Journal of Hellenic Studies 135 (2015) 78–94 doi:10.

1017/S0075426915000075
© The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 2015

STONES, WOOD AND WOVEN PAPYRUS:

PORPHYRY’S ON STATUES

GRAEME MILES
University of Tasmania*

Abstract: Among the fragmentary works of the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry of Tyre are some reasonably substan-
tial remains of his essay on the interpretation of cult images, On Statues (Περὶ Ἀγαλμάτων). My study falls into two
parts. Firstly, I assess the major source of our fragments, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Praeparatio Evangelica, and argue
that the full text of On Statues would have looked quite different, and in particular much less Stoic, than the surviving
fragments would suggest. Secondly, I turn to consider what these fragments tell us about Porphyry’s thoughts on the
interpretation of images and the place of these thoughts in the wider history of viewing.

Keywords: Porphyry of Tyre, Neoplatonism, Eusebius of Caesarea, cult images, history of viewing

I. Introduction
Porphyry of Tyre is best known as the most learned opponent of early Christianity, and as the
mediator and promoter of the philosophy of Plotinus.1 For students of logic, he is primarily the
author of the Introduction to Aristotle’s categories.2 Among Porphyry’s interpretive works was an
essay on the interpretation of cult images, On Statues (Περὶ Ἀγαλμάτων). The full text, like so
much of Porphyry’s voluminous output, has been lost, but extensive fragments survive.
The article to follow falls into two sections. Firstly, I assess Eusebius’ presentation of On Statues
and the role which this text is made to play in his arguments. I argue that the full text of On Statues
would have looked quite different, and in particular much less Stoic, than the surviving fragments
would suggest. Secondly, I will turn to consider what these fragments tell us about Porphyry’s thoughts
on the interpretation of images and the place of these thoughts in the wider history of viewing.
Approaching any topic in Porphyrian studies is complicated by the fragmentary transmission
of much of his work. In the case of On Statues, knowledge of the text derives almost entirely from
Eusebius of Caesarea’s Praeparatio Evangelica.3 We are very fortunate that Eusebius’ habits of
quotation preserve such substantial extracts from Porphyry’s text, but it is essential to bear in mind
the argumentative context in which they appear. The reappraisal of Eusebius’ work in recent years
has demonstrated that the dual composition (made up of his Praeparatio Evangelica and Demon-
stratio Evangelica), despite its heavy citation of other works, presents a unified argument,
constructing a particular Christian identity and attacking the claims of both Hellenic pagans and
Jews.4 It is, of course, no surprise that the bishop of Caesarea’s attitude to Porphyry should be

* Graeme.Miles@utas.edu.au. I am grateful to the 2 See Barnes (2003).

University of Tasmania for an internal grant which
assisted in the preparation of this article and to the anony-
mous readers at JHS for their detailed and helpful reports.
1 The first modern study of Porphyry’s life and work
as a whole is that of Bidez (1913). On various aspects of
Porphyry’s thought, see Dörrie et al. (1965); Hadot
(1968); Smith (1974); Zambon (2002). For a succinct
overview of Porphyry’s significance, see Smith (2007);
on the bibliography (up to the late 1980s), see Smith
(1987). Johnson (2013) arrived too late for me fully to
benefit from it in this article; it substantially advances the
study of Porphyry as interpreter and translator.
3 The fragments of On Statues are numbers 351–60
in the edition of Smith (1993) 407–35. It is to this edition
that I refer throughout, and to Mras’ edition (1982) of the
Praeparatio Evangelica. While the majority are drawn
from Eusebius there are two fragments from Stobaeus
(354aF, 360aF), one from Lydus’ De Mensibus (357F)
and a possible fragment (358aF) from Augustine. All of
these overlap with parts of the text quoted by Eusebius.
4 See especially Kofsky (2002); Johnson (2004) 23–
56; (2006); (2007); Schott (2008); Morlet (2009). Still
fundamental on Eusebius as excerptor and commentator
is des Places (1982).
 STONES, WOOD AND WOVEN PAPYRUS: PORPHYRY’S ON STATUES 79

hostile. However if, rather than considering him a mindless compiler, we take Eusebius seriously
as a subtle polemicist and apologist, it becomes all the more important to evaluate the exact nature
of his selection of the material which he cites. Indeed, on a close assessment of the role which
Porphyry’s text is made to play in the relevant sections of the Praeparatio Evangelica, it appears
highly likely that the impression of Porphyry’s work which emerges is more distorted than has
previously been recognized.5

II. On Statues in Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica

As it appears in its fragments, On Statues is by any measure a curious text. As Joseph Bidez
observes in introducing his collection of the fragments: ‘[l]e Περὶ Ἀγαλμάτων offre ainsi un
mélange curieux d’astrologie, de platonisme, d’orphisme, de stoïcisme et de mysticisme’.6 Bidez
reasonably states that Eusebius’ quotations do not in general contain ‘altérations graves et inten-
tionelles’, though he also takes care to stress that the number of extracts preserved ought not to
give the impression that the contents of the text are well known. There are, as he notes, no more
than two or three fragments where Eusebius preserves ‘la lettre même de l’exposé de Porphyre’.7
Certainly, the excerpting seems to become increasingly cursory as Eusebius goes along: one may
well wonder, for instance, what connected the discussion of the symbolism of vultures among
the Egyptians with that of ceremonial offices in the Eleusinian mysteries (360F.74).8 In general,
Bidez’s remarks present a balanced and sensible account of the state in which these fragments
come down to us. It is possible, however, to make some further observations about the selec-
tiveness of Eusebius’ excerpting and the effect which this has on the fragments of Porphyry’s
text.
Recent work on Eusebius has made it increasingly clear that, despite a heavy use of direct cita-
tion, the dual work which comprises the Praeparatio Evangelica and Demonstratio Evangelica
carries out a carefully defined polemical and apologetic project. Eusebius attempts to demonstrate
that Christians do not, as their opponents would suggest, belong to a new movement, nor do they
recklessly abandon ancient traditions. Rather, he argues, Christianity is a rejuvenation of the most
ancient Hebrew traditions.9 Alongside the apologetic construction of a new, Christian ethnos, Euse-
bius attacks both Jewish and pagan claims regarding the antiquity and validity of their own
beliefs.10 For Eusebius, Judaism is a corrupted form of the ancient Hebrew religion. Thus, he
argues, Christians have a truer claim to being the real heirs of the ancient faith. His strategy against
Hellenic paganism, however, is quite different. Rather than a corrupted remnant of a true, ancient
religion and people, the Greeks are relative newcomers, who have borrowed their traditions from
older civilizations.11 It is in Plato and the Platonic tradition that Eusebius finds most to approve in
Greek thought, but what is true in Platonism, he argues, is stolen from the Hebrews and mixed
with all sorts of falsehoods.12

