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A NEW PORPHYRY FRAGMENT?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2020

Gad Freudenthal  and
Aaron P. Johnson
Gad Freudenthal*
Affiliation:
Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris
Aaron P. Johnson*
Affiliation:
Lee University
*
gad.freudenthal@gmail.com
ajohnson@leeuniversity.edu
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Extract

The days, not so far back, in which Arabic philosophical works were skimmed essentially with a view of ‘uncovering’ lost gems of Greek philosophy are fortunately behind us. Today these works are studied on their own, as essential building blocks of the history of philosophy. None the less, medieval philosophic works in Arabic continue to allow significant new discoveries concerning the history of Greek philosophy. The same holds, naturally enough, of medieval Hebrew works written by Jewish scholars who lived under the Crescent and accessed Arabic sources.

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Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , May 2020 , pp. 410 - 428
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2020

INTRODUCTION

The days, not so far back, in which Arabic philosophical works were skimmed essentially with a view of ‘uncovering’ lost gems of Greek philosophy are fortunately behind us. Today these works are studied on their own, as essential building blocks of the history of philosophy.Footnote 1 None the less, medieval philosophic works in Arabic continue to allow significant new discoveries concerning the history of Greek philosophy.Footnote 2 The same holds, naturally enough, of medieval Hebrew works written by Jewish scholars who lived under the Crescent and accessed Arabic sources.Footnote 3

Possibly the most erudite among the latter was R. Shem-Tov Ibn Falaqera. Nothing definite is known about his life, but it is generally assumed that he lived in northern (Christian) Spain between c.1225 and after 1290. He composed a substantial number of books, all aiming to convince the reader—in the spirit of Maimonides (1138–1204)—that philosophical study is an integral part of Judaism and is indispensable if one wishes to ensure immortality to his soul.Footnote 4 One of Ibn Falaqera's most significant compositions is his Commentary on Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed, which explains Maimonides's views against the background of Arabic philosophy, of which the Hebrew-reading public had only a fragmentary knowledge.

Falaqera's most ambitious work is possibly his huge encyclopedic work De‘ot ha-pilosofim [The Doctrines of the Philosophers], composed between 1263 and 1280. It has been concisely characterized by the late Mauro Zonta as follows:

it consists of an anthology of texts (mostly by Averroes, but also by Avicenna, al-Farabi, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius and other authors, including Aristotle himself) about physics and metaphysics, directly translated from Arabic into Hebrew, so providing a complete and detailed commentary on Aristotle's Physica, De generatione et corruptione, Meteorologica, De animalibus, De anima, De caelo and Metaphysica. […] Falaqera did not restrict himself to a mere reproduction of the contents of Averroes's commentaries: in his encyclopaedia, he [also] deals with non-Aristotelian subjects, such as mineralogy and botany.Footnote 5

Falaqera's De‘ot contains much philosophical material gleaned in various Arabic works—both translations of Greek works and works by Arabic writers. More than half a century ago, Martin Plessner called attention to ‘Falaqera's significance for the study of the history of philosophy’,Footnote 6 and his call was soon heeded by Mauro Zonta in a series of innovative studies.Footnote 7 In this paper we wish to draw attention to a hitherto unnoticed short passage that Falaqera describes as a verbatim quotation of the celebrated philosopher Porphyry of Tyre (c.234–c.305).

PORPHYRY'S QUOTATION IN CONTEXT

Shem-Tov Ibn Falaqera's De‘ot ha-pilosofim is fairly bulky. It is preserved in only two incomplete manuscripts, in which the extant parts occupy some 300 folios in one manuscript and some 240 in the other.Footnote 8 The work opens with a short Preface whose aim is to justify the introduction of philosophical studies into Jewish culture and concomitantly to argue for the epistemic value of knowledge having its source in human reason rather than in revelation. This is the context in which our quotation appears. We here reproduce almost in extenso the introductory text (in the original Hebrew and in English translation) so as to allow the reader to be aware of the argumentative context in which Ibn Falaqera used it. This is especially important, since recent criticisms of older collections of Porphyry fragments have rightly demonstrated the need for such context in properly analyzing the authenticity and faithfulness of any given fragment.

The Hebrew text of Ibn Falaqera's Preface has not yet been published and is offered here in a first scientific edition, based on the two extant manuscripts:

  • • Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, 3156 (= De Rossi 164) (P)

  • • Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek Cod. Or. 4758 (L)Footnote 9

The division into paragraphs is ours, and the quotation from ‘Porphyry of Tyre’ is in §7.

Shem-Tov Ibn Falaqera, ‘Author's Preface’ to his De‘ot ha-pilosofim

Within the broader context of Falaqera's Preface given here, it is clear that the quotation attributed to Porphyry stands alongside biblical, rabbinic, classical and medieval Arabic and Jewish authorities in order to establish further Falaqera's admonition to engage in the hard work of pursuing philosophical truth. The Porphyry material is introduced with the words ‘Porphyry of Tyre said’, and is concluded as follows: ‘so far [his words]’. Based purely on these formulaic tags, Falaqera intends his reader to understand the material as a direct quotation. We next turn, therefore, to the question of the quotation's authenticity and its relationship to the Porphyrian corpus.

