Premise: Cosmic Sympathy and the Intermedial Reader

Several features of the post-Hellenistic context made it especially conducive to mobilising natural enquiry in exegetical debates. First, the influence of Stoic doctrines on Roman imperial intellectuals encouraged ways of understanding the cosmos as a unified whole. The notion of sympathy (‘a mode of relationality distributed … from worms and fungi all the way up to celestial bodies’)Footnote ⁸ supported conceptions of the universe as an interconnected totality.Footnote ⁹ This totality was understood as governed by law,Footnote ¹⁰ that is, as ordered by a rational and providential principle. Crucially, this conception expected that nature could be interpreted, as the assumption of an interconnected and meaningful whole demanded its availability to rational understanding. Post-Hellenistic philosophies sought to recover truth from nature as well as from myths, rituals, and literature, which allegorical approaches construed as reflections of operations of the all-pervasive logos (the so-called ‘dependency theme’),Footnote ¹¹ and as consequently dense with meaningful signs.Footnote ¹² They also, however, tied a sense of correspondence between the cosmos and inspired literature with the negotiation of authoritative textual canon(s), bringing exegesis from the margins to the centre of philosophical practice. This is reflected, for instance, in early Christian claims that nature and scripture equally testify to the divine providential project,Footnote ¹³ or in Neoplatonic cosmo-literary theory, which looks at Platonic dialogues as an image of the universe.Footnote ¹⁴

Two points follow from this brief (and, inevitably, cursory) premise. First, the texts examined here show a marked sensitivity to what has been called the ‘intermediality’ of imperial exegesis.Footnote ¹⁵ Interpreters approached both divinely ordered nature and inspired literature with the assumption that the same skills, grounded in human participation in divine rationality, could operate across domains. In stressing this point, I align with recent scholarship working to expand the notion of ancient reading practices as relevant beyond the sphere of textuality and encompassing artwork, ritual, prayers, and lived experiences.Footnote ¹⁶

Second, a note on authorial intention. Although this article traces dynamics of interpretive rivalry, I am wary of reducing interpretive debates to sophistry or a mere instrument of social and cultural positioning. Imperial discussions of animals provided a space to test ontological and ethical questions that resonated with the writers’ deepest interrogatives (How far does logos enliven and organise matter? What is the nature of language, or soul?). What matters here is how such reflections intersected with ongoing efforts to define the status of authoritative texts within a world conceptualised as transversally ‘readable’.

Cleverness: The Framework

A complex text with a layered structure, Plutarch’s On the Cleverness of Animals (De sollertia animalium, Mor. 959b–985c; hereafter Cleverness), explicitly locates its discussion of animal behaviour within a literary and philosophical frame. Although it presents itself as a debate on animal intelligence, it quickly reveals a broader concern with how natural enquiry relies on, and is shaped by, textual authority. In this respect, its opening is highly programmatic. Here, Autobulus (Plutarch’s father) expresses concern about the moral impact on the young of a Praise of Hunting heard the previous day (959b). He then revisits with his interlocutor, Soclarus, the discussion (also held the day before, 960a) about whether animals possess reason. Declaring his allegiance to Plato (964d), Autobulus argues that animals participate (μετέχειν, 960a) in thought (διάνοια) and reasoning (λογισμός), which they possess imperfectly but nevertheless have. This position is presented as a direct challenge to Stoic doctrine (960b; 963f).

The opening of Cleverness is riddled with literary references. Autobulus summons Leonidas on Tyrtaeus, quotes Euripides’ Hippolytus, invokes the Thirty Tyrants, and cites Sophocles (959b–e). Oblique allusions too play a role: the recapitulatory opening (960b) recalls the Timaeus, which opens by gesturing back to the conversation held on the previous day.Footnote ¹⁷ A self-confessed Platonist (964d), Autobulus offers an account of cosmic reason (960c–963f) that draws on a broadly Timaean metaphysics.Footnote ¹⁸

Soclarus responds by introducing the category of to rhētorikon (959c). The term is not meant to be taken as dismissive: throughout Cleverness, the relationship of rhetoric to philosophy is implied to be mutually invigorating.Footnote ¹⁹ Cleverness is framed as responding to both a set piece (the Praise of Hunting) and Stoic doctrines (960b, 961c–f, 963f), and its literary references equally serve to display erudition and to ground the discussion in a shared body of authoritative thought.