5 A closely analogous situation occurs in the case of 8 To be fair, Eusebius does stress at the conclusion

the Philosophy from Oracles, where Porphyry’s opening
statement that the work is more about philosophy than
cult is not borne out by what follows. On this, see Smith
(1997).
6 Bidez (1913) 154–55.
7 Absence of deliberate falsifications: 144. Cautions:
151. Eusebius stresses at the beginning of book three of
the PE that he is using the exact words of the pagans
whom he attacks. As Mras (1956) 210 observes: ‘Seine
oft seitenlangen Zitate sind genau und wörtlich,
entsprechend seinen Versicherungen πρὸς λέξιν, κατὰ
λέξιν, πρὸς ῥῆμα und αὐτοῖς ῥήμασι’. Saffrey and
Segonds (2012) lviii–lx note the importance of Eusebius
in preserving intact a long passage of the Letter to Anebo.
of this lengthy summary that he is abbreviating and
excerpting rather than quoting at length: Ταῦτά μοι ἐκ
τῆς τοῦ προειρημένου ἀνδρὸς γραφῆς ἐπιτετμήσθω (PE
3.13.3).
9 Eusebius separates the ancient Hebrews, spiritual
ancestors of the Christians, from the Jewish people of his
own day. On this line of argument in Eusebius, see
Johnson (2004).
10 On Christians as a new ethnos in Eusebius, see
Johnson (2004); (2006); (2007).
11 See Kofsky (2002).
12 As T.D. Barnes (1981) 183 observes, Eusebius’
Platonism is essentially of a Middle Platonic character.
80 MILES

In this attack on the Greeks, Eusebius makes frequent and detailed reference to Porphyry.13 It
has plausibly been suggested that Porphyry was an attractive target for personal as well as philo-
sophical reasons, given his own attack on Eusebius’ teacher Origen.14 Nonetheless, the philosophical
and polemical reasons alone were certainly compelling enough: Porphyry’s prominent position as
a recent and influential philosopher, and his polemic against Christianity were themselves sufficient
to win him a conspicuous place in Eusebius’ critique of Greek religion and philosophy. As Aryeh
Kofsky observes in his chapter on the uses of Porphyry in the Praeparatio Evangelica, his works
are employed broadly in two ways: as supporting testimony to the points which Eusebius is making
and as a target who is supposedly representative of Greek (and in particular Platonic) views.15
It is not necessary for the present discussion to undertake a full reappraisal of Eusebius’ attitudes
to and use of Porphyry. It is sufficient to note that, in addition to his denial of any real antiquity to
Hellenic culture, he is also keen to dismiss allegoresis as a valid mode of interpreting both Greek
myth and the symbolic reading of statues. In his scriptural exegesis, Eusebius’ attitude to allegory
is rather more complex,16 but in this polemical context he denies outright the validity of allegorical
reading of Greek myth. As Kofsky has recently observed, Eusebius and Porphyry had a great deal
in common,17 and in this instance Eusebius adopts a strategy which Porphyry himself had
employed, when he denied the applicability of allegoresis to Christian scripture, though he was
willing to employ it in interpreting material from a range of other origins.18 For all of the distortions
which it can involve, allegorical reading of images or narratives from an outside tradition is in
general an inclusive move.19 The polemical refusal of allegory, in Eusebius’ case as in Porphyry’s,
denies the target of attack a valuable means for the production of meaning.
Eusebius divides the uses of allegory and symbolic viewing into two categories, depending on
the type of material which the reader/viewer claims to discover: that which refers to aspects of the
physical world and that which refers to the non-visible or intelligible. Broadly, that is, these inter-
pretive modes can be deployed in the service of φυσιολογία (discourse about the natural world)
or θεολογία (discourse about the gods).20 On occasion, however, this distinction is not so clear.
Thus, after quoting Porphyry’s Letter to Anebo, Eusebius states that it demonstrates that ‘the
esoteric θεολογία of the Egyptians theologized about nothing else than the stars in the heavens,
both those which are called fixed and those named wanderers, and it introduced a demiurge of the
whole, not at all a bodiless one, nor a demiurgic logos, nor any god at all, nor gods, nor any intel-
ligible and invisible powers’ (PE 3.4.3). This could equally well have been described as φυσιολογία
in Eusebius’ terminology. Readers must understand a ‘so-called’ to qualify this particular θεολογία,