PORPHYRY ARABUS AND IBN FALAQERA'S QUOTATION

In recent years, scholars have discovered new sources concerning the fortuna of Porphyry in Arabic, reaching the following bottom line:

The author of the Isagoge, Porphyry, was first and foremost seen as an authoritative commentator of Aristotle by his Arab readers. Following in the footsteps of Ammonius and his school in Alexandria, also in the Arabic-speaking world the Isagoge was placed at the beginning of the Organon, and has been incessantly commented upon in medieval Arabic philosophy. […] The Alexandrian tradition also disseminated the topic, ultimately derived from Porphyry, of the harmony between Plato and Aristotle. Some works other than the Isagoge were known to some extent in the Arabic-speaking world, but Porphyry's name is linked first and foremost to the logical corpus of Aristotle, and only secondarily to other parts of the corpus (Physics, Nicomachean Ethics). Porphyry was also known as the ‘commentator’ of the spurious Theology (in fact, Plotinus’ Enneads).Footnote 26

Indeed, our passage does not appear to have a direct match in any of the complete works of Porphyry. Nor does it seem to correspond to any of the numerous fragments of his otherwise lost works as these have been collected in Smith's near comprehensive Teubner edition, Sodano's compilation of the fragments of the Commentary on the Timaeus, Saffrey's and Segonds's edition of the Epistle to Anebo, Becker's collection of the fragments of the Contra Christianos, as well as the shorter publications of individually discovered fragments.Footnote 27

Unless we are unduly sceptical, however, there is nothing in Falaqera's passage that precludes us from tentatively accepting it as a faithful quotation from a lost work of Porphyry, in other words, as a verbatim Hebrew translation of a Porphyrian text preserved in Arabic. We must not expect too much: at the outset of the quotation in Ibn Falaqera, we are unfortunately provided with no context as to the particular area of enquiry to which Porphyry is urging the reader or the ways in which Porphyry may have been positioning himself as a guide for the reader. In fact, the quotation appears to contain a rather broad recommendation with respect to any piece of learning or phenomenon in the material world at which the reader might have first reacted with a negative judgement. We should not, therefore, limit ourselves to conceiving the context as one dedicated to significant terms, as in the parallel passages from Porphyry's Categories commentaries (given below).

Let us now take notice of three key elements of the passage that have parallels in the secure writings of Porphyry.

  1. (i) First, the quotation's summoning of the reader—apparently a philosophical novice—towards deeper investigation beyond habitual ways of thinking is a recommendation that occurs elsewhere in Porphyry's writings. Admittedly, the call to more sustained enquiry is fairly generic to most philosophical literature, and so the resonance between the quotation and Porphyry's writings on this score may not be entirely powerful. None the less, the claim that a reader might resist things that are ‘strange’ to him and ‘to which he is unaccustomed’ finds parallels in Porphyry's corpus. For instance he remarks on the confusion that arises from what is customary (sunētheia) in his question-and-answer commentary on Aristotle's Categories: ‘Because ordinary language (sunētheia) is for communicating about everyday things, and employs the expressions that are commonly used to indicate such things, but philosophers are interpreters of things that are unknown to most people and need new words to communicate the things they have discovered …’.Footnote 28 The fact that philosophical discourses use uncommon ways of speaking about complex realities thus provided the motive for Porphyry's own commentaries. Novice readers of such difficult texts needed a guide. Elsewhere, Porphyry asserts that Aristotle himself recognized that readers of his Categories would need an introduction to concepts unknown to them because of the limits of their familiarity. In his larger commentary on Aristotle's Categories dedicated to Gedalius, ‘Those thingsFootnote 29 are entirely unknown on the basis of what is customary (sunētheias) [in other words, we do not know them because we have not been in the habit of speaking and thinking in ways that would render them lucid to our understanding], but we have some conceptions of these things,Footnote 30 although we do not have a precise determination of them.’Footnote 31

  2. (ii) Second, the quotation's acknowledgement of the epistemic limits of humans (‘in all these matters there are things that are impossible or difficult to grasp; oftentimes the error is due to the incapacity of our intellect to grasp them …’) is shared with important fragments of Porphyry's otherwise lost Pros Nemertion. The fragments of this work all derive from verbatim quotations by Cyril of Alexandria in his Contra Julianum.Footnote 32 Together they seem focussed upon offering a defence of a providential view of God's relationship to this world even at the level of the time and circumstances of one's death. Even if the human mind cannot fathom the purposes of divine providence, one should not impiously oppose the notion of such providential intent. Porphyry writes:

For while the protector of all things is a divine mind, ordering and administering the universe by an exceeding magnitude of wisdom and by an incomparable quality of power, many causes escape the notice of the human mind since it is small, even if one should seem to be wise and a seeker of truth. And, to those allowing that it is difficult to discover (dusereunēton) [the answers to] their questions, it is pious not to dare to blaspheme but rather to think and to say that things are well as they are; and [to say] that because [everything] is well, it has happened the way that it has. For why would a mind that is so great and of such a kind act contrary to [its own] law (paranomōs)?Footnote 33 But it must not be right to assume that our understanding is capable of investigating (or, of proving) what is well and that our lack of understanding [is capable of investigating] what is not well.Footnote 34

In its highlighting of the epistemic limits of humans, this passage resonates with another fragment in which Porphyry declares that the procession of Mind from the One is ‘inconceivable (anepinoēton) to humans’.Footnote 35

