Select Works of Porphyry (On Abstinence, Cave of the Nymphs, Auxiliaries)

INTRODUCTION.

It is to Porphyry that we are indebted for the publication of the inestimable and profoundly deep works of that most extraordinary man, Plotinus. 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 or shared the fruits of his inimitable mind with the world. That light which was destined to illuminate the philosophical world had, until then, shone with solitary splendor or beamed only upon a beloved few. It was through Porphyry alone that it finally emerged from its sanctuary and displayed its radiance in full perfection and with unbounded reach. For Porphyry, in the language of Eunapius, "like a Mercurial chain A reference to the golden chain of Homer, often interpreted by Neoplatonists as the symbolic connection between the divine and the terrestrial. let down for the benefit of mortals, unfolded everything with accuracy and clarity, by the assistance of universal erudition."

We are likewise informed by the same Eunapius that when Porphyry first associated with Plotinus, he bade farewell to all his other teachers and devoted himself entirely to the friendship of that wonderful man. Here he filled his mind with science, as if from a perennial and never-satiating fountain. But afterwards, being overcome by the magnitude of his own doctrines, he grew to hate the physical body and could no longer endure the fetters of mortality.