13 As Kofsky notes (2002) 89, Porphyry is the
philosopher cited most frequently in the Praeparatio
Evangelica after Plato. This does not, however, mean that
he is the primary target of Eusebius’ work. For a reap-
praisal of this point, see Morlet’s summary of the
communis opinio with some further cautious remarks
(2009) 17–21 and also Morlet (2011).
14 Kofsky (2002) 72, for instance, speculates that this
personal motivation may have prompted Eusebius’
Against Porphyry rather than the Praeparatio Evangelica.
15 See Kofsky (2002) 253–64 (‘Porphyry as
supporting testimony’) and 264–75 (‘A critique of
Porphyry’s views and inconsistencies’).
16 On Eusebius as interpreter, see Hollerich (1999).
of Christian texts, see the criticism of Origen in fragment
39 of Against the Christians (von Harnack (1916)) or his
argument that Achilles and Hector provide a better moral
allegory than Christ and the devil: Sellew (1989). Most
recently on this fragment, see Johnson (2012).
19 Porphyrian allegory is frequently syncretic and
inclusive in tendency. As, for instance, Praet (2009) 83
observes, Porphyry uses allegory to find ‘een vergelijkbare
filosofische boodschap … in teksten, riten en mythen van
diverse origines’. Porphyry’s interest in ‘eastern’ cultures
should not, however, automatically be seen as related to his
own ethnic origins. On this, see Millar (1997). On
Porphyry’s resistance to ethnocentrism, see Johnson (2011).
20 On the uses of the word θεολόγος in an allegorical

As Hollerich observes, Eusebius is ‘generally restrained’
in his use of allegory of the Alexandrian type, but he does
make use of it in his Biblical exegesis (92).
17 As has often been noted. In addition to Kofsky
(2002) 251, see, for instance, Laurin (1954) 335.
18 For Porphyry’s refusal to allow allegorical reading
context, see Lamberton (1986). In his own exegetic prac-
tice, Eusebius makes a related distinction between the
literal meaning of a text κατὰ λέξιν and less immediately
obvious meanings κατὰ διάνοιαν, which may generally
be grouped as ‘spiritual’. On this, see Hollerich (1999)
87–102.
 STONES, WOOD AND WOVEN PAPYRUS: PORPHYRY’S ON STATUES 81

which turns out to be only a φυσιολογία after all. In the title of chapter six, Eusebius states his
intention to argue ‘that we [i.e. Christians] act reasonably in refraining from their [i.e. pagans’]
more physical (φυσικωτέρας) theorizing about the gods and prefer the only and true theology’.
Though he consistently denies the validity of both of these types of pagan discourse, it is important
to note that his objections to each are somewhat different. Indeed, as will emerge shortly, this
distinction appears to be one of the determining factors behind his selection of passages of
Porphyry to quote or summarize.
For Eusebius, the finding in statues of indications of non-material deities is a distortion intro-
duced by relatively recent thinkers (PE 3.6.7). It is in connection with this point that Eusebius first
introduces On Statues, with which he is concerned for several chapters to follow. Eusebius’ objec-
tion is not that the ideas which are proposed in the course of the symbolic reading of statues are
necessarily wrong. He is quite willing to concede that the notions which Platonic readers propose
may be correct, but he denies emphatically that they are in any way implied by the images or
myths from which they purport to be drawn.21 After quoting Porphyry’s discussion of the various
materials employed in producing statues and the significance of the materials, Eusebius states that
‘these are sophistries of modern people, and did not come into the consideration of the ancients
even in a dream’ (PE 3.7.5). As proof of this he claims that statues of the materials discussed were
not in use in earlier times, so it is not legitimate to project these materials back to the beginnings
in a discussion of the origins of statuary.22 The alleged discovery of encoded θεολογία in statues
of gods is, for Eusebius, a late and illegitimate phenomenon. Against this type of reading/viewing
he earlier brought objections on euhemeristic grounds, arguing that the so-called gods were mortals
treated as divine after their death, and the understanding of these once mortal figures as represen-
tative of aspects of the physical world was a later rationalization (PE 3.3.17-21).
Eusebius is especially careful to stress that the religion of Egypt is not to be understood to refer
allegorically to non-physical realities. In support of this point, he is able to make use of Porphyry
himself in his Letter to Anebo. Porphyry there states that Chaeremon and ‘the others’ (οἱ ἄλλοι)
interpreted Egyptian religion purely in terms of the visible universe (PE 3.4.1–2). It is not at all
clear from the quotation as it stands that Porphyry agreed with the statements of Chaeremon which
he reports. Indeed, Bidez saw in Porphyry’s words a reproach against Chaeremon.23 At any rate,
citing Chaeremon through Porphyry serves a double purpose for Eusebius: he can at the same time
use Porphyry against himself and claim a privileged, inside source: an Egyptian writing about
Egyptian religion.24
Chaeremon’s Stoicism is sufficient explanation for his exclusive use of physical allegory.25 For
Eusebius this exclusivity is useful, as it allows him to limit the kind of allegory which is allowable,
even by the pagans’ own standards. If all allegory of pagan religious material is equally faulty, then
emphasizing this difference between kinds of referent in allegorical reading may seem unnecessary.
It does, however, serve Eusebius’ purposes. Firstly, it is to be noted, as Eusebius himself does, that
what applies to Egyptian religion applies also to Greek, as the Greeks by their own admission derive
their beliefs from the Egyptians (PE 3.4.5). Dividing the types of allegoresis in this way does not
make any real concession, but rather allows the possibility of one for the sake of argument.26 Even

21 ‘For these people tried to connect to the theology

of the ancients the ideas about the intellect as demiurge
of the whole and the ideas about the immaterial, intelli-
gible forms and rational powers, which ideas were
thought out much later by Plato and the Platonists, and
were invented with correct reasoning, and they exagger-
ated the meaning of these myths with a larger quantity of
nonsense’ (PE 3.6.7.5).
22 Plutarch’s lost work on the Plataean Daedala is
Bernardakis (1896)) is preserved only in Eusebius.
23 Bidez (1913) 84. On the Letter to Anebo in Euse-
bius, see also des Places (1982) 64–65.
24 On Porphyry’s own use of ‘barbarian’ sources
where possible, see Johnson (2011) 174–75 and now,
more fully, Johnson (2013) 189–299.
25 On Chaeremon, see van der Horst (1984); Frede
(1989).
26 See, on Eusebius’ apparent concessions as a