True, Falaqera's quotation is situated in a very different context: it does not at all refer to the ‘divine mind’ and does not compare it to the limited human mind. None the less, the reference to ‘the incapacity of our intellect to grasp’ certain things is present, and lends some confirmation to the authenticity of the quotation. By the same token, Porphyry elsewhere admitted that humans (including himself) had limited knowledge because of the difficulty of ascertaining the truth about certain things (which may account for his noticeable ‘interpretative pluralism’).Footnote 36

  1. (iii) Third, in his quotation, Falaqera states that, when facing different doctrines, the student should give preference to that doctrine which ‘follows with necessity from the intellectual [or: intelligible, intellected] principles that are accessible to the senses’.Footnote 37 At first glance, such a claim might seem to be at odds with a strictly (Neo)Platonist ontological dichotomy of reality into that which could be accessed through the intellect (intelligibles) and that which could be accessed through sense-perception (sensibles).Footnote 38 Thus in his Sentences Porphyry states that ‘the intelligible that is in the intellect is not at all subordinate to sense-perception.’Footnote 39 But elsewhere Porphyry is more nuanced and his account describes ways in which the intelligible and sensible could be bridged in cognition. In his Commentary on Ptolemy's Harmonics, he asserts that, when logos has given form to matter, the soul attends to what exists and ‘draws the forms out again, as it were, from the matter, receiving them into itself’.Footnote 40 This process involves five stages or levels of interaction between the soul and the sensible world. First, there is an apprehension (antilēpsis) of the sense-perception itself, which introduces the form of the sense object to the soul; then there is a sort of discursive (dia logou) registering of the apprehension by the soul in terms of its name, which Porphyry labels ‘supposition on the level of opinion’ (doxastikē hypolēpsis); third, the imagination (phantasia) calculates the contours of the thing and deposits its form (eidos) in the soul;Footnote 41 this now brings it to the level of a conception (ennoia)—this is the fourth stage—which in turn (as a fifth step) gives rise to the disposition of knowledge (epistēmē) when the conception has been made firm in the soul.Footnote 42 One requires, therefore, both reason and perception to make a true judgement: ‘Out of the two together comes the complete judgement of perceptible objects, with perception presenting to reason its rather rough recognition of that which is judged, and contributing as it were an initiating spark, while reason completes the judgement and provides perception with a great deal of help towards accuracy.’Footnote 43

What this amounts to is a fine-tuned description of cognition (which he continues to elaborate in the following discussion of his commentary) that epistemologically accounts for the ontological claim that intelligibles are manifested in sensibles.Footnote 44 ‘For reason has need of the criterion of perception, rough and ready as it is, though only in the case of things that are intelligible through perception.’Footnote 45 This latter phrase (taken from Ptolemy's Harmonics),Footnote 46 which seems to be the closest parallel to the final phrase of the quotation in Falaqera, is possible for a Platonist to make, Porphyry explains, only if one recognizes the various ways in which ‘intelligible’ is used. In its special sense, ‘intelligible’ designated any incorporeal being that is separate ‘in its essence’ from bodies.Footnote 47 But, in another sense, ‘intelligible’ referred to whatever intelligence can attend to and apprehend; ‘in this usage what is perceptible, indeed the whole of it, will also be intelligible.’Footnote 48 It is in this second sense that things can be said to be ‘intelligible through perception’.Footnote 49 Porphyry's account of cognition can thus combine Platonic elements with Peripatetic epistemological orthodoxy.Footnote 50 The sensible is not thereby rendered unproblematic. As Porphyry will declare on the very next page, reason ‘is akin to truth, while perception participates in falsehood’ and requires the help of reason for guidance.Footnote 51 If it is under the control of reason, perception becomes reason's instrument in making the proper proportions necessary for harmonics and apparently other areas.Footnote 52

In sum, then, selecting the doctrine that necessarily follows from the intellectual [or: intelligible, intellected] principles that are accessible to the senses, as Falaqera's quotation has it, is consistent with Porphyry's thinking, which maintained the notion of intelligibles sensu stricto while being flexible enough to allow for intelligibles in a secondary sense.

CONCLUSION

Ibn Falaqera is known as a very erudite, serious and conscientious scholar. We can safely assume that he derived the quotation from a sourcetext that explicitly ascribed it to Porphyry. Inasmuch as the quotation is consistent with secure Porphyrian matter, there are no grounds to reject it as un-Porphyrian and we may tentatively conclude that it is a new fragment of Porphyry.

Over the last few decades there has been growing scrutiny of the methods and the conclusions of earlier fragment-collections that too quickly attributed later material to Porphyry (this is especially the case with material that was assigned by its source only to ‘someone’ or ‘a certain Greek’).Footnote 53 Minimalist approaches have severely limited the fund of Porphyrian fragments to those expressly attributed to Porphyry and / or to one of his named works. The Falaqera quotation is assigned to Porphyry by name, although no title of a work is provided. Given Falaqera's care in quotational method (even if he has a clear authorial agenda for putting his quotations to original uses) and given the parallels between the main components of this quotation with the thought expressed in the securely attributed works of Porphyry (whether full or fragmentary), assigning this quotation to the fragments of Porphyry of uncertain location (incertae sedis) seems appropriate. Assigning (even tentatively) this fragment to one of the known titles of Porphyry's corpus requires too much speculation to be pursued here. Unfortunately, we cannot even go so far as to specify the general subject heading under which it might best be placed,Footnote 54 although it would seem most appropriately to belong to a work with clear pedagogical aims and, because of the interests of Falaqera and his Arabic sources, a work dedicated to expounding Aristotle.

