Porphyry's Against the Christians: The Literary Remains

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Summary: A Pagan Writes Back
Review: The pagan reactions to Christianity are not as well known as they should be. In the eyes of many people, Christianity unfolded on a blank page--guided by providence and assured of victory. The words of {Porphyry of Tyre, the neoPlatonic philosopher-scribe who preserved the writings of Plotinus, give us a whole new slant on the struggle. I recommend this book highly.

Rating:
Summary: It's a shame the original work is lost
Review: This is a fascinating look at early criticism of Christianity from the Roman perspective. Obviously, the material Hoffmann brought together in this volume represent mere fragments of the original 15 books Porphyry composed against the Christians (all copies of the original work were ordered burned by the Church in 448). It is nonetheless interesting to read Porphyry's extant criticisms of the inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities found in the Christian gospels.
The epilogue Hoffmann includes for context on Jewish, Christian, Pagan interaction in the 3rd century is worth the cover price.

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Summary: Unusual text, but could do with better editing
Review: While many of Porphyry's works were copied in Christian times, and Christians were generally interested in Neoplatonism, his work in 16 books rubbishing the Christians is lost. Works calculated to annoy both readers and copyists have few chances to survive. It was condemned as a mischievous libel by Constantine, without much effect, and again by Theodosius (448AD). The refutations by Apollonius, Methodius and Eusebius are sadly also lost. However fragments exist in various works by the church fathers, about half of which come from the Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes, preserved in a single 15th century MS (now lost). These are the fragments presented here.

The book isn't aimed at the specialist - the issues of dating, the MS tradition (less info than in this review!), the many philological issues with the text are not addressed, and footnotes are only for the translation, and mostly simply summarise Macarius' response. However references to the Apocriticus are given (an improvement on the same author's Celsus).

There is a rather pointless essay occupying the second half of the book, which the author admits is not for specialists and has not a single footnote. The introduction is unsatisfactory - for instance it does not even list the works of Porphyry. On the first page the quote from Tertullian from Ad Scapulam (title not given but obvious) is inaccurate; the lack of footnotes makes it hard to check others.

The translation is very crisp, and much the best part of the book. It is not always very accurate. For instance he translates "The evangelists were fiction-writers - not observers or eye-witnesses to the life of Jesus" (p.32) where the Greek (and Crafer) says "The evangelists were inventors, not historians of the events concerning Jesus" (p.38, Crafer, p.20 of Blondel's text). Hoffmann's version suggests they were not eye-witnesses, and consequently he can make no sense of Macarius' reply. The correct translation allows us to see that 'Porphyry' has no opinion on this - a 20th century idea - but just says that their accounts are invented.

I had wondered whether the book was worth doing. It is hard to imagine a series of reconstructions of lost anti-semitic literature being made. But somewhat to my surprise, it does have a contribution to make - a definite picture of the nature of Porphyry's work emerges, which makes it plain why it no longer exists.

The arguments of Porphyry will appeal to Christian-haters - apparently the target audience (in the first couple of pages of the introduction almost every statement by a Christian writer is labelled a 'boast' or 'brag'). Porphyry's method is to highlight by pretending an 'idiot-boy' obtuseness to what used to be called quaintly 'bible difficulties'. A few pages of this will be enough for most readers, other than the anti-Christian believer.

But the power of the work lay in its silent appeal to the embarassment at being different that any minority feels in a society that does not share its values. He sneers at Christian respect for the poor, for instance. Frequently he does not argue - merely assert that such an attitude is shameful. Of course once times changed, this process worked in reverse, and his appeals to the shibboleths of a vanished society were at best meaningless, and the obtuseness embarassing even to his admirers in Christian Greece. This then is the real reason the work had power, and why it is lost.

This book suffers because the editing is not up to standard, and the statements made are usually undocumented and too often have not been verified. I missed any discussion of the many interesting problems of philology posed by the text. It would have been nice if Hoffmann had gone to look for the MS, as I suspect it is only lost because no-one has seriously searched.

It is always nice to see a new version of any ancient work, even if a popularisation like this, particularly for so obscure a work as the Apocriticus.

Note: This text has not been considered an academic work by the scholarly community; it is not listed in the academic bibliography l'Annee Philologique, and so I presume was not reviewed by any academic journals.