Porphyry

author

Porphyry

A key figure in late ancient philosophy, he helped preserve and shape the legacy of Plotinus while writing on logic, religion, and the good life. His ideas traveled far beyond his own era, influencing both medieval logic and later debates about pagan and Christian thought.

2 Audiobooks

Arguments of Celsus, Porphyry, and the Emperor Julian, Against the Christians Also Extracts from Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, and Tacitus, Relating to the Jews, Together with an Appendix

Arguments of Celsus, Porphyry, and the Emperor Julian, Against the Christians Also Extracts from Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, and Tacitus, Relating to the Jews, Together with an Appendix

by active 180 Celsus (Platonic philosopher), Siculus Diodorus, Flavius Josephus, Emperor of Rome Julian, Porphyry, Cornelius Tacitus

Select works of Porphyry : Containing his four books on abstinence from animal food; his treatise on the Homeric cave of the nymphs; and his Auxiliaries to the perception of intelligible natures. With an appendix, explaining the allegory of the wandering of Ulysses

Select works of Porphyry : Containing his four books on abstinence from animal food; his treatise on the Homeric cave of the nymphs; and his Auxiliaries to the perception of intelligible natures. With an appendix, explaining the allegory of the wandering of Ulysses

by Porphyry

About the author

Born in Tyre in the 3rd century CE, Porphyry became one of the most important Neoplatonist philosophers of late antiquity. He studied in Athens with Longinus and later in Rome with Plotinus, whose teachings deeply shaped his work.

Porphyry is especially known for editing and publishing Plotinus's writings as the Enneads, the collection through which Plotinus is mainly known today. He also wrote widely himself, including works on philosophy, religion, and interpretation. One of his most influential texts, the Isagoge, served as an introduction to Aristotle's logic and remained important for centuries.

His writing shows a restless, wide-ranging mind: he defended philosophical paganism, explored ethics and the soul, and commented on earlier thinkers with unusual clarity. Even when many of his works survived only in part, his influence remained strong in both the Greek and Latin traditions.