Another note of caution arises in light of some of the parallels enumerated above. Whereas the Falaqera quotation appeared to represent a fairly open-ended call to investigation of any phenomena, its original context might have been more limited to textual (rather than empirical) phenomena.Footnote 55 In other words, the doctrines that his reader might have rejected out of habit could have been those expressed in a particular philosophic text. The fact that the last sentence of the quotation calls attention to finding intelligibles in the sensible world could merely be designating the implication for more general understanding of the world beyond the truth of individual doctrinal claims of a single text.Footnote 56

Further investigation deserves to be undertaken in order to trace what might be discerned of its Arabic (and Syriac?) transmission. Further investigation also deserves to be made of Porphyry's presence among the medieval Jewish philosophers and encyclopedists. The present brief discussion hopes to spark such enquiry.

We close by noting the pleasant irony that one of the most significant pagan Platonists to carve out a philosophically significant role for Hebrew wisdom within his frame of thinking,Footnote 57 who dedicated his long commentary on Aristotle's Categories to a Jew (Gedalius),Footnote 58 and who may have married a Jew (if we can trust the belated report of the Tübingen Theosophy),Footnote 59 himself found a brief yet favourable place within the writings of a Jewish philosopher making a sustained and original appropriation of the pagan (especially Aristotelian) philosophical tradition.Footnote 60

References

1 For a comprehensive overview, see U. Rudolph, with the assistance of Würsch, R. (edd.), rev. by Holzhey, H. (ed.), Philosophie in der islamischen Welt, Band 1, 8.–10. Jahrhundert (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie) (Basel, 2012)Google Scholar. English version: Rudolph, U., Hansberger, R. and Adamson, P. (edd.), Philosophy in the Islamic World, Volume 1: 8th–10th Centuries (Leiden, 2017)Google Scholar.

2 For a recent overview, see C. D'Ancona, ‘Greek sources in Arabic and Islamic philosophy’, in E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/arabic-islamic-greek/>.

3 Still unsurpassed in this area of study is Steinschneider, M., Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Berlin, 1893)Google Scholar (hereafter HÜ). An English translation, which incorporates important updates, is under way: Manekin, C.H., Langermann, Y.T. and Biesterfeldt, H.H. (edd. and transl.), The Hebrew Translations of the Middle Ages and the Jews as Transmitters (Dordrecht, 2013–)Google Scholar.

4 For an overview, see Jospe, R., Torah and Sophia: The Life and Thought of Shem Tov Ibn Falaqera (Cincinnati, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Zonta, M., ‘Mineralogy, botany and zoology in medieval Hebrew encyclopaedias’, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 6 (1996), 262–315CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 275.

6 Plessner, M., ‘חשיבותו של ר‘ שם טוב אבן פלקירא לחקר תולדות הפילוסופיה’ (= ‘The significance of R. Shem-Tov ibn Falaqera for the study of the history of philosophy’), in Homenaje a Millás-Vallicrosa, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1954–6), 2.161–86 (in Hebrew)Google Scholar.

7 Zonta, M., ‘Shem Tob ibn Falaqera e la sua opera’, Henoch 12 (1990), 207–26Google Scholar; idem, Un dizionario filosofico ebraico del XIII secolo: L'introduzione al ‘Sefer De‘ot ha- Filosofim’ di Shem Tob ibn Falaqera (Torino, 1992); idem, ‘Shem Tob ibn Falaqera e la filología ebraica medievale’, Sefarad 52 (1993), 321–43; idem, Un interprete ebreo della filosofia di Galeno: Gli scritti filosofici di Galeno nell’ opera di Shem Tob ibn Falaqera (Torino, 1995).

8 The extant parts of De‘ot ha-pilosofim and their localization in the manuscripts are indicated in Jospe, R., ‘Appendix: Shem-Tov ben Joseph ibn Falaqera's De‘ot ha-Filosofim—an outline’, in Harvey, S. (ed.), Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (Dordrecht, 2000), 238–47Google Scholar.

9 The film numbers in the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the National Library of Israel are, respectively, F 13897 and F 17368.

10 Guide 1:71 in Samuel Ibn Tibbon's translation. English translation adapted from: Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, transl. by S. Pines (Chicago, 1963), 183. See Falaqera's Moreh ha-moreh 1:71, ed. by Y. Schiffman (Jerusalem, 2001), 173:54–9.

11 Arist. Metaph. 2.1, 993a31–b14; Soph. el. ch. 34.

12 Falaqera here paraphrases a well-known statement by Maimonides, e.g. in his Foreword to The Eight Chapters (Shemonah Peraqim).

13 Maimonides, Laws of the Sanctification of the Moon 17:24.

14 Falaqera here directly draws on Maimonides, Guide 1:31.

15 The principles are qualified as muskalim, sing. muskal, corresponding to the Arabic ‘aqli. The qualification of these principles as muskalim does not conflict with the statement that they are ‘accessible to the senses’—see the discussion below.

