Porphyry of Tyre on Theology and Theurgy

This book, the second in the 4T series that Adam Bremer-McCollum and I founded and edit, includes the first English translations of two fragmentary texts by Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234-305): the Letter to Anebo and Philosophy from Oracles. Both present the reader with challenges, for several reasons. First, they are both fragmentary, pieced together from quotations and paraphrases from other ancient authors, who aresomewhere between ambivalent and hostile to Porphyry’s views. Second, they both assume the reader’s familiarity with ancient philosophy (especially Platonism), as well as Greek and in some cases Egyptian religion, at least as practiced in Porphyry’s day. More specifically, in both texts Porphyry assumes his reader’s knowledge of theurgy: a theory and practice of working with gods and other divine beings for the purposes of divination and salvation, derived from the Chaldean Oracles and embraced by some of Porphyry’s philosophical contemporaries. Third, both texts are involved in polemics of some sort or another. The first, the Letter to Anebo, is itself polemical; it is Porphyry’s critique of theurgy, addressed to the fictional “Anebo the Egyptian,” but really aimed at Porphyry’s rival Iamblichus of Chalcis (c. 245-325). Iamblichus was a great proponent of theurgy, and his enthusiasm drew Porphyry’s fire; most of the fragments from the Letter survive as quotations and paraphrases in Iamblichus’s heated response to Porphyry, conventionally known as On the Mysteries.[1] The second text, Philosophy from Oracles, is not polemical in itself: It promotes theurgy and interprets oracles as delivering truths consistent with Platonism. But like the Letter to Anebo, the fragments of this text are preserved in polemical contexts: largely quotations and paraphrases from two Christian authors, Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260-339) and Augustine of Hippo (354-430), who are, not surprisingly, scornful of Porphyry’s position. Fourth and finally, perhaps the greatest difficulty is that Porphyry’s two texts seem to contradict each other: The Letter to Anebo is sharply critical of theurgy, while Philosophy from Oracles promotes it. This contradiction has baffled ancient and modern interpreters. Fabien Muller’s lucid introduction and commentary will help the reader navigate these difficulties, but not entirely overcome them. And that is how it should be: We should be wary of any interpretation that too quickly or neatly resolves persistent quandaries.

In the Letter to Anebo, Porphyry takes up two closely related topics: the hierarchy of divine beings (§§1-37) and the proper means and meaning of divination (§§38-110). The hierarchy of divine beings is a descending scale, with gods at the top, followed by daemons, heroes, and pure souls.[2] This is not what is under dispute between Porphyry and Anebo (Iamblichus). Rather, Porphyry questions how we can make rationally defensible distinctions among these divine beings. Such distinctions are of paramount importance because theurgy presumes to work differently with these different divine beings, and Porphyry is concerned that the theory and practice of theurgy is riven with contradictions and absurdities. In this regard he is critical of his own Platonist tradition, which he claims has too often proceeded “from speculation” and strayed from the truth (§1). As Muller writes in his commentary, “Porphyry intends to present a critical philosophy of religion that requires ideas about gods and demons to be coherent and justifiable.”3 What remains of the Letter to Anebo is just that, a critical philosophy of religion. The surviving fragments do not in its stead offer a constructive philosophy, or any proposal for a surer and better foundation for theology and theurgy. 

The distinctions among the divine beings Porphyry discusses and critiques include whether they are more or less active or passive, intellectual or material; whether we can distinguish them according to their “accidents” (properties) or only their substance; whether the different beings have different kinds of bodies (e.g. ethereal, aerial, or earthly); whether the beings can be said to reside in or associate with certain places rather than others; whether they can be ranked in terms of purity, be it moral or material; whether they are visible or invisible, or otherwise distinguishable by essence, power, or activity; and whether they differ in the manner and mode of their presence (parousia) or appearance (epipʰaneia). Iamblichus tries to answer all these questions and challenges in his response, On the Mysteries, but this is not the place to rehearse or assess his answers, because we are focused here on recovering and reconstructing Porphyry’s point of view. Even from the Letter’s fragmentary state, it is clear that Porphyry regards theurgy’s account of the hierarchy of divine beings as riven with problems that any philosopher committed to a reasoned approach to truth must call out.

The remaining fragments of the Letter (§§38-110) concern divination, or mantikē. Porphyry considers three broad kinds of divination: dreams, enthusiasm, and divine possession, all of which can yield knowledge of future events. He is hardly a thoroughgoing skeptic of divination; in fact, he concedes that prognostication is quite common. However, he favors naturalistic explanations for it and raises a skeptical eyebrow at the theurgists’ eager efforts. It just happens sometimes, he says, that when we sleep such foreknowledge comes to us. The same can happen through music and dance.

