Select Works of Porphyry

INTRODUCTION.

Porphyry, the celebrated author of the treatises translated in this volume, was honored by his contemporaries and by succeeding Platonists with the title of the philosopher because of his extraordinary philosophical achievements. He is likewise called by Simplicius "the most learned of the philosophers" and is praised by Proclus for his thoughts suited to sacred things original Greek: ιεροπρεπη νοηματα (hieroprepē noēmata), or conceptions adapted to holiness. The truth of all these titles is clearly and abundantly confirmed by the following treatises.

Only a few biographical details about this great man have been preserved for us, and they are as follows. He was born at Tyre An ancient Phoenician city in modern-day Lebanon in the twelfth year of the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, in the year 233 AD. He died at Rome when he was more than seventy years old, during the latter part of the Emperor Diocletian's reign. He was also a student first of Longinus and later of the great Plotinus, whom he met in the thirtieth year of his...