16 Maimonides discusses this topic in Guide 1:31, but when Falaqera comments on the passage in Moreh ha-moreh he draws on Aristotle with no mention of Porphyry (see Shiffman [n. 10], 131 with the corresponding note). Steinschneider's reference to Moreh ha-moreh (HÜ, 6 n. 41b) is mistaken.

17 This statement of authorship appears in both manuscripts. However, it has been conclusively established that the author is Shem Tov Ibn Falaqera (HÜ §2); the ascription to Samuel Ibn Tibbon is a scribal error, possibly due to the similar acronyms of the two names.

18 Shelemut yesirit, a term that is frequent in Falaqera's writings.

19 This is a loose paraphrase of al-Fârâbî's Kitâb al-Khatâbah (Book of Rhetoric), in J. Langhade and M. Grignaschi (edd.), Al-Farabi: Deux ouvrages inédits sur la rhétorique (Beyrouth, 1971), 55. For an English translation, see Ezzaher, L.E., ‘Alfarabi's Book of Rhetoric: an Arabic-English translation of Alfarabi's Commentary on Aristotle's Rhetoric’, Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric 26 (2008), 347–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 369; summarized in Fakhry, M., Al-Fârâbi, Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism. His Life, Works and Influence (Oxford, 2002), 61–2Google Scholar. My translation, of course, follows Falaqera's Hebrew text.

20 This is possibly a paraphrase of a well-known sentence in Averroes's Proemium to his Long Commentary on the Physics: ‘As for Aristotle's having completed them [logic, natural science, and divine science], no one who has come after him to this our time—and this is close to fifteen-hundred years later—has been able to add a word worthy of attention to what he said.’ Quoted from Harvey, S., ‘The Hebrew translation of Averroes’ Prooemium to his “Long Commentary on Aristotle's Physics”’, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 52 (1985), 55–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 83.

21 The entire passage appears also in Falaqera's Moreh ha-moreh 2:22, ed. Schiffman (n. 10), 278:177–90. For Falaqera's source Schiffman refers to Averroes's preface to his Long Commentary on the Physics as reproduced by S. Munk in his Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe (Paris, 1859), 361. An independent Hebrew translation is published in Harvey (n. 20), 70 (English translation at 83). Both texts deviate from Falaqera's. See also Renan, E., Averroès et l'Averroïsme: essai historique (Paris, 1882), 55Google Scholar.

22 As last note.

23 Maimonides, Guide 2:22 (where the received text of Ibn Tibbon's translation is a little different); English translation adapted from Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, transl. by Pines (n. 10), 319–20.

24 The sentence also appears in Falaqera's Moreh ha-moreh 2:22, ed. Schiffman (n. 10), 273:91–2. Schiffman found the source of this statement in Maimonides's letter to his translator, Samuel Ibn Tibbon, published in Marx, A., ‘Texts by and about Maimonides’, JQR 25 (1935), 371–428CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 380.

25 A similar sentence appears in Falaqera's Moreh ha-moreh 2:22, ed. Schiffman (n. 10), 278:193–4. Schiffman found the source of this statement in Maimonides, Guide 2:3, where he gives its source as Alexander's On the Principles of the All; similarly, also in Guide 2:22.

26 D'Ancona, C., ‘Porphyry, Arabic’, in Lagerlund, H. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy: Philosophy between 500 and 1500 (Dordrecht, 2011), 1056–62Google Scholar.

27 Smith, A., Porphyrius: Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1993)Google Scholar; Sodano, A.R. (ed.), In Platonis Timaeum commentariorum fragmenta (Naples, 1964)Google Scholar; Saffrey, H.D. and Segonds, A.–P. (edd.), Porphyre. Lettre à Anébon l’Égyptien (Paris, 2012)Google Scholar; Becker, M., Porphyrios: Gegen die Christen (Contra Christianos). Fragmente, Testimonien und Dubia mit Einleitung, Übersetzung und Anmerkungen (Berlin, 2016)Google Scholar; Morlet, S., ‘Un nouveau témoignage sur le Contra Christianos de Porphyre?’ Semitica et Classica 1 (2008), 149–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goulet, R., ‘Cinq nouveaux fragments nominaux du traité de Porphyre Contre Chrétiens’, VC 64 (2010), 140–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Callanan, C.K., ‘A rediscovered text of Porphyry on mystic formulae’, CQ 45 (1995), 215–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ballériaux, O., ‘Porphyre et Aristote. Quelques fragments à ajouter aux Porphyrii philosophi Fragmenta d'Andrew Smith’, in Motte, A. and Dnooz, J. (edd.), Aristotelica Secunda (Liège, 1996), 221–31Google Scholar; Chiaradonna, R., Rashed, M. and Sedley, D., with Tchernetska, N., ‘A rediscovered Categories commentary’, OSAPh 44 (2013), 129–94Google Scholar.

28 In Categ. per Interrog. et Resp. 55.8–12 (transl. Strange): ὅτι ἡ μὲν συνήθεια τῶν προχείρων οὖσα πραγμάτων παραστατική, περὶ τούτων καὶ τὰς δηλωτικὰς λέξεις ἐν τῇ πολλῇ χρήσει παρέλαβεν, οἱ δὲ φιλόσοφοι τῶν τοῖς πολλοῖς ἀγνώστων πραγμάτων ἐξηγηταὶ ὄντες καινοτέρων δεηθέντες ὀνομάτων εἰς παράστασιν τῶν ὑπ’ αὐτῶν ἐξευρεθέντων πραγμάτων….