Scientific authority too is woven into this framework. In arguing that nature does everything with a purpose (960e), Autobulus invokes the Aristotelian Strato of Lampsacus (961a). Optatus, the arbiter of the debate, is presented as a living substitute for Aristotle’s (zoological) works: ‘Autobulus [to Optatus]: Come over here … so that, if a witness should be needed, we may not resort to Aristotle’s books but, following you through your experience (δι᾿ ἐμπειρίαν), may return a true verdict on the arguments’ (965e).Footnote ²⁰ Autobulus’ arguments are soon clarified as entertaining a polemical relationship with Stoicism (960b; cf. also at 963f). The Stoics object that divine Providence would not give to creatures the ‘principle’ (ἀρχή) of reason without enabling them to perfect it (962a), yet the Stoics themselves ignore how all living beings, including humans, have faculties – sight, hearing, speed, intelligence itself – that look defective if compared to someone else’s (962c–d, 963a). Animal intelligence is here presented as a challenge to Stoic ontology. Interestingly, Autobulus targets Stoic terminology directly, quoting its technical definitions to expose their opacity (961c, e–f).Footnote ²¹ At the same time, he argues that Stoic practices contradict their theory. Although Stoics deny reason to animals, Autobulus contends that, in reflecting on animal behaviour, they nevertheless attribute to them capacities such as purposiveness, memory, and intention, and even treat emotions as forms of judgement (961d).Footnote ²² More strikingly, they punish animals in order to correct them: ‘They themselves punish dogs and horses that make mistakes, not aimlessly (διὰ κενῆς) but for correction (ἐπὶ σωφρονισμῷ); they are creating in them through pain a feeling of sorrow, which we call repentance’ (961d). By reading Stoic texts alongside Stoic practice, Autobulus exposes a critical tension. Punishment integrates animals into a system of moral accountability that, on Stoic principles, should exclude them.

Cleverness: The agōn

After the exchange between Autobulus and Soclarus, two young speakers, Aristotimus and Phaedimus, enter the scene (965b). They have been assigned the task of delivering opposing speeches on whether land animals (Aristotimus) or sea animals (Phaedimus) are more intelligent. The ensuing agōn further develops the framework’s triangulation among concerns with interpretive proficiency (in both nature and literature), interpretive rivalry, and the use of animals as a test case.

Both speeches are riddled with citations and examples ripped from textbooks and life. Although Stoic doctrine now mostly recedes into the background, the contestants share an ambition to decode animal voices that aligns with the agenda set by Aristotle’s History of Animals, which they repeatedly invoke.Footnote ²³ In an influential passage, the History interrogates the nature of animal phōnē in the light of the relationship between voice and soul.Footnote ²⁴

At times, their engagement with Aristotle is signalled through direct appeals and close verbal correspondences. One example is Aristotimus’ citation of the case of the nightingale teaching its young to sing: ‘Now since teaching is more rational (λογικώτερον) than learning, we must yield assent to Aristotle when he says that animals do teach: a nightingale, in fact, has been observed instructing her young how to sing’ (973a–b).

The passage closely echoes History 536b17–20,Footnote ²⁵ which notes that such behaviour suggests that song, unlike mere voice, can be learned. Similarly, Phaedimus’ discussion of egg-guarding reproduces Aristotelian material on the shared care of offspring (981f; cf. HA 621a23).

These appeals gain further force because they are addressed to the arbiter Optatus, who, as noted above, serves as a proxy for Aristotle’s books. Cleverness underlines the shared familiarity of its interlocutors with the History of Animals, arguably expecting that its readers too will recognise and assess these intertexts. This accords with what we know about the contemporary circulation of the History, which appears to have been read despite the difficult transmission of Aristotelian works in the imperial period.Footnote ²⁶

Two points are particularly relevant. First, Cleverness embeds Aristotelian discussions of voice and signification within a literary performance that makes animals twice readable (because their sounds are treated as meaningful; and because their behaviour is shaped into narrative examples). Second, by making Aristotle’s text readily available within the debate, Cleverness creates the conditions for Phaedimus’ subtle but decisive act of assertion of the bond between reading proficiency and natural thinking.

This further development becomes clearer when we first consider how Cleverness construes the different interpretive profiles of its contestants. Both Aristotimus and Phaedimus are introduced as philologoi kai philogrammatoi (963c), that is, as qualified by their training as readers and interpreters. Both can challenge the Stoics when needed and develop their arguments by drawing, in different proportions, on personal observation, reports from informants, and written sources.Footnote ²⁷ Yet they handle evidence differently. Aristotimus, who speaks first (965d–975c), is a hoarder: his opening gambit alone contains citations from Hesiod’s Works and Days (965e), Plato’s Laws (965f), a list of divine epithets (966a), lines from an unknown tragedian (967c), the Iliad (967d), Cleanthes (967e), Aratus (967f), Hagnon of Tarsus (967d), and the story books on Deucalion and the ark (968f). He can engage critically with philosophical positions, for instance when addressing the problem of the ‘syllogistic dog’ (969a–b).Footnote ²⁸ However, he tends to subsume such discussions within a broader, eclectic display of poetry, paradoxography, and history. Aristotimus himself acknowledges the fragmented character of his speech: ‘I am not unaware that my examples will appear rather a hodgepodge (τι ποικίλον) to you; but it is not easy to find among well-natured animals (τῶν εὐφυῶν ζῴων) an action that illustrates merely one of their virtues (ἀρετῆς)’ (970e).

