augustine's interpretation of
Romans 1 and his indictment of the Platonists under its tenns in Con-
fessions VII.9.15, for the passage is dominated, indeed, overpowered
by the concerns Augustine had during the years 395-400 with this and
other passages of Scripture.· The information that it gives about the
Platonists remains too ambiguous to have any independent value.
But we can be sure that his later allegation that they were deceived by
the daemons does not enter into it.
In the case of the theme of mediation we find a long process of
development. There are some early discussions of the way and the
goal. and they even include some investigations of the nature of media-
tion. But there is a marked intensification of this concern after 395,
when in On Christian Doctrine (II.23.35-36) he mentions for the first
time the problem of false mediators. The suggestion that the Platonists
are themselves victims of the daemons does not enter until later-al-
lusively in the ConfesSions (VII.21.27 and X.42.67), explicitly in On
the Trinity (IV.15.20) and The City of God (X.29). All of this would
suggest a moderate influence from Porphyry in the earlier period, per-
haps even in Milan (probably On the Return of the Sou I), next an aware-
ness of Porphyry's criticisms of some aspects of popular religion in
395-96 (probably the Epistle to Anebo), and only then. about 400, the
full discovery of the extent to which Porphyry himself was involved
with the daemons (probably The Philosophy from Oracles, and. in a
somewhat more diffuse way, awareness of the criticisms directed by
Porphyry against the gospels and against the Bible as a whole).
The insights into the nature of beatitude, for which I have suggested
Porphyry was to some extent responsible. come about 400. The indica-
tions given in book X of The City of God are that this would be through
On the Return of the Soul-a work which Augustine may have read long
since, but from which he gained these new insights only during this
intense period of reflection pro and contra the philosophers.
The objections to the resurrection likewise appear only after 400.
Probably these come from Porphyry's work Against the Christians-not
the work as a whole. since it had been suppressed since the time of
Constantine, but through excerpts-perhaps different collections of
excerpt5-Qf through scattered objections to Christianity raised by
contemporary pagans." Or Augustine may have learned of Porphyry's

8'1 See Pepin 458-61, and also Pierre CourceUe, • Propos antlehr6tlens rap-
porth par S. Augustin', RA 1 (1958) 185 n. 90. It is to be noted that at least
PorphlJl'Y and Augwtim 145

criticisms through some Christian work that was refuting them. We

know that Augustine wrote several letters to Paulinus of Nola in 395-
96. saying that he had heard that Paulinus was writing a work "against
the pagans" and asking with some urgency for a copy of it; and in the
first of the letters he also requests a copy of Ambrose's work against
those who say that Christ learned from the writings of Plato.II
Unfortunately we cannot know the-result of these requests, for
there is a lacuna in the correspondence ·with Paulinus until 404. Har-
nack suggested that Augustine's Wish was fulfilled. not by Paulinus
himself but by a follower of his. Fragments of a work by a certain Paca-
tus still survive, and Harnack identifies him with the Gallic rhetor
who became a Christian about this time and was associated with Pau-
linus.8V We are also left in ignorance concerning the work of Ambrose

one set of excerpts. prepared about 300, was the source of the objections answered
by Macarius Magnes a hundred years later (AdoH von Harnack, Krilik des Neuen
Tesitllmnls /JOn einem griechiscJren PhilosopJII!n du 3. Jahrlwn.derls. Die 1m
Apocriticus des Mcu:arius Magna mthaltene Streilscbri/t [Texte und Untersu-
chungen 37.4. Leipzig 1911}: the fragments preserved in Macarius playa major
role in Harnack's edition of 'Porphyrius. "Gegen die Christen", 15 Bilcher.
Zeugnisse, Fragmente und Referate', Abhandlungm tIer klJniglich prewsischtn.
Akademie del' Wuserueha/t, Philosophisch-hisIDruche Klass!, 1916, no. 1). This
does not appear to be the same set of excerpts, fither in order of topics or in scope
of treatment. as that to which Augustine replied in De corueruu e"angelistarum,
about 400. Whether the objections to the resnrreetion belonged to that same
document is uncertain; at least they are not mentioned in De coru. eD., and they
could have been made known to Augustine in some other way. Then perhaps
about 406 or later Deogratias wrote to him from Carthage listing six objections,
some of which are said to be from Porphyry (all of them could be). It is only
late in Augustine's career that he seems to have been made aware of the question of
what happens to bodies that have been burned. and scattered, or eaten by preda-
tory animals. or digested into the bodies of other human beings through canni-
balism (De elv. Dei XXII.U-12).
118 Ep. 31.8 (CSEL 34', 7-8): "Aduersus paganos te scribere didici ex fratrl-
bus. sl quid de tuo pectore meremur, indifferenter milte, ut legamus ••• libros
beatissimi papae Ambrosii credo habere sanct1tatem tuam; eos autem multum
desidero, quos aduersus nonnullos inpertissimos et superb_imos, qui de Plato-
nis libris domlnum profeclsse eontendunt, diligentissime et eopiosissime serlp-
sit". Goldbacher dates this letter 395, just after Augustine was made a bishop.
Soon afterward, in the summer months, he wrote again (Ep. 42), asking for his
work "aduersus daemonicolas", and then again late in the year (Ep. 45), once
again requesting the work "aduersus paganos",
... Adolf von Harnack, • Neue Fragmente des Werks des Porphyrius gegen
die Christen. DIe Psendo-Polycarpiana und die Schrift des Rhetors PACAtn8 gegen
Porphyrius " Siimng$berichte tIer Preussischen Akade.mie del' Wiuerucha/ten,
1921, 266-84 and 834-35. Fragments of Pacatus Contra Porphytium are pre-
served by John the Deacon (Pitra, Spicllegium Solesmense 1 [Paris 1852] 281-82)
Eugene TtSelle 146