29 He is speaking about homonyms, synonyms and paronyms here.

30 Namely the notions of simultaneity, priority and motion that had been raised in Aristotle's discussion of the ten categories but were then given additional clarification in the final section of the Categories.

31 In Categ. ad Gedal. fr. 49.4–6 Smith (= Simplic. In Categ. 19.26): τί οὖν μὴ καὶ ταῦτα προὔταξεν τοῦ περὶ τῶν κατηγοριῶν λόγου ἢ διὰ τί μὴ κἀκεῖνα μετὰ τὰς κατηγορίας ἐπήγαγεν ἀπορήσας ὁ Πορφύριος λύει καλῶς τὴν ἀπορίαν⋅ ὅτι ἐκεῖνα μὲν ἄγνωστα παντελῶς ἦν ἀπὸ τῆς συνηθείας, τούτων δὲ ἐννοίας μὲν ἔχομέν τινας, οὐ μὴν ἀκριβῆ διάκρισιν οὐδὲ αὐτῶν. Similarly, see the remarks on those who are put off by new things as being inadequate students at In Plat. Sophist. fr. 169.17–28 Smith (= Boethius, Liber de divisione), although this passage may not derive from Porphyry (even though Boethius claims that he will draw on Porphyry, this particular passage refers to ‘our people’, most likely Latin speakers, and seems thus to be Boethius’ own statement); see Magee, J., Anicii Manlii Severini Boethii De divisione liber (Leiden, 1998), LV–LVICrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 The reliability of Cyril's quotations withstands close scrutiny; see M.–O. Boulnois, ‘Cyril of Alexandria reading Porphyry’, forthcoming; Riedweg, C., ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias, De providentia: Greek fragments and Arabic versions’, in Obbink, D. and Rutherford, R. (edd.), Culture in Pieces (Oxford, 2011), 277–301Google Scholar. An English translation of the Adv. Jul. is currently under way by M. Crawford and A. Johnson, Cyril of Alexandria: Against Julian the Emperor (Cambridge, forthcoming).

33 On paranomōs in Porphyry's thought, see Johnson, A.P., ‘Philosophy, Hellenicity, law: Porphyry and Origen, again’, JHS 132 (2012), 55–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Pros Nemert. 281 Smith (= Cyril. Adv. Jul. 3.19.2–13): ἔφη γὰρ ὁ Πορφύριος οὕτω πάλιν⋅ ‘(...) νοῦ—γὰρ ὄντος θείου τοῦ τῶν ὅλων προεστῶτος καὶ σοφίας ὑπερβάλλοντι μεγέθει δυνάμεώς τε ἀπαραβλήτῳ ἰδιότητι διατάξαντος τὸ πᾶν καὶ διοικοῦντος, λανθάνειν μὲν τὰς πολλὰς αἰτίας μικρὸν ὄντα τὸν ἀνθρώπινον νοῦν, κἂν σοφὸς εἶναι δοκῇ καὶ ἐρευνητὴς τῆς ἀληθείας. εὐσεβὲς δὲ εἶναι μεθεῖσι τῶν ἀπορουμένων τὸ δυσερεύνητον βλασφημεῖν μὲν μὴ τολμᾶν, καλῶς δὲ ἔχειν ὡς ἔχει καὶ ἡγεῖσθαι καὶ λέγειν, καὶ ὅτι διὰ τὸ καλῶς ἔχειν ἂν οὕτως γέγονεν ὡς γέγονε. τί γὰρ ἂν νοῦς τοσοῦτος καὶ τοιοῦτος παρανόμως ἔδρασε; ποιεῖσθαι δὲ μὴ χρῆναι θεμιτὸν εἶναι τὴν ἡμετέραν σύνεσιν τοῦ καλῶς ἔχοντος ἐξεταστικὴν καὶ τὸ ἡμῖν ἀσύνετον τοῦ κακῶς.’ There seems little reason to question (as Smith does [n. 27 above]) the attribution of this fragment to the Pros Nemert.; see Johnson, A.P., Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre (Cambridge, 2013), 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Phil. Hist. fr. 223 Smith (= Cyril. Adv. Jul. 1.45.9).

36 Ep. Aneb. 1 Sodano, page 3.8: adiereunēta; Ep. Aneb. 2 Sodano, page 28.12–14; Regr. anim. fr. 302 Smith. On the limits of a student's knowledge, see In Categ. Quaest. et Resp. 75.27; cf. Isag. 1.9–14. On interpretative pluralism, see Pépin, J., ‘Porphyre, exégète d'Homère’, in Reverdin, O. (ed.), Porphyre (Geneva, 1966), 229–66Google Scholar.

