Porphyry the Polymath

This paper will examine Porphyry’s engagement with the art of medicine. This side of his intellectual portrait has remained virtually unexplored until recently. Two translations of his one ostensibly “medical” work, entitled To Gaurus On How Embryos are Ensouled, brought the subject to light, respectively by Wilberding in 2011 and Brisson in 2012. Both Wilberding and Brisson acknowledge Porphyry’s explicit interest to engage with the contemporary debate about soul’s entrance in the body, held among the broader, philosophical and medical, audience of his time.

At a feast in honor of Plato shortly after he had joined the circle of Plotinian disciples, Porphyry read and interpreted a poem, “the Sacred Marriage” in front of Plotinus and his fellow pupils. While his colleagues were baffled, since it was expressed in mysterious language (διὰ τὸ μυστικῶς), and exclaimed “Porphyry is mad!”. Plotinus, for his part, declared “You have shown yourself at once poet, philosopher, and expounder of ancient mysteries” (ποιητὴν καὶ τὸν φιλόσοφον καὶ τὸν ἱεροφάντην).

In spite of the fact that Porphyry is reported to have loathed the body (Eunapius at 1T.44-45 Smith), he was certainly a polymath in wide range of suspect areas of knowledge.