Self-awareness works in Aristotimus’ favour. As the dialogue’s conclusion makes clear, he remains a thinker of value, since he arrives at the same central claim as the other participants (namely, that all animals are intelligent). Yet his poikilia also gives Phaedimus an opening to criticise his method and articulate an alternative.

Phaedimus is himself highly erudite (a ‘Pindaric zealot’, 975c),Footnote ²⁹ but he presents his approach as more disciplined. He promises to introduce ‘no opinions (δόξας) … or unattested tales (ἀμαρτύρους … διηγήσεις)’ about sea animals, relying instead on reports from direct witnesses (975d–e). At the same time, intriguingly, Phaedimus allows anecdotal material for land animals on the grounds that such evidence is readily available; a perhaps lightly ironic concession, since he does not entirely reject rhetorical display.Footnote ³⁰

Most importantly, he criticises the quality of Aristotimus’ land-related sources (for instance, he dismisses the ‘monstrous and far-fetched’ tale of elephants derived from Juba),Footnote ³¹ and, in doing so, calls for a tighter alignment between zoological enquiry and interpretive method. This demand is reinforced by his characterisation of the sea as an actively concealing space and a paradigm of interpretive challenge:

By contrast with Aristotimus’ emphasis on the accessibility of evidence for land animals (966b–c), Phaedimus presents the marine world as uniquely suited to probing and valorising the observer’s interpretive skills. His insistence on philology, etymology, and the authority of grammarians in constructing his arguments builds on this critical premise. In his discussion of Iliad 24.80–2 (976f–977a), for example, he rejects a common reading by summoning Aristarchus. Elsewhere, he reports competing learned explanations for Homer’s designation of the anthias as a ‘sacred fish’ (981d), and he criticises Chrysippus for failing to investigate the sponge-guard accurately (980a–b). Control of sources is foregrounded as a key mark of interpretive competence; it is, critically, through a fleeting but crucial remark on the History of Animals that Phaedimus proves his textual excellence. When discussing hedgehogs, Aristotimus attributed to a man from Cyzicus the observation that these animals can predict the wind (972a). In the History of Animals, however, the observer comes from Byzantium.Footnote ³² Phaedimus, who elsewhere in his speech made clear allusions to materials from the History,Footnote ³³ alludes to this discrepancy with pointed restraint: ‘We have, to be sure, heard Aristotimus telling us about the hedgehog’s foreknowledge of the winds; and our friend also admired the V-shaped flight of cranes. I can produce no hedgehog of Cyzicus or Byzantium (Κυζικηνὸν ἢ Βυζάντιον)’ (979a–b). Would Plutarch’s Optatus and his readers recognise this subtle correction? It seems plausible.Footnote ³⁴ One might further argue that, from its initial engagement with the temporality of Timaeus to Phaedimus’ Byzantine observer of hedgehogs, Cleverness depends upon the literary competence of its readers of nature. This piece is presented as a dialogue on animal cognition, which it indeed is; it is also, however, and most importantly, a discussion of reading, one that displays careful control of sources and exposes flawed interpreters (notably, the Stoics) whose terminology and practice reveal inconsistencies of method. Framed by an initial exchange that responds to both rhetorical performance (the Praise of Hunting) and Stoic doctrine, the central agōn advances claims about how to combine natural observation with textual interpretation. In the end, the participants all reach a principle of general agreement. Whether Aristotimus or Phaedimus ‘wins’ matters less than the debate’s shared outcome: both contestants confirm Autobulus’ claim that animals possess intelligence. Soclarus, Autobulus’ original interlocutor, unsurprisingly seals the argument with a citation from Sophocles,Footnote ³⁵ which brings the discussion back to the literary authority that shaped it throughout.

Gryllus, or the Isomorphism between Nature and Literature

The second Plutarchan text I consider here is the light-hearted satire Bruta animalia ratione uti (Mor. 985d–992e; hereafter Gryllus, after its main character).Footnote ³⁶ I do not aim to offer a full reading of the dialogue, but rather to highlight how it complements Cleverness. Gryllus is a very different (literary) beast altogether, being Plutarch’s only dialogue with a mythological setting. A playful reworking of Odyssey 10, with a quasi- (or proto-)Lucianic flair,Footnote ³⁷ it does not directly engage with zoological texts. Scholars have variously read it as parody of Plutarch’s own views, and a critique of sophistic culture.Footnote ³⁸ Gryllus, however, is also not exactly a fable. While it fictionalises animal speech, it simultaneously draws on fiction to (playfully) reproduce a philosophical account of the meaningful interaction of real animals in the world. Additionally, Plutarch situates this discussion within epic, the exegetical subject par excellence. I considered above Phaedimus’ sense of contiguity between Homeric philology and the examination of nature. Gryllus arguably complements Cleverness by offering a reflection, at once critical and playful, on the shared availability of nature and literature to interpretation.

The dialogue opens with Odysseus seeking to restore his companions to human form, so that they do not ‘grow old in the bodies of wild beasts, against nature (παρὰ φύσιν)’ (985e).Footnote ³⁹ Circe derides his ‘stupidity’ (ἀβελτερία) and summons a man turned pig, Gryllus (the ‘oinker’), to refute him. Magically endowed with speech, Gryllus shouts: ‘Stop, Odysseus! Not another word! … you were falsely acclaimed as a fellow who seemed far more intelligent than other men, you who fear a change from worse to better because you hadn’t given it any thought’ (986c–d).

Gryllus challenges Odysseus’ reputation for intelligence by confronting his preconceptions and proceeds to argue that his present life as an animal is better than – and morally superior to – his former human condition. His claim rests on the reiteration of the statement that animals alone live in accordance with nature and avoid corrupting pleasures (990d).Footnote ⁴⁰

The dialogue’s playfulness resists any straightforward reading. Gryllus’ admission that he was once a sophist (988f) – an absurdity in the Homeric world, as Plutarch’s readers knew – marks the text as self-consciously literary extravaganza and raises the question of whether Gryllus’ arguments should be taken as anything more than verbal jugglery. His statements do not overlap with beliefs that Plutarch articulates elsewhere, like his contention, in Cleverness, that reason is naturally present in all beings but only the human mind can perfect it (962c).Footnote ⁴¹ Conversely, Gryllus bluntly asserts animal superiority. Bréchet reads the piece as a parody of self-centred speakers who cannot relate to the point of view of the other, with Odysseus puzzled at the words of the pig and Gryllus astonished that a man might wish his return to human life.Footnote ⁴²

It is remarkable that it should be a former sophist – that is, someone who lived by logos and its manipulation – to be entrusted with the contrapasso of speaking his reasons as a non-verbal animal. The transition from hyper-logia to a status as a-logon, provocatively reconfigured as a movement towards rationality, points to the second tension explored in Gryllus: the semantic extensiveness of logos between communication and reason. The moral life of both characters – Odysseys and Gryllus – is scrutinised through words, in the awareness of words’ manipulative power. Once granted communicative logos, the a-logon demonstrates its reason; yet this is already implicit in the identification of natural life with an uncorrupted mode of existence, which requires no verbal articulation. Conversely, the talking and reasoning man finds himself, as Bréchet puts it, twice alogos, being both wrong and silenced in the debate.Footnote ⁴³

The issue of the reason(s) of the non-verbal animal – what the animal can and cannot communicate – structures a piece that seems to answer the question ‘can we understand the animal mind?’ with the following (non-)reply: we can if the animal is a man; if this man happened to be a sophist; and if the entire scenario is staged as a joke. The conclusion might strike us as aporetic but it achieves, critically, the collapse of the boundary between literary fiction and natural enquiry. Gryllus reads poetry through the lens of animals and complicates animals by reading their relationship with humans through the distorting framework of myth.Footnote ⁴⁴ The plot thickens once we read further into the piece, with Blanshard, a light-hearted response to the Statesman, where Plato’s Eleatic Stranger seeks to define humans based on bodily taxonomies, which initially leads him to postulate man and pig as closely related (266c).Footnote ⁴⁵

By asking how we read both nature and literature, Gryllus sharpens the issue of how interpretive skills move between these domains. It invites us to consider, at once, how Odysseus, the polymētis hero, interprets the animal; how we, as readers, interpret the Odyssey and take his hero as a model of intelligence; and how reflection on animal intelligence holds the potential to unsettle Odysseus’ status as the paradigm of cunning. More broadly, Gryllus asks whether meaning and morality are exclusive preserves of verbal communication, and whether it is not rather the case that speech can itself distort reason, distancing humans from the ‘natural’ life.

Literary Expertise and Philosophical Alliances

Book 4 opens with an explicit appeal to textual authority. Origen invokes Jeremiah (4.1), asking for words to ‘tear down the structures of all false opinion (ψευδοδοξία)’.Footnote ⁴⁹ Prophecy, understood as scripture’s capacity to interpret sacred history, is Book 4’s leading topic, as Origen sets out to respond to Celsus’ attacks on the validity of prophecies concerning the coming of Christ.

From the outset, Origen casts the dispute as a matter of exegesis. He claims that Celsus either failed to engage with genuine biblical prophecies or could not refute them (4.2). In response, Origen foregrounds his own command of Greek literature and philosophy. He appeals to philosophical ‘writings on providence’ (4.3) contradicting Celsus’ words; summarises Epicurean and Stoic theology (4.14; cf. 4.45, 4.48); discusses Platonic transmigration (4.17); and refers to cyclical destructions of the world (4.20, citing Timaeus 22d). Origen configures his knowledge of Greek philosophy and Christianity’s alignment with some of its tenets as pointing to the shared truths accessible to those who genuinely seek wisdom. As he puts it: ‘We bear truthful witness that some Greek philosophers did know God, since “God made it plain to them”’ (4.30).

Origen explains this convergence in two ways. At times, he suggests direct influence; for instance, he implies that in his travels Plato encountered interpreters of Jewish tradition who read scripture philosophically (4.39).Footnote ⁵⁰ Elsewhere, he treats philosophical reasoning and inspired scripture as parallel expressions of the universal accessibility of divine rationality.Footnote ⁵¹ ‘Christian philosophy’, he argues, draws its ‘proofs’ from scripture and from reason alike (4.9), since scripture is inspired by the divine spirit (4.17). Like his contemporaries, Origen negotiates Christianity’s identity as a comprehensive system of truth, a hermeneutical key capable of explaining the cosmos through both textual interpretation and rational argument.

This position has clear implications. If rationality, moral purity, and Christian truth coincide, then disagreement must reflect both faulty reasoning and flawed character. Origen accordingly frames Celsus’ errors in both intellectual and ethical terms.Footnote ⁵² First, he portrays Celsus as a poor reader. His critique of Christianity, Origen claims, relies on inferior sources (4.52) that he fails to assess critically. Although Celsus knows sophisticated allegorical interpreters such as Philo of Alexandria and Aristobulus, he does not engage seriously with their arguments (4.51). Origen contrasts him unfavourably with the Pythagorean Numenius, who drew on both Plato and Moses (ibid.).

Second, Origen argues that Celsus misunderstands Greek philosophy itself: rather than opposing Christianity from a position of philosophical strength, he inadvertently undermines the very traditions he claims to defend (4.74).Footnote ⁵³ By contrast, Origen emphasises his own alignment with key Stoic ideas, especially the view that human rationality places humans above non-rational animals within a providential cosmos (4.74; 4.81). This alignment, which reflects the well-studied continuity between Stoic and early Christian thinking on human–animal relations,Footnote ⁵⁴ reinforces Origen’s authority: it enables him to describe Celsus’ natural thinking as a form of deviance eluding the fundamental agreement between different but communicating systems of truth (Stoicism and Christianity).

History and Allegoresis

Origen repeatedly accuses Celsus of ignorance of sacred history, ascribing this failure to flawed interpretation. As noted above, Book 4 opens by framing prophecy as scripture’s key to history. Celsus’ misunderstanding of scripture is both the cause and the result of his ignorance of the past. He dismisses Genesis, for instance, by claiming that the story of Noah derives from ‘Greek or barbarian’ traditions (4.11). Origen counters by appealing to Greek authors who proved the greater antiquity of Moses and therefore the originality of biblical narrative (4.11; 4.36). From this initial error, Origen argues, further misreadings follow: Celsus conflates distinct biblical episodes, such as the Flood and the Tower of Babel (4.21), and attributes to Genesis ideas that belong to other texts, such as Job and the Psalms (4.37).

Celsus’ difficulty at recovering scripture’s meaning is tied to the question of allegorical interpretation, one of the most heated points of debate between early Christian and pagan exegetes.Footnote ⁵⁵ The reading of authoritative writings as non-literal sources of messages of eternal and spiritual significance was key to how both groups argued for the universal validity of their texts of reference. Celsus rejects the legitimacy of such readings in Jewish and Christian scripture. Origen responds with a now-familiar strategy: he asks why Greek interpreters may extract philosophical meaning from their own traditions while denying Jews and Christians the same approach.Footnote ⁵⁶ Scripture itself, Origen writes, offers clues to the necessity of searching for its spiritual meaning: Adam’s name, for instance, translates as ‘man’ from Hebrew (4.40); the psalmist prays that God will ‘open’ his ‘eyes’ to enable understanding (4.50, on Psalm 118.18).

This dispute over allegoresis is essential to understand Origen’s and Celsus’ stance on animal creation. For Origen, Celsus’ inability to interpret scripture correctly mirrors his failure to understand nature as a providential order. Accordingly, Origen interweaves his critique of Celsus’ hermeneutics with extended reflections on animals within creation (4.23–30; 4.52–58; 4.74–98), which I now proceed to discuss.

Celsus and Origen on Animals and Creation

Animals first enter the discussion at 4.23, when Origen reports Celsus’ comparison of Jews and Christians to ‘a cluster of bats’ or ‘frogs holding council round a marsh’. This composite image presupposes Odyssey 24.6–8 as quoted in Republic 387a (the bats), and Plato’s Phaedo 109b (the frogs).Footnote ⁵⁷ Origen rejects the comparison by arguing that humans become like irrational animals only when they abandon reason, which, for him, coincides with piety (4.25). This decline becomes visible in the behaviour of those who worship animals and thus effectively subordinate themselves to them. By contrast, the ability to refute false arguments ‘with arguments from scripture’ (4.27) preserves human rationality. Read allegorically, the scriptural claim that humans are made ‘in the image of God’ (4.30) implies that they are forbidden from lowering themselves to the level of animals, and, therefore, from worshipping them.

Origen returns to animal creation at 4.52, following a long discussion of allegoresis. Here he challenges Celsus’ claim that the human body is no different from that of a bat, worm, or frog.Footnote ⁵⁸ He presents this not only as a mistaken conclusion but also as the result of a poor reading of Celsus’ own authoritative text, Plato’s Timaeus:Footnote ⁵⁹

Origen’s point here is twofold. He claims control over Celsus’ sources, which he can locate and re-explain appropriately;Footnote ⁶⁰ he reinforces his alliance with Stoic philosophy, which he presents as broadly compatible with Christianity. Celsus, by contrast, appears isolated from both traditions.

These lines of argument converge in the final section of Book 4 (4.74–98), where Origen addresses Celsus’ critique of the claim that ‘God made all things for men’ (4.74). Once again, Origen portrays Celsus as misreading authoritative texts. He claims that, having forgotten his aim (which is to criticise Jews and Christians), Celsus attacked another co-religionist, Euripides, who described the sun and night as serving mortals (4.77). Origen defends Euripides as a ‘philosopher of the stage’, linking his insight to philosophical influence (Anaxagoras).Footnote ⁶¹

The closing chapters revisit themes familiar from imperial debates about animal intelligence. Origen rejects Celsus’ praise of ants as honouring their dead (4.84), arguing that such claims, which cannot flatter unintelligent insects but will dispirit humans, diminish man’s rationality rather than elevate animals (4.83). He also disputes the idea that animals demonstrate intelligence through their use of medicinal plants (4.86–87): if animals truly possessed reason, they would organise and transmit such knowledge collectively, as humans do. In both cases, communication (the ants’ incapacity to understand a eulogy; the animal inability to share medical knowledge) becomes the decisive criterion separating animals from human communication.

A final exchange concerns prophecy (4.88–91). Celsus treats augury as evidence of divine communication; Origen questions both the validity of animal divination and the source of its insights, suggesting that it may derive from demonic influence.Footnote ⁶² Celsus failed to provide convincing evidence either way: his interpretive method is, once again, approximative (4.88–89). Remarkably, Origen closes this argument too by appealing to textual authority: Moses is upheld as the ideal interpreter because, by identifying animals revered in Egyptian religion as impure, he demonstrated his superior understanding of nature, later translating this insight it into normative literature (4.93).

It is worth noting that the section’s final examples (ants honouring their dead, animal medicine, and augury) also appear in Plutarch’s Cleverness.Footnote ⁶³ From Celsus’ fragments it does not seem that Plutarch is cited verbatim, and other imperial sources do use the same anecdotes.Footnote ⁶⁴ Nevertheless, the affinity in the selection of motives suggests shared intent, possibly indicating that Celsus might have absorbed Plutarch within his network of textual authorities supporting his Platonist understanding of ontological hierarchies.

Porphyry’s Sources, 1: Theophrastus on Sacrifice

Book 2, which develops Abstinence’s theory of sacrifice, incorporates excerpts from Theophrastus alongside sapiential and poetic literature and paradoxography to argue that true philosopher-priests shun blood sacrifices and instead pursue a form of ‘intellectual sacrifice’ (νοερὰ θυσία) that alone fulfils the demands of the intellectual deity (Abst. 2.45.4).

A premise is here necessary. Porphyry’s argument operates within a longer history of philosophical debates concerning the interpretability of rites,Footnote ⁸⁰ debates intensified in the third century amidst governmental enforcement of sacrificial policies.Footnote ⁸¹ The century also witnessed the amplification of anti-sacrificial claims in Christian literature, which framed abstention from literal offerings as indicative of transcendence over the letter (via scriptural allegoresis) and thus over the body.Footnote ⁸² The resonance of sacrifice with interpretive debates is evident in Book 2, which suggests that offering animal bodies reflects an inability to discern the immaterial principle of reason as the one and true source of connection among all living beings (including the divine).Footnote ⁸³ Porphyry frames this understanding as the result of a process of decodification: ‘the real philosopher (ὁ ὄντως φιλόσοφος) is someone who notes signs (σημειωτικός) and understands the facts of nature (καταληπτικὸς τῶν τῆς φύσεως πραγμάτων)’ (Abst. 2.49.1–2).Footnote ⁸⁴ Elsewhere in the text, he draws an analogy between the capacity to be sēmeiōtikos and the act of reading: ‘They [the demons] send signs to everyone, but not everyone understands what the signs mean, just as not everyone can read what is written, but only the person who has learned letters’ (2.41.4).