37 See n. 15 above on the relevant Hebrew terms.

38 We thank C. D'Ancona for alerting us to this problem.

39 Sent. 44.6–7: … τὸ νοητὸν τῷ νῷ αἰσθήσει οὐδαμῶς ἐστιν ὑπόπτωτον … .

40 Comm. Ptol. Harm. 13.21–3 Düring; transl. Barker. The entire section summarized in this paragraph is as follows: τῆς γὰρ ὕλης εἰδοπεποιημένης ὑπὸ τοῦ ῥηθέντος λόγου τὴν ψυχὴν συμβέβηκε τοῖς οὖσιν ἐφισταμένην καὶ οἷον ἀποσπῶσαν αὖθις ἀπὸ τῆς ὕλης τὰ εἴδη καὶ δεχομένην εἰς ἑαυτὴν καὶ τρόπον τινὰ ἀποκαθιστᾶσαν εἰς τὸ ἄυλον γίνεσθαι τὴν κρίσιν. τὸ μὲν γὰρ πρῶτον ἀπὸ τῆς αἰσθήσεως ἡ ἀντίληψις, οἷον ἐπαφωμένη τοῦ ὄντος ἀναλαμβάνειν αὐτὰ πειρᾶται καὶ οἷον εἰσαγγέλλειν τε καὶ εἰσάγειν εἰς τὴν ψυχὴν ὥσπερ ὁδηγός τις καὶ εἰσαγωγεύς. μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα ἡ δοξαστικὴ ὑπόληψις ὑποδέχεται τὸ εἰσαχθὲν προσαγορεύουσα αὐτὸ καὶ ἀναγράφουσα διὰ λόγου τῇ ψυχῇ, οἷον εἴς τι γραμμάτιον ἐνυπάρχον αὐτῇ. τρίτη δ’ ἐστὶ μετὰ ταῦτα δύναμις εἰκονιστὴ τῶν ἰδιωμάτων καὶ ὄντως ζωγραφική τις ἢ πλαστικὴ ἢ φαντασία οὐκ ἀρκουμένη τῷ τῆς προσαγορεύσεως εἴδει καὶ τῷ τῆς ἀναγραφῆς, ἀλλ’ ὅνπερ τρόπον οἱ τοὺς καταπλέοντας εἰκονίζοντες ἢ κατὰ τοὺς τοῖς συμβόλοις παρακολουθοῦντας τὴν ἀκρίβειαν τῆς ὁμοιότητος ἐκλογίζονται⋅ οὕτω καὶ αὕτη τοῦ πράγματος ἅπασαν τὴν μορφὴν ἐκλογιζομένη, ὁπόταν τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον ἀκριβώσῃ, τότε ἀπέθετο ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ τὸ εἶδος. καὶ τοῦτο ἦν ἡ ἔννοια, ἧς ἐγγενομένης τε καὶ βεβαιωθείσης ἡ τῆς ἐπιστήμης ἐγγίνεται διάθεσις, ἀφ’ ἧς ὥσπερ ἀπὸ πυρὸς πηδήσαντος ἐξαφθὲν φῶς ὁ νοῦς ἀναφαίνεται οἷόν περ ὄψις ἀκριβὴς εἰς τὴν προσβολὴν τὴν ἐπὶ τὸ ὄντως ὄν. καὶ διὰ μὲν τῆς ἀντιλήψεως ἀρξαμένης τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ μαθούσης τὸ ἐν τῇ ὕλῃ ἐνυπάρχον εἶδος, διὰ δὲ τῆς ὑπολήψεως, ὅτι τοῦτ’ ἐστὶν ταὐτὸ τῷ δείξαντι τὸ δειχθὲν παραδεξαμένης⋅ διὰ δὲ τῆς φαντασίας ὅτι καὶ τοιόνδε προσεξειργασμένης κατὰ τὸν εἰκονισμόν, ὁποῖον ἦν τὸ ἐκτός⋅ διὰ δὲ τῆς ἐννοίας ἐπὶ τὸ καθόλου μετελθούσης εἰς τὴν ἄυλον ἀπόθεσιν τοῦ εἴδους, μεθ’ ἣν ἐκ τῆς ἐπιβολῆς τὸ βέβαιον προσλαβοῦσα ἡ ἐπιστήμη καθαρὸν τὸν ἔπειτα καθόλου νοῦν ἐπιβλητικὸν λαμβάνει (Comm. Ptol. Harm. 13.21–14.13 Düring).

41 Cf. Sent. 43.21–5; In Interp. fr. 78.94 Smith (= Boethius, In Interp. 2.25.15) on imaginatio as link between the sensus and the intellectus. For general discussion, see Sheppard, A., ‘Porphyry's views on phantasia’, in Karamanolis, G. and Sheppard, A. (edd.), Studies on Porphyry (London, 2007), 71–6Google Scholar.

42 Comm. Ptol. Harm. 13.24–14.4 Düring; for useful analysis of this passage, see Chase, M., ‘Porphyry on the cognitive process’, AncPhil 30 (2010), 383–405Google Scholar; Barker, A., Porphyry's Commentary on Ptolemy's Harmonics. A Greek Text and Annotated Translation (Cambridge, 2015), 16–22Google Scholar; Lautner, P., ‘Perception and self-knowledge: interpreting fr. 264 Smith’, in Karamanolis, G. and Sheppard, A. (edd.), Studies on Porphyry (London, 2007), 77–90Google Scholar.

43 Comm. Ptol. Harm. 16.15–19 Düring (transl. Barker): ἐκ δ’ ἀμφοῖν γίνεται ἡ τελεία τῶν αἰσθητῶν κρίσις τῆς μὲν αἰσθήσεως παρεχούσης τῷ λόγῳ τὴν ὁλοσχερεστέραν ἐπίγνωσιν καὶ οἷον αἴθυγμα καὶ ἀρχὴν τοῦ κρινομένου ἐνδιδούσης, τοῦ δὲ λόγου τὴν κρίσιν τελεοῦντος καὶ τὴν αἴσθησιν πρὸς ἀκρίβειαν πλείστην ὠφέλειαν παρέχοντος … . Cf. De simulac. fr. 351.15–18 Smith: ‘(…) the thoughts of a theological wisdom, by which men revealed God and the powers of God to physical perception through kindred images, delineating invisible things in visible forms’.

44 For a different articulation of his ontological position, see Sent. 3–4, 28, 33 (and passim).

45 Comm. Ptol. Harm. 17.9–11 Düring (transl. Barker): χρεία γὰρ τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν κριτηρίου, εἰ καὶ ὁλοσχερέστερον τοῦτό γε, ἀλλ’ ἐπί γε τῶν δι’ αἰσθήσεως νοητῶν.

46 Ptol. Harm. 3.13 apud Comm. Ptol. Harm. 16 Düring.

47 It is in this strict sense that Porphyry says in Sent. 44.6–7 that the intelligible is not subordinate to sense-perception (quoted above).

48 Comm. Ptol. Harm. 17.17 Düring (transl. Barker): οὕτω δὲ καὶ τὸ αἰσθητὸν ἔσται νοητὸν καὶ ἅπαν γε.

49 Comm. Ptol. Harm. 17.30–1 Düring.

50 Chase (n. 42), 397; cf. Porph. Sent. 16, with J. Pépin's commentary in Brisson, L. (ed.), Porphyre. Sentences (Paris, 2005), 2.447–9Google Scholar; see also Sent. 43, with the discussion of Brisson, L., ‘Physique et éthique’, in idem (ed.), Porphyre. Sentences, 2 vols. (Paris, 2005), 1.126–30Google Scholar.

51 Comm. Ptol. Harmon. 18.7–8 Düring (transl. Barker): ὁ μὲν ἄρα τῇ ἀληθείᾳ συγγενής, ἡ δὲ τοῦ ψεύδους μέτοχος. Cf. Sent. 35.31–4.

52 Comm. Ptol. Harmon. 19.12–19 Düring.

53 See Becker (n. 27), 94–100; Johnson, A.P., ‘The implications of a minimalist approach to Porphyry's fragments’, in Männlein-Robert, I. (ed.), Die Christen als Bedrohung: Text, Kontext, und Wirkung von Porphyrios’ Contra Christianos (Stuttgart, 2017), 41–58Google Scholar; Morlet, S., ‘Comment le problem du Contra Christianos peut-il se poser aujourd'hui?’, in idem (ed.), Le traité de Porphyre contre les chrétiens (Paris, 2011), 11–49Google Scholar.

54 Smith's Teubner collection of the fragments (n. 27 above) contains the following headings in the section Testimonia et Fragmenta Incertae Sedis: Logica, De Vno et deo, De intellectu, De anima, De caelo et mundi, De materia, De prouidentia et libero arbitrio, De daemonibus, Theurgica et mythica, Mathematica and Miscellanea.

55 As, for instance, in the case of the passages quoted above from Porphyry's two commentaries on the Categories, where a reader's unfamiliarity with terms or concepts, owing to their usual habits of speaking and thinking, was the target of Porphyry's investigations (In Categ. ad Gedal. fr. 49.4–6 Smith; In Categ. per Interrog. et Resp. 55.8–12). Cf. In Interp. fr. 105 Smith (= Boethius, De Interp. 2.293.27–294.4), where the usual interpretations of Aristotle were claimed to lead to a breakdown in exegesis (dicit autem Porphyrius fuisse quosdam sui temporis, qui hunc exponerent librum, et quoniam ab Hermino uel Aspasio uel Alexandro expositiones singulas proferentes multa contraria et expositionibus male ab illis editis dissidentia reperirent, arbitratos fuisse librum hunc Aristotelis, ut dignum esset, exponi non posse multosque illius temporis uiros totam huius libri praeterisse doctrinam, quod inexplicabilem putarent esse caliginem).

56 On the other hand, Sent. 33.31–8 contains a parallel passage of an ontological rather than textual import: everyone is familiar with bodily things but ‘arrives at a knowledge of incorporeals with difficulty’ (τῶν μὲν γὰρ σωμάτων ἐν συνηθείᾳ πᾶς, ἐκείνων δὲ μόλις ἐν γνώσει γίνεται …); cf. Sent. 38.

57 Van Der Horst, P., ‘Porphyry on Judaism: some observations’, in Weiss, Z., Irshai, O., Magness, J. and Schwartz, S. (edd.), Follow the Wise. Studies in Jewish History and Culture in Honor of Lee I. Levine (Winona Lake, 2010), 71–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnson (n. 34), 273–82.

58 Menn, S., ‘On the title of Porphyry's Categories Commentary Πρὸς Γεδάλειον’, Phronesis 62 (2017), 355–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Tüb. Theos. 85, page 55.1 Erbse.

60 We would like to thank Cristina D'Ancona for critical feedback about this fragment at a preliminary stage of writing the present article.