which Augustine requested. Courcelle has demonstrated that Augustine

did not have it in hand at the time he wrote On Christian Instruction
in 396, for he later confesses error in attributing to Ambrose the view
that, rather than Christ learning from the writings of Plato, Plato
learned from Jeremiah when both of them were in Egypt.too Unfor-
tunately very little is known about the work, most of the fragments
being preserved by Augustine in his later writings. But it is clear that
it attacked the doctrine of metempsychosis and turned the Timaeus
against its own view that only the soul was created by God.lot And if a
chapter in The City of God can be viewed as a correction of Augustine's
earlier beliefs on the basis of a reading of the work, it suggested that
Plato knew at least the opening verses of Genesis through an interpreter,
and that his doctrine of earth and fire at the extremeS, water and air
as intermediary, was a garbled version of this passage.- But it is
diffieult to know either when Augustine finally secured the work or
what it actually suggested to him.
The results of this exploration of Porphyry and Augustine remain
inconclusive at many points, and they may do little more than bring
the complexities into sharper focus so that further research can be
undertaken. It is evident that for about a decade, beginning in 395-
96, Augustine had an intense interest in the pagan-Christian debate,
chiefly as it centered around Porphyry, and that this interest was
nourished by a steady flow of manuscripts of Porphyry's writings and
inquiries from contemporary Christians. But all too often we fail to
find an exact correspondence between the appearance of a motif in
Augustine's writings and a demonstrably new influence. Especially

and Victor of Capua, whose excerpts from "Polyearpus" are probably from "Pa-
catus" (Pitra 266-67). Though questions have been raised concerning Harnack's
identification, Courcelle has once again argued in its lavor (Late Latin Writers
226 and n. 10). Credit should be given to Pitra, who long ago suggested that the
Pacatus of this text must be the associate of Paulinus of Nola (LVII-LXI).
100 The statement is made in De dod. ehr. 11.28.43. In Retr. 30 (IIA) (CSEL
36, 136-37) he says of the passage, "me fefelllt memoria". Courcelle. Recherches
sur les Confessions de saint Augustin (Paris 1950) 174 n. 1 points out that this
must mean that Augustine had read the work in MUan in 386, and when he was
writing the passage in De doctrina christiana he wrote to Paulinus to secure a
copy of the work so that he could check the point. What he remembered was a
chronological discussion of the dates at which Plato and Jeremiah were in Egypt;
what he forgot was that Ambrose demonstrated that Plato would have been too
late to know Jeremiah and too early to read the Greek translation of tbe Serip-
tures (De eil}. Dei VIII.l1).
101 C. Jul. Pel. 1I.7.19.
102 De CiD. Dei VIIl.ll.
Porphyry and Augustine 147

in the case of On the Return of the Soul it would appear that Augustine
possessed the work for many years, perhaps from the time just prior
to his conversion, but only gradually learned the value of this or that
aspect of it for understanding the Christian faith or for engaging in
polemic against the pagans. This is only to be expected, for we should
have learned, if not from Aristotle then from Whitehead, that a cause
exerts its influence only to the extent that a recipient is ready to feel
its effects.
Eugene TeSelle
Vanderbilt University