Porphyry of Tyre poured a great deal of effort into his polemical work Against the Christians, frequently held up as the pinnacle of anti-Christian writing in antiquity. Unfortunately for modern scholars, both this work and his topically-related Philosophy from Oracles only survive in fragmentary form. Adding to the difficulties of scholars working on Porphyry's writings in this area, the last truly standard edition was A. von Harnack, Porphyrius. Gegen die Christen (1916). Porphyrian studies remain controversial, not least because over the last century a number of Harnack's editorial decisions have been challenged and a number of new fragments identified as Porphyrian. There is nothing radical in B.’s view of the philosopher or his work. He holds to a unified composition of Against the Christians, and after surveying the cases for dating it in either a.d. 270–71 or 303, he concludes that the evidence is insufficient to delineate between the two options (pp. 22–7). For the reception of Porphyry by Eusebius, Jerome and Augustine, B. simply refers readers to the chapters on these topics in A. Magny, Porphyry in Fragments (2014), a resource which is recent, but which I believe must be utilised with due caution (see review in CR [2015], 405–7).

While B.’s volume is useful, albeit not unique, as a modern collection of the evidence, it is much more. In terms of layout, each Porphyrian fragment receives a thorough treatment, although B.’s format may require a little getting used to, offering in sequence as it does each individual fragment or testimony, followed by German translation and then commentary. While some might wish for a critical apparatus, the various primary source texts are reproduced clearly from standard editions. The fragments and testimonies of Against the Christians are divided into three sections for genuine ones with attributions to specific chapters, genuine ones without such affiliation and dubious ones. Given that topically similar pieces may be dispersed among these, it is very helpful that B. has offset this by providing Porphyry's wide-ranging but fragmentary work with four indexes, for sources (both Biblical and others), names, places and topics. Thankfully, De Gruyter has maintained the high standards for paper and binding typical of German publishers.

Space precludes discussion of every issue or contested fragment, but suffice it to say that although there are a few specific points worth noting, B.’s analysis is generally very good. He excludes the fragments from the anonymous opponent of Macarius Magnes in his Apocriticus, which formed much of Harnack's collection, and idiosyncratically, the entire basis for R.J. Hoffmann, Porphyry's Against the Christians: the Literary Remains (1994). While B.’s decision is certainly defensible, given the anonymity of the fragments and the already substantial length of the volume, readers need to be aware that those fragments frequently attributed to Porphyry will not be treated here. B. also relegates to the ‘Dubia’ category fragment 88D (Harnack Nr. 1), a passage from the opening of Eusebius’ Preparation for the Gospel (1.1.13–1.2.5) and traditionally held to be either a quotation of Porphyry or Eusebius’ summation of his position. B.’s description of the passage as a ‘Eusebian collage’ (p. 459) might seem similar to the view that it is Eusebius’ summary making use of Porphyrian phrases, as expressed in E. des Places and J. Sirinelli (edd.), La préparation évangélique, Livre I (1974), pp. 224–9, and T.D. Barnes, ‘Scholarship or Propaganda? Porphyry Against the Christians and its Historical Setting’, BICS 39 (1994), 65. However, B. is in line with the recent trend exemplified by S. Morlet and A. Johnson, treating the passage as Eusebius’ melange of pagan writers, including, at least in part, Celsus. Finally, in Ecclesiastical History 6.19.1–11, Eusebius provided background on Porphyry including his stay in Sicily and his relationship to the philosophical giants Ammonius Saccas and Origen of Alexandria. In B.’s treatment of this fragment 6F (Harnack Nr. 39), he maintains a distinction between a Christian Origen and a pagan Origen (p. 153), not engaging with the argument of E.D. Digeser, ‘Origen on the Limes’, in R. Frakes et al. (edd.), The Rhetoric of Power in Late Antiquity (2010), pp. 197–218, that these were one and the same person.

The advantages over Harnack's century-old collection are significant, especially the additional fragments, judicious commentary and up-to-date bibliography. Some Anglophone readers may be led by ease of access to seek out Berchman's volume in English translation, but with regards to accuracy and the presence of the underlying Greek text, B.’s volume will likely be the current scholar's choice, and one which sets the bar very high indeed.