Emma Dyson (University of Pennsylvania)
Dramatizing the Enneads in Eunapius’ Life of Porphyry
This paper identifies philosophical elements in the biographical work of Eunapius of Sardis. It argues that Eunapius dramatizes Plotinian Neoplatonism through anecdote. The account of Porphyry’s depression (Lives of Philosophers and Sophists IV 1.7) serves as this paper’s case study. Ultimately, Eunapius is shown to use biography as a tool of philosophical communication.
The episode from Porphyry’s life has philosophical meaning precisely because it is ahistorical. According to Eunapius, Porphyry is so taken with his master Plotinus’ doctrine that he conceives a hatred of his body. He resolves upon an extreme asceticism and sails to Sicily, where he isolates himself from others, mortifies his flesh, and refuses nourishment. When he is on the verge of death, Plotinus finds him and restores his body and soul to their former strength. Yet according to Porphyry, who recorded his own undoubtedly true version of events (Penella 1990), the young philosopher had planned to end his own life while studying at Rome under Plotinus (Vita Plotini 11). When Plotinus discerned his intention, he advised Porphyry to travel to Sicily. Porphyry obeyed and recovered from his malaise independently at Lilybaeum. Scholars commenting on this discrepancy have faulted Eunapius as a careless reader of his source (Penella 1990) or, worse, a fabricator who introduced novelistic elements to his material (Bidez 1964, Goulet 1982). This paper takes a new approach by claiming that Eunapius’ departure from Porphyry's version injects new philosophical meaning into the anecdote.
First, it is argued that the youthful Porphyry of Eunapius’ Lives misunderstands Plotinus’ teaching in a way that demonstrates how not to interpret the master’s ideas. His fanatical hatred of the body resembles the Gnosticism that Plotinus had condemned as anti-materialistic in a treatise proclaiming the anagogic power of corporeal beauty (Enneads II.2.17). Plotinus’ warning about the folly of despising the body is thereby dramatized through Porphyry.
The second part of this paper examines how Eunapius constructs the story on the model of the Odyssey as it was understood by Plotinus. Eunapius’ borrowings from Homer fashion Porphyry as a wandering Odysseus (for example, he travels to Sicily “across the straits and Charybdis, along the route where Odysseus is said to have sailed”). Porphyry’s return to a proper Plotinian philosophy is figured by implication as a return to his homeland. This allegorical presentation of Porphyry’s spiritual wandering as the wandering of Odysseus is consistent with the Neoplatonic interpretation of the Odyssey as the story of a soul journeying to its homeland and avoiding the perils of the world along the way (Lamberton 1986).
Finally, once we understand the anecdote as philosophically meaningful, it becomes possible to read it not as an instance of Eunapius’ carelessness but either as his own innovation or as part of the orally transmitted lore of fourth-century Neoplatonist circles that Watts (2005) identifies as a source for Eunapius. Though the anecdote’s origins cannot be established with certainty, recognizing its Neoplatonic content allows us to appreciate the philosophical seriousness of Eunapius’ project.