One gets the impression that Porphyry is skeptical of our efforts to cultivate or solicit this sort of event. Certainly we can’t control it. He never denies the existence of the divine hierarchy; on the contrary, he firmly believes in it, but he does not think that the divine beings predictably respond to our bidding. If they did, they would not be divine. He wonders whether gods appear “automatically” or “spontaneously” – an idea at which Iamblichus scoffs (§53). He also wonders whether our soul is itself naturally capable of generating knowledge of future events, writing, “it is the soul that speaks about these things and imagines them”; “. . . the soul’s passions are roused from small gleams”; and “small gleams rouse divine ideas in us” (§§54, 55). A gleam is unlikely to mean here the glimmer of light on water, a common feature of hydromancy; rather, a “gleam” (aitʰugma) is ethereal (from aitʰēr), suggesting that the soul itself, owing to its ethereal nature, naturally generates its own gleam or spark of this extraordinary knowledge. Notice that the soul “imagines” this, which means that imagination is the soul’s faculty of perception of realities beyond those available to our everyday sense perception or even our reason. Finally, Porphyry proposes a compromise of sorts, that the soul’s own gleam is the spontaneous spark, which is then kindled by a divine response. This is close to his earlier definition of enthusiasm, namely that “it consists of some kind of intellectual impulse” – dianoia, which is understood as natural to the soul – “accompanied by daemonic inspiration” (§42). Iamblichus finds this final proposal of Porphyry’s to be “the most plausible” or “most true” of the three (§56).

We should pause over the word daemonic (daimonion, pl. daimonia) and daemon (daimōn, pl. daimones). Before they were “demonized” in early Christianity, daimones were understood to be intermediary divine beings, shuttling between humans and gods, between earth and ether. This idea is present in Plato, especially his account of Eros as a daimōn, and was developed in the century before Porphyry by such fellow Platonists as Apuleius and Maximus of Tyre.[4] I imagine it is these two Porphyry has in mind when he chastens Greek philosophers for speculating too freely about the differences among divine beings. 

When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, the word daimōn was used to translate a range of Hebrew words for evil spirits; the New Testament follows suit and uses daimōn to refer to evil spirits needing exorcism.[5] By and large, Porphyry preserves the pre-Christian understanding of daimones as intermediary divine beings, greater than humans but inferior to the gods. Pagans and Christians use the same word, but it is precisely the pagan vs. Christian understanding of daimōn that is being worked out in such texts as the Letter to Anebo and Philosophy from Oracles. Muller translates daimōn and daimonion as “daemon” and “daemonic” – rightly, in my view – and I will follow suit.

Readers should be alive to the fact that Porphyry does not think all daemons are “demons” in the sense of malevolent beings. However, he is wary that divination can invite evil spirits or a “kind of treacherous nature, capable of assuming all forms, shifting and acting like gods, daemons, and the souls of the dead.” Such a “treacherous nature, capable of…appearing as something good or bad…can play mischievous tricks and come up with mockery and hindrances against those who pursue virtue, and it is full of delusion and delights in vapors and flattery” (§69). Iamblichus dismisses this concern, confident that he knows how to discern “the one unsullied, sacred, and truly divine kind of divination” from its evil imposter (§70). He groups Porphyry’s concern with “the opinions of the atheists…who think that all divination is brought to realization by the evil daemon.” Iamblichus is almost certainly referring to Christians here, “atheists” because they deny the gods and attribute all divination to the work of a singular evil demon, the devil or diabolos. Porphyry was certainly no fan of Christians (see below), so the fact that Iamblichus groups him with them is a provocation. But it may be that Christian discourse about demons has influenced Porphyry, such that he is cautious that evil spirits or malevolent beings (“demons”) might mimic gods or good daemons and mislead those engaged in divination.

Porphyry does believe that some daemons are malevolent, but there is no evidence to suggest that he believes there to be one evil “demon” presiding over other evil “demons” – that’s a Christian view that Iamblichus is attributing to Porphyry to discredit him. However, in these fragments Porphyry does affirm that we each have our own individual daemon, that this singular companion is “the one leader presiding” over all our other daemons, and “that the presidency over everything in us depends on one daemon.” So we each have a singular, presiding daemon, but it is benevolent, overseeing other daemons who look after our body’s “health, form, and condition” (§98). The notion of a personal daemon goes back, of course, to Socrates’s account in the Apology of his own familiar daemonic (daimonion) sign, which he says has accompanied him since childhood, and manifests only as a voice that says no and never yes. Porphyry has inherited centuries of philosophical reflection and speculation on Socrates’s daemon, some of which he clearly thinks has gone too far.