Porphyry (234-c.305) was a neoplatonist philosopher, raised in the Phoenician city of Tyre (modern Lebanon), for which reason he is called "the Tyrian". Porphyry (born Malchus) studied at Athens, under Longinus, among others, and starting in 263, he studied at Rome with Plotinus, whose biography he wrote and whose Enneads Porphyry published. After Plotinus died, Porphyry became the head of the Neo-Platonic school. He wrote books on many different topics, including a criticism of Christianity that was burned in 448 by imperial edict, commentaries and introductions to Aristotle, commentaries on Plato, Ptolemy, and the Enneads, historical work, including a biography of Pythagoras, metaphysics, religion, philosophy,. Porphyry criticized fraud in the polytheism of his day. He wrote about the caves in which practitioners of Mithraism practiced noting that they were designed like small versions of the universe (microcosms). Although limited work written by Porphyry survive, we know him through other writers, especially Eunapius.
Sources:
- Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists (1921)
- Roger L. Beck "Mithras" The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth. © Oxford University Press 1949, 1970, 1996, 2005.
- Andrew D. Barker " Porphyry" The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth. © Oxford University Press 1949, 1970, 1996, 2005.
