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  • A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution by Elizabeth DePalma Digeser
  • Michael Bland Simmons
Elizabeth DePalma Digeser
A Threat to Public Piety: Christians, Platonists, and the Great Persecution
Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell University Press, 2012
Pp. 240. $45.00.

Occasionally in every generation a few books may be published that refreshingly redirect scholarship in their respective areas of expertise. This book by Elizabeth DePalma Digeser indisputably falls into that category, owing to the fact that she has done something that no one has done before, namely analyzing the works of Arnobius, Lactantius, and Eusebius together to show how their common themes reveal a sustained criticism of the anti-Christian philosopher Porphyry of Tyre. In addition, she convincingly demonstrates how these Christians (including Methodius of Olympus and Origen) and prominent philosophers (Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus) of late antiquity originally espoused a “philosophy without conflicts” and drank from the same Ammonian well. Later, serious rifts occurred within and between each group, leading ultimately to the pagans’ conclusion that Christian doctrines posed a serious threat to the political well-being of the Roman Empire. The result was the Diocletianic Persecution in which Porphyry played a much more central role in influencing imperial policies than has hitherto been thought.

In the introduction Digeser suggests that when Arnobius, Eusebius, and Lactantius are read together, they point to the Porphyrian wing of the Ammonian school, which pushed for the Great Persecution. She then notes the three overarching features of the “Ammonian Community” (14–17), which thread the following chapters together: 1) a common exegesis of texts related to the “true philosophy” not available for ordinary people; 2) the role that the sensible world plays in the return of the soul to its divine source; and 3) the belief that a philosopher has a responsibility to the larger political community with respect to shaping imperial policy (which led to the outbreak of the Great Persecution).

Chapter one attempts to establish the identity of Ammonius Saccas as “one heterodox Ammonius” (17), and not two Ammonii, a Christian and a pagan, [End Page 635] who taught philosophy in Alexandria (third century c.e.). Here Digeser argues that a “philosophy without conflicts” influenced Origenist communities in Alexandria, a Plotinian school in Rome, and an Iamblichean community in Syria. Chapter two addresses the question of Origen’s identity, Eusebius’s and Porphyry’s testimony that Origen studied under Ammonius, and how the latter’s Christian legacy influenced Origen’s thought as a biblical exegete and ascetic. Chapter three asks how the Ammonian “philosophy without conflicts” influenced the Plotinian community in Rome and how its development introduced a political emphasis to what is often viewed solely as a philosophical movement. Hence, Plotinus and Porphyry were not, as scholars often argue, disinterested in the political world. The former possessed a vision of a community of philosophers in Campania, and his disciple wanted to mold imperial policies that emulated divine law.

By analyzing such works as On Abstinence, Letter to Anebo, On the Mysteries, On the Return of the Soul, and Philosophy from Oracles, Digeser in chapter four addresses the rift that developed between Porphyry and Iamblichus. Concluding that rituals cannot help the philosopher’s soul to ascend to its source, Porphyry nonetheless proposed a salvific system along three distinct paths that enabled different types of souls to return to their divine source over several lifetimes. In chapter five, Digeser sorts out the complex problem of schism in the Ammonian community, particularly the response of Porphyry to what she considers an “Origenist deviance” (129). Her analysis of the contents of the Symposium, De cibis, and Aglaophon of Methodius of Olympus leads Digeser to conclude that Methodius was one of the Origenist Christian exegetes whom, according to Eusebius, Porphyry criticized in his anti-Christian writings, and that these writings furthermore “show Porphyry’s belief that Origenists were promoting an irrationality that undermined the political order” (129). Methodius’s works, therefore, independent of Eusebius, establish a context for the neoplatonist’s criticisms of Christianity leading to the Great Persecution.

In the conclusion, Digeser shows how Porphyry’s works against the Christians, which circulated in the late third century, should be understood...

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