SELECT WORKS OF PORPHYRY.

ON

ABSTINENCE FROM ANIMAL FOOD.

BOOK THE FIRST.

1. Hearing from some of our acquaintance, O Firmusa, that you, having rejected a fleshless diet, have again returned to animal food, at first I did not credit the report. I considered your temperance and the reverence which you have been taught to pay to those ancient and pious men from whom we have received the precepts of philosophy. But when others who came after them confirmed this report, it appeared to me that it would be too rustic and remote from the rational method of persuasion to reprimand you—you, who have neither, according to the proverb, "fleeing from evil, found something better," nor, according to Empedocles, "having lamented your former life, converted yourself to one that is more excellent." I have therefore thought it worthy of the friendship which subsists between us, and also adapted to those who have arranged their life conformably to truth, to disclose your errors through a refutation derived from an argumentative discussion.

a Porphyry elsewhere calls this Firmus Castricius his friend and fellow disciple. See more concerning him in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus.