Porphyry: Ethnicity, Language,
and Alien Wisdom
*Porphyre connaissait bien l’Orient. Il devait parler l’idiome de son pays,
peut-être même se piquait-il de comprendre l’hébreu. Il était versé
dans les mystères de la Chaldée, de la Perse et de l’Égypte. On le voit dé-
crire et interpréter une sorte d’hiéroglyphe, et manier les livres sacrés
et la littérature profane des Juifs comme des Phéniciens.
—J. Bidez,Vie de Porphyre(), Porphyry was born in about , the year when Plotinus started to
study philosophy at Alexandria. His parents were well-to-do Syrians,
and he spent most of his boyhood, so far as we know, in the busy Phoe-
nician city of Tyre. Even if he did not travel he had ample opportunity
there to make the far from superficial acquaintance with the mystery
cults and magical practices of the Middle East and beyond which his
writings were to show. He probably knew several languages by the time
he came to the West.—C. Lloyd, ‘‘Porphyry and
Iamblichus,’’ in A. H. Armstrong, ed.,Cambridge History of Later Greek
and Early Medieval Philosophy(), Porphyry did not have to make up these exegeses himself. He came
from Tyre, and his native language was Syriac. He got his exegesis of*First published in J. Barnes and M. T. Griffin, eds.,Philosophia TogataII:Plato and Aristotle
at Rome(Oxford, ), –.
I am indebted for very valuable comments and corrections to Jonathan Barnes, Gillian
Clark, and Leofranc Holford-Strevens.