Porphyry’s interpretive approach to the world as a readable whole is reinforced through a strategic use of authoritative texts. The first part of Book 2 (2.5.1–2.32.3) incorporates extended citations from Theophrastus, selectively edited to demonstrate that animal sacrifice results from a corruption of the original function of Greek offerings to the gods.Footnote ⁸⁵ Critically, Theophrastus’ excerpts integrate oracular and poetic material, which Porphyry interprets to trace the historical degeneration of sacrificial practices from plants to living beings.Footnote ⁸⁶ Theophrastus is summoned not simply as a philosopher, but as a critical reader whose analyses illuminate the true relationship between humans and the divine.

In a key transitional moment, Theophrastus’ arguments are linked to the explanation of the cosmos’ hidden hierarchies of beings, derived from the Platonic tradition (2.36.6). A demonological excursus, the longest in Porphyry’s surviving works, outlines these hierarchies and explains their progressive entanglement with matter (2.37.4–42.3). This excursus clarifies the ontological status of lower demons and why they request flesh sacrifices (the like is appeased by the like).Footnote ⁸⁷ Porphyry’s explanation is thus both a grand theoretical synthesis, mapping all living beings, and a pivot that connects Theophrastus’ analytical enquiries with sources Porphyry drew on from Pythagorean teachings, Chaldean oracles, and sacred poetry (2.44–61).Footnote ⁸⁸

Porphyry integrates Theophrastus’ masterful reading into his own authoritative selection of texts, enabling him to surpass his predecessor while absorbing his insights. Each component of Porphyry’s textual triangulation (the enquiries of the Aristotelian disciple; the sayings of ancient wise figures in oracles and poetry; and Porphyry’s Platonic reading of cosmic gradations) mutually validates the others, producing a synoptic reading of literature and the cosmos.

Porphyry’s Sources, 2: Plutarch (and Aristotle) on Animal Reason

A second significant use of sources concerns Plutarch’s Cleverness, which Abstinence mobilises extensively to explore zoology as a window onto cosmic structures. The anti-Stoic discussion on the animal mind in Book 3 combines borrowings from Aristotle with a distinctly Plutarchan core. From chapters 18 to 24, Porphyry directly cites Autobulus’ arguments from Cleverness (959e–63f).Footnote ⁸⁹ His critical response to Stoic natural thinking is sealed through textual canonisation: Plutarch is upheld as literary point of reference and absorbed within Porphyry’s repertoire of authoritative writings that support his perspective against his rivals. By so doing, Porphyry also pushes Autobulus’ claim that animal communication is available to exegetical scrutiny to new theological ends.

Book 3 presupposes animals as interpretable beings. Porphyry explicitly invokes the category of to sēmantikon to describe animal speech:

Porphyry’s terminology resonates with Aristotle’s account in De anima 2.8 (420b29–33), where voice is defined as a sound that carries meaning (σημαντικὸς γὰρ). Building on this, Porphyry argues that animals understand human masters (3.5.2), reproduce speech (3.4.4), communicate meaningfully with one another, and can be understood by humans living nearby (3.5).Footnote ⁹¹ Porphyry’s critique of Greco-centrism, which shapes his quest for universal wisdom throughout his writings,Footnote ⁹² also informs his comparison of animal sounds with foreign languages that we do not doubt as intelligible even if unknown (3.3.4).Footnote ⁹³

Porphyry adapts Aristotle’s theory of gradation among living beings to a theological argument. ‘As Aristotle says somewhere’, he writes, ‘variation [in natural characteristics] seems not to be a distinction in essence but is a question of more and less’ (3.7.1).Footnote ⁹⁴ It should be noted that Porphyry is adapting Aristotle’s claim loosely.Footnote ⁹⁵ The History of Animals does make the point that certain qualities, like sight or strength, differ quantitatively (i.e. they are in a relationship of ‘more or less’ with one another) among living beings. However, Aristotle argues in the same passage that animal and human cognition are in a different type of relationship, which is defined by analogy: if beasts have a faculty that is analogous to synesis, this will not be synesis in its strictest sense.Footnote ⁹⁶

