Porphyry in Fragments. Reception of an Anti-Christian Text in Late Antiquity by Ariane Magny (review)

In late antique Christian apologetics, Porphyry’s fifteen books Against the Christians can seem either ubiquitous or elusive. Many fourth- and fifth-century authors name Porphyry as the author of anti-Christian polemics under discussion, yet few bothered to reproduce his words. Interest in Porphyry over the past generation has remained robust, yet the pendulum has swung from optimistic reconstruction of Porphyry’s polemics (exemplified by Barnes, Beatrice, Digeser, Schott, and Simmons) to a growing skepticism about distinguishing Porphyry’s voice from those of his Christian adversaries (led by Goulet, Riedweg, Morlet, and Johnson). Ariane Magny’s book, a revision of her Bristol dissertation, pushes this skeptical turn to perhaps its furthest limits with salutary results.

Magny’s contribution is to test a promising methodology for discerning Porphyry’s voice within that of the authors who preserve it. Following classicist Guido Schepens, Magny treats the Christian adversaries of Porphyry as “cover-texts” that simultaneously “preserve, conceal, or enclose” the lost text (23). Scrutiny of cover-texts of Against the Christians occupies the bulk of Magny’s book. Indeed, due to the interference from these cover-texts, Magny concludes Porphyry “seems even further away than he ever was” (154).

To exemplify Magny’s results: her chapter on Eusebius’s citations of Porphyry in his Praeparatio and Demonstratio Evangelica stresses that the Caesarean scholar’s aim, behind the veneer of impartiality that accompanied his heavy quotation of pagan authors, was to explain Christianity and neutralize attacks against Christian antiquity and sacred texts. Magny sympathizes with Harnack’s now-controversial position that Porphyry articulated the pagan objections reproduced at the beginning of the Praeparatio (which condemns Christian betrayal of their Jewish or Greek heritage, especially their impious rejection of traditional worship: 36–40). Still, Magny finds, Eusebius more explicitly lauds Porphyry as a witness of the Christian decimation of demons and of Origen, while more gently rebutting Porphyry’s assertions that the evangelists were stupid and that the Hebrew Bible was inaccurate (e.g. DE 3.5.1, 95, 6.18). Eusebius’s tactic of calling Porphyry as a pagan witness of Christian success thus determined his often positive appeals to Porphyry, but his reticence to critique Porphyry by name obscures much of the content of Against the Christians.

Magny draws similar conclusions in subsequent chapters that read Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel, Augustine’s Epistle 102, and Augustine’s On the Harmony of the Gospels as Porphyrian cover-texts. Augustine’s Epistle 102, in which Augustine addresses six questions that a pagan posed to his correspondent, cites Porphyry three times by name and has been seen as one of the best texts for preserving Porphyry’s attacks on Christianity. Magny finds a number of stumbling blocks in identifying Porphyry’s arguments: the translation from Greek to Latin, Augustine’s likely knowing Porphyry indirectly, and the formal change of content from statements to questions (104–11). Magny then notes that, although Augustine names Porphyry three times as an antagonist, four of the six objections rebutted by Augustine appear in Celsus’s or Julian’s anti-Christian writings, and so they may come from other sources. Magny’s welcome skepticism is unlikely to convince all scholars. For example, Isabelle Bochet (“Les quaestiones attribuées à Porphyre dans la Lettre 102 d’Augustin,” in La traité de Porphyre contre les Chrétiens, ed. S. Morlet [Turnhout, 2011], 380–93) has identified close parallels between all six questions in the Augustinian epistle and Porphyry’s other writings, including elsewhere in Augustine. Such differing results will require careful empirical mediation.

Even if some will not accept some of her conclusions, Magny’s work deserves consultation from all engaged in serious study of Porphyry and of ancient pagan-Christian debate. Her contribution is timely. Despite the cautionary turn in Porphyrian studies, an excellent German edition of fragments and testimonia from Against the Christians...