adduced as evidence of this point. The fragment (VII 49f rhetorical strategy, Kofsky (2002) 245–47.
82 MILES

if allegorical reading/symbolic viewing are allowable, Eusebius implies, this would still yield only
physical allegory, not the kind of reference to non-physical realities which Platonists like Porphyry
would wish. Why, though, should Eusebius be so keen to avoid allegory with a referent beyond the
physical universe?
Before attempting an answer to that question, it may also be observed that Eusebius suppresses
θεολογία with a non-physical referent in a second way. In the fragments of On Statues which Euse-
bius provides, almost all of the interpretations given belong to the class of φυσιολογία, that is, the
gods are almost all interpreted as aspects of the physical world. The only exceptions are 354F
(Zeus as demiurge/intellect) and 360F (Kneph as demiurge). Eusebius’ emphatic denials of the
validity of non-physical allegory at the conclusion of this selection of excerpts may raise the suspi-
cion that there was more allegory of this sort in Porphyry’s text. This is also what Porphyry’s
opening would lead us to expect, claiming as it does that he will ‘demonstrate the concepts of
theological wisdom, through which men revealed to perception god and the powers of god …
forming an impression of the invisible by visible shapes’ (351F). On the strength of this alone one
might well suspect that allegory/symbolic reading with a non-physical referent featured promi-
nently in what followed.
There is a further indication in the discussion of Hestia in 357F that Eusebius is indeed
suppressing material of this sort. This fragment is one of the few from On Statues which is also
preserved in a source other than Eusebius, in this case in Lydus’ De Mensibus.27 While Eusebius
cites only the interpretation equating Hestia with ‘the leading part of the earthly power’,28 Lydus
gives a little more information. Before citing the fragment of Porphyry, he contrasts the interpre-
tations of the φυσικοί and the θεολόγοι. The φυσικοί, he says, want Hestia to be the earth, deriving
her name from the second perfect infinitive of ἵστημι, that is ἑστάναι. The θεολόγοι, on the other
hand, want her to be ‘what is called reality’ (τὴν λεγομένην ὀντότητα).29 His evidence for this is
Plato’s Socrates himself, in the Cratylus (401 c–d). Porphyry, Lydus goes on, ‘wanted that, after
the intelligible Hestia (τὴν νοητὴν Ἑστίαν) who is indeed ὀντότης, there should also be the one
who is the ruler of earth (τὴν ἔφορον τῆς γῆς), and they call her earth (χθόνα), named after that
[other] Hestia’. Thereupon, Lydus gives the fragment, with the difference that where Eusebius
refers to Hestia as ‘the leading part of the earthly power’, in Lydus’ quotation she is ‘the leading
part of the divine power’. Other variations between the two quotations are more trivial.30
Lydus appears to give a somewhat fuller impression of what Porphyry said at this point of On
Statues. Rather than giving only the interpretation of the φυσικοί, Porphyry seems to have
attempted to reconcile the two interpretations by doubling the figure of Hestia. This is not
surprising, as he often gives multiple interpretations and is quite willing to reconcile apparently
opposed traditions.31 What is important for the present discussion is the evident omission by Euse-
bius of the non-physical allegory. This is just what there were grounds to suspect already, on the
basis of the disparity between Eusebius’ strident objections to θεολογία with a non-physical referent

27 On Lydus, see Maas (1992).
28 Καὶ τὸ μὲν ἡγεμονικὸν τῆς χθονίας δυνάμεως
Ἑστία κέκληται (Porphyry 357aF = PE 3.11.7.1).
29 Ὀντότης is not at all a common word. A search of
the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae finds that it is used
mostly in the commentaries on Aristotle. It is probably
this rarity that Lydus indicates by his use of λεγομένην.
30 Eusebius has πυρὸς after ἑστίας (line 2) rather
than before, and the participle ἱδρυμένον instead of
Lydus’ finite verb ἵδρυται. The two quotations are other-
wise identical. Bidez (1913) 146–47 believes that the
sentences preceding the fragment in Lydus were drawn
from another text of Porphyry, not from On Statues. He
is very likely right to infer from the use of ὀντότης that
Lydus is not quoting directly from Porphyry at this point,
as it is not characteristic of Porphyry’s vocabulary. It is
not improbable, however, that Lydus is paraphrasing
from the immediately preceding section of On Statues,
replacing a different term in Porphyry with this phrase.
It is more economical to see Lydus as drawing on one
text here than on two or more, especially as there can be
no certainty as to what the others may have been. More-
over, Eusebius’ selectiveness with known works makes
it not unlikely that he is selecting carefully here too.
31 This tendency towards multiplicity of reading was
first seen in a positive light by Pépin (1965). See also
Lamberton (1986) 120–21 and Smith’s remarks on
Porphyry’s ‘paratactic thinking’ (2007) 13.
 STONES, WOOD AND WOVEN PAPYRUS: PORPHYRY’S ON STATUES 83

and the limited amount of this which was actually present in the passages cited from Porphyry.
Porphyry’s paratactic arrangement of ideas and preference for multiplicity of reading probably
made him an easy target for selective excerpting. In Eusebius’ defence, it should be pointed out
that he had no intention of giving a full and unbiased presentation of any work of Porphyry, but
was using these passages to illustrate ideas to which he objected. The point of Eusebius’ discussion,
in the end, is not Porphyry himself but the pagan attitudes and arguments which he represents.32
Further reasons can also be suggested for believing that the complete text of On Statues would
have looked quite different from the fragments which survive, and in particular that it would have
looked far less Stoic and would have contained more symbolic readings with non-physical refer-
ents.33 These considerations are of two kinds: comparison with other interpretive works of
Porphyry and Eusebius’ treatment of comparable material from other authors in the Praeparatio
Evangelica.
Certainly, there are grave difficulties involved in making comparisons between Porphyry’s
partly or wholly surviving texts, as the chronology of his works is extremely uncertain.34 Though
subsequent scholars have often been content to accept the chronology proposed by Bidez, this
framework is almost entirely conjectural.35 In particular, the notion that Porphyry progressed from
superstition to rationalism does not hold up, and it is entirely on this supposition that On Statues
is placed as an early work. The variety of approaches that he employed in different circumstances
further complicates any chronological conjectures.36
To make a full comparison between On Statues and Porphyry’s works of allegorical interpretation
would be a larger undertaking, beyond the requirements of the present study. It is sufficient to note
that when Porphyry allegorizes elsewhere, he does not limit himself to a purely physical allegoresis.
On the contrary, as one would expect of a Platonist (whether Middle or Neo-), his allegorical inter-
pretations tend to have non-physical referents.37 This is not to suggest that Porphyry did not read in
modes which were not allegorical, but rather that when he did turn to allegory, it was in general of
a different sort to that which we find in the fragments of On Statues. This does not, of course, prove
that Porphyry could not have offered a different type of reading/viewing in On Statues, but it does
reinforce the suspicion that something substantial is missing from our sample.
These suspicions are increased further by Eusebius’ treatment of other comparable sources,
namely the texts of Plutarch which he cites in the course of the same discussion in which the frag-
ments of On Statues appear. Two works of Plutarch are cited here: the extant De Iside et Osiride
(PE 3.3) and a lost work discussing the Plataean Daedala (PE 3.1–2). In the first of these cases we
can see and in the second may strongly suspect the same kind of selective citation which also
appears to be at work on the fragments of On Statues.
To take the extant text first: if Eusebius’ brief citations were all that had survived of De Iside
et Osiride, our perspective on it would have been significantly distorted. The first citation of this
text (363D5–12 = PE 3.3.11.4–5) which Eusebius gives runs:

32 See further Morlet (2011).
33 The dominance of ‘physiologie’ in On Statues has
long been observed: see Bidez (1913) 146–47 and Clerc
(1915) 254 n.2, who observes that the dominance of a
characteristically Stoic allegoresis does not mean that
Porphyry had at one time been a committed Stoic.
Bidez’s introduction to the fragments suggests that the
and Homerica Zetemata, see Lamberton (1986) 108–11.
Similarly, as Hardie (1992) 4756 observes, Plutarch’s
attitude to myth is different in different contexts. Zambon
(2002) well illustrates the continuous presence of
‘Middle Platonic’ material in Porphyry’s writings, even
after his study with Plotinus.
37 To give just a few examples from many: at De

complete text would have given a wide-ranging survey
of attitudes to the cult of images: (1913) 143.
34 See Smith (2007); Zambon (2002) 33–35.
35 For an appropriately critical attitude to this
chronology, see, for instance, Smith (1997); Johnson
(2011) 166–68; (2013) 15–49.
36 For a comparison of the approaches in De Antro
Antro 63 the Naiad nymphs represent souls descending
into γένεσις, and indeed it is around this notion of descent
into matter that Porphyry’s interpretation as a whole is
centred. Conversely, Porphyry reads Homer’s account of
the Styx as an ascent from the sensible to the intelligible.
On this fragmentary text, see the edition, translation and
commentary of Castelletti (2006).
84 MILES
Let us first examine the most lucid of those who claim to have something more philosophical to say
from another standpoint. These are the people who say that, just as the Greeks explain Cronus allegori-
cally as time (χρόνος), Hera as the air (ἀήρ), and the birth of Hephaestus as the change of air into fire,
so among the Egyptians Osiris is the Nile uniting with Isis as the earth, while Typhon is the sea into
which the Nile falls and so disappears.38

The differences from the received text of Plutarch are negligible,39 so Eusebius can hardly be
faulted on verbal accuracy. Indeed, he is careful to stress that he is quoting word for word (κατὰ
λέξιν), as he does often when bringing his pagan witnesses into the text. Though Plutarch does
report this interpretation of Greek and Egyptian myth as φυσιολογία, it is treated as a relatively
lowly sort of interpretation. The text as a whole demonstrates a progression in types of interpre-
tation,40 and to represent the reading quoted as the view of Plutarch is wilfully misleading. The
second passage which Eusebius quotes (359E5–9 = PE 3.3.16) is likewise accurate but chosen
with similar selectiveness. These opinions of some unnamed Egyptians quoted by Plutarch support,
he says, an euhemerist interpretation. Yet Plutarch goes on to criticize sharply this kind of inter-
pretation (359D6–60D4), before moving to a mode which he considers somewhat better, though
still not ideal, in which the supposed gods are treated as daimones (360D5–363a11).
Plutarch’s hermenuetic style, arranging his readings in an ascending scale, makes De Iside et
Osiride a particularly easy target for this type of selective citation, just as we may suspect that
Porphyry’s text was also, given the decidedly paratactic style of his surviving interpretive works.
The other passage of Plutarch quoted in this section, the extract on the Daedala, from an otherwise
lost text, has raised similar suspicions. Paul Decharme long ago raised the problem of the apparent
Stoicism of this fragment.41 For him, the most likely explanation is that the passage cited was part
of a dialogue, in which the interpretations given were superseded by others of which Plutarch
would have been more able to approve.42 Whether the original context was a dialogue or not, it is
quite probable that Decharme is substantially correct, and that the passage quoted by Eusebius
was only one of a series of interpretations.
In all of these instances, it is either likely or certain that Eusebius selected his quotations to
support a particular view of pagan interpretive practice, namely, that he wished to emphasize alle-
gorical reading with a physical referent or else to support an euhemerist position. The polemical
value of euhemerism is obvious: it reduces the supposed gods to the level of mere mortals. Indeed,
Plutarch inveighs against it on just these grounds in the sentences immediately following those
which Eusebius quotes (359F1–60B2). However, to return to a question which was deferred earlier:
why would Eusebius allow into his text Stoic-style φυσιολογία rather than allegory which speaks
about non-physical or intelligible reality?
The answer to this question is implicit in Eusebius’ attacks on the allegories which he cites. It
is relatively easy for Eusebius to present this kind of allegory as discovering, or appearing to
discover, things which are trivial or sordid (PE 3.2.2–3). One may wonder, if this primarily Stoic
style of reading offered such an appealing target, why Eusebius did not simply cite Stoic works,
rather than picking these passages from works by Platonists. Here the explanation is most likely
that Platonism had been a greater and more recent threat than Stoicism, and that Porphyry, as the
great anti-Christian polemicist, was the obvious person to choose as the speaker for the opposition,
albeit one whose words were allowed into Eusebius’ text only with great care.

38I have here used the translation of Griffiths (1970).
39Eusebius omits a definite article before πῦρ
(3.3.11.7). He also stops in the middle of a sentence, but
the sense is more or less complete in any case.
40 See Hardie (1992) 4761–63 on this progression of
reading in De Iside et Osiride: ‘the successive elimina-
tion or supersession of alternative approaches is related
to philosophical doxography ... most important, however,
is the model of the Platonic dialogue … in which succes-
sive interlocutors approximate more nearly to the truth’
(1992) 4762.
41 Decharme (1898).
42 Decharme (1898) 116.
 STONES, WOOD AND WOVEN PAPYRUS: PORPHYRY’S ON STATUES 85

A further problem with allowing the more spiritual or metaphysical variety of Platonist allegory
into the Praeparatio Evangelica was that, on a great many points of doctrine and in much of their
attitude, Eusebius and Porphyry are in fact quite similar. This would have placed Eusebius in a
much more complicated position, in which he would have had to argue that pagan symbolic
viewing and allegorical reading are invalid hermeneutic practices, while at the same time conceding
that much of the doctrine which pagans arrive at by means of this practice was acceptable to him.
This is not an impossible combination of arguments to present, but it would certainly have been a
more complex one, and would have involved granting far more concessions than Eusebius seems
willing to make. Instead, Eusebius undertakes a dual attack on those of Porphyry’s allegorical
readings and symbolic interpretations with non-physical referents, stating vehemently that these
practices are invalid, while largely silencing them by omission.
An additional complicating factor which must be considered before leaving this topic appears
in the remarks which Porphyry himself makes limiting the possible referents of allegory. Pierre
Hadot observes that Porphyry’s practice in allegory departs from that of Plotinus: while Plotinus
is willing to find references to Intellect and the One in allegorical interpretation of myth,43 Porphyry
evidently denies the validity of this, arguing that allegorical interpretation of myth is only appli-
cable to the level of soul and the gods in nature.44 Unfortunately, we do not know whether this
was consistently Porphyry’s position throughout his career, and, if not, at what point he proposed
this idea, nor do we know when On Statues was written in any case. This limitation cannot, then,
be introduced without further consideration of the text under discussion. If Porphyry were avoiding
this type of allegory in On Statues, the result would be a reading tending towards φυσιολογία, but
dealing with the gods as powers in the physical world. That is, the sort of thing which emerges in
Eusebius’ selection from the text. There are at least two reasons, however, to think that this was
not the case. Firstly, Porphyry is willing to see reference to Intellect as demiurge in images of Zeus
(354F), which, according to the restriction imposed in the report of Porphyry’s view in Macrobius
and Proclus, would not be allowable. Secondly, if this really were the character of On Statues, it
would leave Eusebius’ protestations about reference to ‘unseen and bodiless realities’ hard to
explain.
Despite the evidence for Porphyry’s limitation of the possible referents for allegory (at some
point in his career), it remains most likely that allegory referring to non-physical realities did figure
in On Statues. Here, as often, we seem to be dealing with a development in Porphyry’s thought,
though without any certainty as to the chronology of that development. It is also possible that
Porphyry treated visual texts, that is statues, differently to written ones in this regard. Here,
however, we can only speculate, and the surviving texts and fragments do not appear to offer any
indication.
In analysing On Statues we should bear in mind that we are probably missing many of its most
important parts. This is nothing like a representative sample. Given Porphyry’s paratactic and
deliberately multiple approach there is no reason for Eusebius to distort his words: he had merely
to select the parts he wanted. While we cannot be absolutely certain that the remains of On Statues
as they have come down to us have been distorted in this way, it is overwhelmingly likely that
they have.

III. The reading of images in Porphyry’s On Statues

All of these considerations should cause us to approach the fragments of On Statues with caution.
Nonetheless, these are large fragments, enough to give some idea of Porphyry’s approach and
general tendencies in this text. It is the model of viewing which Porphyry practises and indeed

43
On this, see Hadot (1981). Proclus Commentary on the Republic, vol. 3, p. 50
44
See Hadot (2006) 52–57, who cites Macrobius (Festugière (1970)).
Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 1.2.13–17 and
86 MILES

