Select Works of Porphyry — Porphyry
Select works of Porphyry | Project Gutenberg You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Select works of Porphyry Containing his four books on abstinence from animal food; his treatise on the Homeric cave of the nymphs; and his Auxiliaries to the perception of intelligible natures. With an appendix, explaining the allegory of the wandering of Ulysses Author : Porphyry Translator : Thomas Taylor Release date : October 8, 2025 [eBook #77014] Language : English Original publication : London: Thomas Rodd, 1823 Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77014 Credits : The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK BY THOMAS TAYLOR. WITH AN APPENDIX, EXPLAINING THE ALLEGORY OF THE WANDERINGS OF ULYSSES. BY THE TRANSLATOR. Και ουτω θεων και ανθρωπων θειων και ευδαιμονων βιος, απαλλαγη των αλλων των τῃδε, ανηδονος των τῃδε, φυγη μονου προς μονον.— Plotini Op. p. 771. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THOMAS RODD, 17, GREAT NEWPORT STREET. 1823. LONDON: PRINTED BY J. MOYES, GREVILLE STREET. Select works of Porphyry | Project Gutenberg TO THE REV. WILLIAM JOHN JOLLIFFE, AS A TESTIMONY OF GREAT ESTEEM FOR HIS TALENTS AND WORTH, AND A TRIBUTE OF THE WARMEST GRATITUDE FOR HIS PATRONAGE, THIS WORK IS DEDICATED BY THE TRANSLATOR , THOMAS TAYLOR. Select works of Porphyry | Project Gutenberg INTRODUCTION. Porphyry, the celebrated author of the treatises translated in this volume, was dignified by his contemporaries, and by succeeding Platonists, with the appellation of the philosopher , on account of his very extraordinary philosophical attainments. He is likewise called by Simplicius, the most learned of the philosophers , and is praised by Proclus for his ιεροπρεπη νοηματα, or conceptions adapted to sanctity ; the truth of all which appellations is by the following treatises most abundantly and manifestly confirmed. A few biographical particulars only have been transmitted to us respecting this great man, and these are as follow. He was born at Tyre, in the twelfth year of the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, and in the two hundred and thirty-third of the Christian era; and he died at Rome, when he was more than seventy years old, in the latter part of the Emperor Dioclesian’s reign. He was also a disciple first of Longinus, and afterwards of the great Plotinus, with whom he became acquainted in the thirtieth year of his age; and it is to Porphyry we are indebted for the publication of the inestimable and uncommonly profound works of that most extraordinary man. For, as I have observed in my History of the Restoration of the Platonic Theology, it was a long time before Plotinus committed his thoughts to writing, and gave the world a copy of his inimitable mind. That light which was destined to illuminate the philosophical world, as yet shone with solitary splendour, or beamed only on a beloved few; and it was through Porphyry alone that it at length emerged from its sanctuary, and displayed its radiance in full perfection, and with unbounded diffusion. For Porphyry, in the language of Eunapius, “like a Mercurial chain let down for the benefit of mortals, unfolded every thing with accuracy and clearness, by the assistance of universal erudition.” We are likewise informed, by the same Eunapius, that Porphyry, when he first associated with Plotinus, bade farewell to all his other preceptors, and totally applied himself to the friendship of that wonderful man. Here he filled his mind with science, as from a perennial and never-satiating fount. But afterwards, being conquered, as it were, by the magnitude of his doctrines, he conceived a hatred of body, and could no longer endure the fetters of mortality.—“Hence,” says he [1] , “I formed an intention of destroying myself, which Plotinus wonderfully perceived; and as I was walking home, stood before me, and said, Your present design, O Porphyry, is not the dictate of a sound intellect, but rather of a soul raging with an atrabilarious fury . In consequence of this he ordered me to depart from Rome; and accordingly I went to Sicily, having heard that a certain worthy and elegant man dwelt at that time about Lilybæum. And thus, indeed, I was liberated from this perturbation of soul; but was, in the meantime, hindered from being with Plotinus till his death.” Porphyry also maintains a very distinguished rank among those great geniuses who contributed to the development of the genuine dogmas of Plato, after they had been lost for upwards of five hundred years; as I have shown in my above-mentioned History of the Restoration of the Platonic Theology. Among these dogmas, that which is transcendently important is this,—that the ineffable principle of things, which is denominated by Plato the good and the one , is something superior to intellect and being itself. This, as we are informed by Proclus, was demonstrated by Porphyry, by many powerful and beautiful arguments, in his treatise Concerning Principles, which is unfortunately lost. And this dogma, which was derived principally from the 6th book of the Republic, and the Parmenides, of Plato, and was adopted by all succeeding Platonists, is copiously unfolded, and the truth of it supported by reasoning replete with what Plato calls geometrical necessities, by those two great philosophical luminaries Proclus and Damascius [2] ; the former of whom was the Coryphæus of the Platonists, and the latter possessed a profoundly investigating mind. Of the disciples of Porphyry the most celebrated was Iamblichus, a man of an uncommonly penetrating genius, and who, like his master Plato, on account of the sublimity of his con