Porphyry’s adaptation of Aristotle precedes him. Already in Cleverness, Aristobulus included logos among the natural characteristics that vary in quantity rather than essence among all beings (962c–d),Footnote ⁹⁷ a view Porphyry inherits and articulates explicitly: ‘Many people live only by perception (ἐπ’ αἰσθήσει μόνον ζῶντας), having no intellect or logos (νοῦν δὲ καὶ λόγον οὐκ ἔχοντας)’ (3.19).Footnote ⁹⁸

Porphyry, however, further deploys the theory of gradation of logos to connect animals to divinity. Through his radical emphasis on linguistic and cognitive affinities between all beings, he unlocks the possibility of connecting animals not just to humans but also to those who are next up in the ontological ladder, namely the gods. He takes animal communication – meaningful but obscure to humans and in need of being decoded – as a test case to investigate divine communication, which is also necessarily meaningful (and, by definition, ‘in logos’), but, for different reasons than animal verses, is obscure and demands interpretive scrutiny. Drawing on Greek theories of natural language, Porphyry implies that, unlike humans who ‘speak according to human laws’ (3.3.3), animals are linked to the divine insofar as they receive from the gods a form of natural language: ‘animals speak according to laws given by the gods or nature’ (ibid.).Footnote ⁹⁹ Understanding these signs requires observation and rational decoding:

Here, zoology blends with theology: observable behaviour, of animals or the sun, demonstrates rationality and providential agency. Porphyry further clarifies this principle in multiple passages, insisting that rationality cannot be judged solely by comprehension of speech, as this would enable one to claim that ‘gods lack logos because they do not speak’ (3.5.4–5). Elsewhere, he points out that animals do not lack reason because they are non-human, just as gods do not lack reason because they are supra-human (3.82); and that, just as animals lack cities, so do ‘the wagon-dwelling Scythians… or the gods’ (3.15.5).

As these passages demonstrate, Porphyry’s framework – presupposing a gradation of beings – allows him to study animals as a window onto cosmic order. On the one hand, this approach might be taken as anti-anthropocentric, as it challenges human proximity to the divine. On the other hand, it uniquely authorises the intermedial exegete who decodes both literature and nature, using textual and observational evidence to map a rational, hierarchically structured cosmos.

Book 4: Textual Evidence from Ascetic Communities

Porphyry’s enquiry into what animals signify runs in parallel with a complementary question, which asks how interpreters find evidence to support their readings of the place of animals in the cosmos. His answer appeals to the interpretability of human practices in themselves – what could be labelled as ‘orthopraxy’, or correct behaviour. The notion that philosophical action reflects philosophical thinking is long-standing, informing debates on vegetarianism since Pythagoras and appearing in Plutarch.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Porphyry, however, gives the argument a distinct spin by uniquely linking philosophical orthopraxy to a textual network.

Just as the acts of animals (or the sun) can be interpreted as varied expressions of logos, so too can the behaviour of philosophers communicate, non-verbally, their understanding of cosmic intelligibility. In Book 1, Porphyry sets out this principle programmatically:

Book 4 reinforces this claim by providing historical records of ascetic practices worldwide, giving textual evidence to support Porphyry’s account of interpretable human behaviour. These sources show that communities recognised as wise find their common denominator in orthopraxy, which is defined by abstinence. While vegetarianism is sometimes peripheral, the emphasis is consistently on the disciplined conduct that embodies philosophical wisdom.Footnote ¹⁰¹

Abstinence, as discussed, showcases throughout its books its reliance on a rich array of texts that feed Porphyry’s self-assertion as a master reader. Book 4, however, ‘comes closest to adequate referencing’,Footnote ¹⁰² which suggests a distinctive desire  to signal control over sources. As the table below illustrates, the description of each ascetic community is always grounded in at least one text, which is referenced explicitly.

Although Book 4 presents itself as gathering together loose threads (4.1.2), it functions in effect as the evidentiary cornerstone of Abstinence. Porphyry’s interpretive authority over both the visible and the invisible dimensions of nature is expressed in life through his personal orthopraxy – philosophical vegetarianism and abstention from blood sacrifices – whose epistemological weight is reinforced by its resonance with the practices of wise communities across the world. The spatial and temporal dispersion of these communities suggests that the wise characteristically incline towards abstinence and dietary restriction, confirming Porphyry’s understanding of justice within the cosmos. That their practices indeed conform to such a pattern is something Porphyry has discovered, and now shares with his readers, thanks to his meticulous control over a wide array of textual sources. This access to diverse records enables Porphyry not only to provide compelling evidence in support of his argument but also to seal his self-assertion as master reader.

In Abstinence, the animal functions as an interpretable sign whose actions reveal the pervasiveness of divine reason. Similarly, the abstinent practices of philosophers towards animals constitute observable expressions of wisdom, offering interpreters a network of decodable signs. Just as the participation of animals in divine reason can be apprehended through their behaviour, so too can human orthopraxy reveal wisdom to those capable of reading both inspired texts and the providential world.