sets out to exemplify in On Statues with which I will be concerned next, and for this purpose the
fragments do provide enough material to form some opinion.45 For Bidez, the text was a reassur-
ance to pagans in the practice of their religion, rather than a theoretical work.46 It does indeed
announce itself as addressed to those who already practise the worship of images, by the initial
command to the ‘impure’ or ‘uninitiated’ ones (βέβηλοι) to depart. Though it is difficult to say
that something did or did not feature in the text when our access to it is so slender, the surviving
fragments do suggest that specific interpretations of statues occupied a significant portion of the
work. Nonetheless, the opening paragraph, with its two long and dense sentences, outlines a partic-
ular theoretical position. Given that Eusebius appears similarly to have elided the theoretical
content of the Philosophy from Oracles, focusing on readily ridiculed examples rather than on
Porphyry’s theorizing,47 it is likely that here too theory originally played an important part. The
specific interpretations of images in On Statues, furthermore, demonstrate the approach which is
outlined in the introduction.48 This is certainly not, nor could ever have been, a theory-free text.
Indeed, providing a theoretical/philosophical justification for the traditional worship through
images is its implied purpose.
There was by Porphyry’s time a long history of controversies regarding the worship of images
and the relationship of statues to the gods which they were supposed to depict. Already for Hera-
clitus, addressing a statue had been a folly equivalent to addressing a person’s house (B126 DK),
and for Xenophanes the human forms of the gods were simply a reflection of ourselves (B15
DK).49 Critiques of the cult of images certainly did not begin with Christianity, but the rise of the
new religion did intensify them. The older pagan interrogations of this type of worship provided
ammunition for the newer and more vehement polemic.50 It was in this tense environment that
Porphyry wrote On Statues. This is not the place for a complete history of the arguments against
and in favour of the cult of images, but it will be necessary in discussing Porphyry’s text to place
it against this history. Here, as in his other partly or wholly extant works, Porphyry is a writer with
an acute awareness of the history of the ideas which he employs and of the contemporary contests
which surrounded him.
Porphyry’s practice in viewing is to treat images as visual texts. Consequently, comparisons
can usefully be made between his viewing and reading practices, especially as there are important
points of contact between the symbolic viewing which On Statues exemplifies and the type of
allegorical reading which appears in On the Cave of the Nymphs.51 In the latter text, Porphyry
takes a passage of the Odyssey in which Odysseus, having finally returned to Ithaca, comes to a
cave sacred to the nymphs, which Homer describes in some detail (Od. 13.102–12). Drawing on
a wide range of Hellenic and non-Hellenic material, Porphyry gives a detailed and imaginative
allegorical reading, interpreting the cave as a symbol of the descent of souls into γένεσις (the world
of becoming) and their return to a higher reality.52

45 The following placement of Porphyry’s thought
owes much to Elsner’s (1995) discussion of shifts in
viewing culture.
46 Bidez (1913) 154.
47 See Smith (1997) 29–31.
48 For a reading of On the Cave of the Nymphs which
sees in it a demonstration of a method of philosophical
l’argument symboliste est développé avec abondance’
(1915) 163. Eusebius himself certainly saw it this way
too (PE 3.6.7). See further discussion in Girgenti and
Muscolino (2011) 604–06.
49 For a broad history of Greek thinking about
images, Clerc (1915) is still useful.
50 On this development in the critique of images, see

reading which is implicitly opposed to the spiritual Clerc (1915), especially 125–68.
corner-cutting of the Gnostics, see Edwards (1996). 51 The allegorical reading which characterizes On

Though On Statues ostensibly addresses itself to a pagan the Cave is certainly not, however, Porphyry’s only
readership it is also an implicit polemic against those who approach to written texts, as his Homeric Questions
reject the cult of images. Clerc saw the text as addressing demonstrate.
Christians (‘c’est peut-être les chrétiens qu’il eut le 52 On this text, see Lamberton’s (1983) translation with

dessein d’instruire par son traité «sur les statues», où introduction and notes, and Lamberton (1986) 119–33.
 STONES, WOOD AND WOVEN PAPYRUS: PORPHYRY’S ON STATUES 87

Both On Statues and On the Cave, in different ways, closely associate the interpretation of
verbal and visual texts. The cave interpreted in the latter essay is both the verbal construction of
Homer and the physical cave which Porphyry sees behind it, constructed on the principles of even
more ancient wisdom.53 In On Statues, cult images are regarded as visual texts and the principles
of interpreting statues are extended to the interpretation of an Orphic poem (354F). The association
of visual and verbal representation and interpretation in itself is an old connection in Greek
thinking about verbal and visual art: Aristotle in the Poetics, for instance, assumes that examples
from visual art can be used in his arguments about what is desirable in tragedy (1454b8–18).
Already in Plato, the same connection between visual and verbal mimesis is made, for instance at
Republic 597d–e. Nonetheless, Porphyry states this more directly, I believe, than any other ancient
author:

‘I shall speak to those to whom it is lawful to speak, but close the doors, you uninitiated ones (βεβήλοι)’,
and I shall demonstrate the concepts of theological wisdom, through which men revealed to perception
god and the powers of god (τὸν θεὸν καὶ τοῦ θεοῦ τὰς δυνάμεις) through related images (εἰκόνων
συμφύλων), forming an impression of the invisible by visible shapes, for those who have learned to
gather up the writings about the gods from statues as if from books. And it is no wonder that the most
ignorant people consider statues to be wood and stone, just as illiterate people see inscriptions as stones,
and writing tablets as wood, and books as woven papyrus (351F).

This is a dense, programmatic passage. The opening line, a quotation of an Orphic fragment in
dactylic hexameter, strikes an oracular note,54 before Porphyry shifts to a more prosaic tone.
This oracular, even rather bombastic opening offended Eusebius (PE 3.6.7). The proximity
of approach of this text on statues to those concerned with allegorical reading is also evident in
its striking similarity, both in tone and in wording, to part of the introduction to Heraclitus’
Homeric Allegories. Like his namesake, Heraclitus of Ephesus, the allegorist Heraclitus’ style
tends towards the grandiloquent.55 After a barrage of Homeric quotations, he writes in his intro-
ductory chapters,

If in their ignorance some people do not recognise Homeric allegory and have not ventured into the inner
parts of that man’s wisdom, but have thrown away the judgement of truth, and do not know what has
been said philosophically, and judge to be simply mythical fiction what seems to be so, let them disappear.
But we who have been cleansed in the unpolluted waters (ἀβεβήλων ἐντὸς περιρραντηρίων), let us track
the august truth under the composition of the poems (Allegories 3.2).

