Jews and Others
the barriers created by the existence of different human languages groups,
he seems to do the opposite: ‘‘the language of the Syrians’’ is represented as
being just as unintelligible for Greeks as that of Scythians, Thracians, or Per-
sians. He does not seem, here or anywhere else, to claim any linguistic or
cultural affinity uniting the users of Semitic languages in the Near East.
To treat the question of Porphyry’s cultural identity strictly in terms of
language may well, however, be too narrow. He might, as a Tyrian, none
the less have claimed a particular affinity with, or understanding of, other
elements of Near Eastern culture. He might also, in some significant way,
have made comparable claims for his relationship to other ‘‘oriental’’ cultures,
whether of regions within the Empire, like Egypt, or outside it, like Baby-
lonia, Persia, or India. To look at this question, with all its complications, as
fully as it ought to be considered, would be to re-write the whole history of
Greek culture and its relation to ‘‘alien wisdom,’’ and that obviously cannot
be attempted here. Instead, it is only possible to look briefly at the manner
of Porphyry’s self-representation in this respect, and to suggest how frail a
basis the relevant passages provide for any serious notion of Porphyry as a
man rooted in ‘‘oriental’’ culture (or cultures).
Fundamental distinctions have to be drawn here too. We may be con-
cerned with representations by Porphyry of how figures from the past, like
Pythagoras, had drawn on various sources of ‘‘oriental’’ wisdom; or with
reports of the actual reading of texts in non-Greek (and non-Semitic) lan-
guages; or with conceptions of ‘‘oriental’’ cultures and forms of learning
which were current within contemporary Greek culture. It is very relevant
to these questions that Porphyry himself records that works which were al-
legedly by Zoroaster or ‘‘Zostrianus’’ were circulating in his time, and—in
the opinion of Plotinus and his pupils—were wholly spurious. Speaking of
these pupils of Plotinus, he says: ‘‘Amelius went to forty volumes in writ-
ing against the book of Zostrianus. I, Porphyry, wrote a considerable num-
ber of refutations of the book of Zoroaster, which I showed to be entirely
spurious and modern, made up by the sectarians to convey the impression
that the doctrines which they had chosen to hold in honour were those of
the ancient Zoroaster.’’^29 This critical view is significant, even though Por-
phyry had earlier recorded that Plotinus himself had joined Gordian III’s
eastern expedition of in the hope of making contact with Persian and
even Indian learning.^30 It does not seem in fact that any of Porphyry’s explicit
references to the doctrines or practices of non-Greek peoples ever claim any
. Porphyry,V. Plot. , Loeb trans.
.V. Plot..