PORPHYR'IUS (Lot., from Gk. HoprOptos, Porphyrios) (233-c.304 A.D.). One of the most im portant Neo-Platonists and the chief disciple of Plotinus. He was born at Batanea, in Syria. where he received his early education. His original name was Malchus. but this was changed, according to tradition, to Porphyrius (`wearer of the purple') by Longinus, whose disciple he was at Athens from 252 to 262. In the latter year he went to Rome and soon attached himself to Plotinus. After some years be moved to Sicily, but returned to Rome under Aurelian and eon tinned his teaching into the reign of Diocletian. Porphyrius was not a deep thinker. He devoted himself to grammar and history as well as phi losophy, but his great service was as an expositor and definer of Plotinus's obscure doctrines, which Eunapius declares he made clear to the common understanding. He was a very prolific writer. Suidas has preserved to us an incomplete list of his writings, some of which deal with specu lative philosophy, but the larger number were devoted to the history of philosophy and its ex position. The most important of these are his Life of Pythagoras, his work On Abstiricnce front Animal hood, an Introduction and Commentary to Aristotle's Categories, and a work addressed to his wife, Marcella. Of his lost works the most
important was one directed against the Chris tians, which was publicly burned at the order of Theodosius II. That he was originally a Chris tian, as is stated by Socrates, the Church his torian, and by Saint Augustine, there is not the slightest proof. A complete edition of his works and fragments has never yet been pub lished. The most important editions of single works are the following: Porphyrii Opuseula Selecta, by Nauek (2d ed., Leipzig, 1SS6) ; The Life of Pythagoras, together with Iambliehus's similar work, by (Leipzig, 1516) ; his Commentaries to Aristotle's Categories is now published in the great Berlin edition of the Com Melitarir'S to Aristotle. vol. iv., ed. by Busse (Ber lin, 1887) ; Porphyrii de Philosophia ex Oracitlis Haurienda Librorum Rcliqui(e, ed. Gustav Wolff (Berlin, 1856) ; Qmestiones Honicricie, ed. Schra der (Leipzig, 1880-82). Translation of Select Works, by Taylor (London, 1823) ; Sentences, by Davidson ( ib., 1569 ) . Consult : Zeller, Philo sophic der Gricehen (3d ed., Leipzig. 1851) : and for Porphyrius's relation to Christianity, Me tier, Porphyrius der Xeuplatoniker and Chn•isten feind (Paderborn, 1S96).