Porphyry and Heraclitus both begin their essays with a rebuke towards supposedly ignorant
readers or viewers, who are in both cases defined as those who interpret only from a literal perspec-
tive. These people do not venture into the inner meanings of the poems or see only the physical
object without thought of its symbolic meaning. In both passages, learning these inner meanings
is implicitly described as an initiation, and those who have not been so initiated are told to remove
themselves. The same language of purity and impurity (βέβηλοι in Porphry and ἀβεβήλων in Hera-
clitus) is used in both cases. It is quite possible that Porphyry, a keen interpreter of Homer, knew
the work of Heraclitus56 and chose to echo it here. Alternatively, we might see these two program-
matic passages as making use of a shared topos, taking on a quasi-oracular interpretive voice for
the interpretation of ancient wisdom.

53 On Porphyry’s belief in the reality of the cave, see
On the Cave 4. On the cave as both textual construct and
physical reality, see Lamberton (1986) 125.
54 Orph. fr. 247.1 Kern.
55 See the remarks of Buffière (1962) in the intro-
duction to his edition and translation of this text: xli
(grandiloquence); xxxix–xlii (style more generally).
56 The dates of Heraclitus are extremely uncertain.
See Buffière’s introduction to his edition and translation
(1962) vii–x and Lamberton (1986) 320.
88 MILES

Divine images, Porphyry tells us, represent that which does not have a visible form. For those
who have learned to read these images, they convey specific information about divinity, very much
like a written text.57 It is not obvious whether Porphyry considers these images natural or conven-
tional, and this is a point which is never made entirely clear in the fragments we have. In practice,
the visual language of statues is treated as a mixture of natural and conventional signs. In this
opening passage, the images are σύμφυλαι or ‘akin’ to the things which they represent, implying a
natural association of the symbol and its referent. This adjective, in fact, in all of its various usages
seems to indicate a natural rather than a conventional relationship,58 as its etymology would suggest.
The surviving fragments provide further instances of both attitudes to the naturalness or conven-
tionality of the signs that Porphyry considers. Discussing the materials used in constructing images,
for instance, he speaks of the materials reflecting, in an apparently natural way, the character of
divinity (352F). The divine, he tells us, is luminous (φωτοειδοῦς … ὄντος τοῦ θείου), it shines
through the diffusion of aetherial fire and is invisible to those whose minds are occupied with
mortal life. These qualities are represented through translucent or radiant material (διὰ … τῆς
διαυγοῦς ὕλης) such as crystal, Parian marble or ivory (for luminosity), through gold (since it
leads the mind to the thought of fire and purity) and black stone (to demonstrate invisibility). All
of these associations are treated not as culturally determined, but as properties of the materials
themselves. Translucent materials by their nature ‘lead the mind’ to the thought of light (352F 7).
Within the same fragment, Porphyry treats other aspects of this symbolic language as culturally
determined. He writes that: ‘they attributed all white things to the celestial gods’ (πᾶν τὸ λευκὸν
τοῖς οὐρανίοις θεοῖς ἀπένειμαν: 352F 17–18). ‘They’ here evidently means the ancients (οἱ παλαιοί)
who established these customs and to whose authority Porphyry appeals on many occasions in De
Antro.59 Similarly, the iconography of Zeus is analysed at 354F 44–61 as encoded wisdom, much
like the Cave of the Nymphs. Moreover, already in the introductory sentence, the invisible divine
reality was to be revealed by means of visible shapes or inventions (φανεροῖς … πλάσμασιν). The
choice of πλάσμα here implies that these are invented or conventional forms rather than shapes
generated by nature.
On at least one occasion in On Statues, Porphyry turns from a consideration of the visual repre-
sentation of the gods to a verbal one, presenting these two forms of representation in parallel.
Considering the depiction of Zeus, Porphyry quotes (and Eusebius quotes Porphyry quoting) an
Orphic poem of some 32 hexameter lines (354F), which identifies parts of the body of Zeus with
features of the visible universe. Porphyry can interpret this poem with a minimum of distortion in
terms of Stoic pantheism.60 Broadly speaking, the order which Porphyry follows here is that iden-
tified by Richard Goulet in his analysis of the oracle in the Life of Plotinus: introduction, citation
and commentary.61 This particular passage differs from the more usual pattern, however, in that
the commentary does not seek to make sense of the text cited, but rather gives an entirely different
set of possibilities, in visual rather than textual media.

57 Maximus of Tyre similarly argues at Dialexis 2.10 59 See, for instance, De Antro 5.1, 14.15, 18.3. The

that images of the gods remind their viewers of particular
aspects of divinity. The close connection of religious and
philosophical material is typical of Porphyry’s thought.
It is also evident, for instance, in his adoption of the
Chaldean Oracles. On this topic, see Zambon (2002) 18–
19, 251–94; further on the complexity of Porphyry’s atti-
tude to theurgy, see Tanaseanu-Döbler (2013) 56–95.
58 In Plutarch, for instance, it is used of the food
tenses which Porphyry employs when speaking about
ancient authority vary. Sometimes the foundational deci-
sion upon, or discovery of, a particular attribution is
spoken of in aorists or perfects (for example 359F 87:
προσανέθεσαν), sometimes the continuity of practice is
implied in present tenses (for example προσοικίζουσι
359F 82).
60 Buffière (1956) 537 observes that Porphyry finds

appropriate to various animals (Bruta Animalia Ratione
Uti 985d) and in Aristotle in the sense of ‘related
phenomena’ (De Mundo 394a19).
in the poem ‘la transcription du panthéisme stoïcien’.
61 Goulet (1992) 79. Goulet also makes comparison
with Porphyry’s practice in On Statues and Philosophy
from Oracles.
 STONES, WOOD AND WOVEN PAPYRUS: PORPHYRY’S ON STATUES 89

Porphyry summarizes the poem in just two sentences (354F 42–44) before moving to the details
of visual images:

So Zeus is the whole cosmos, animal of animals and god of gods. And Zeus, in so far as he is mind,
from which he brings forth all things and crafts them with his thoughts [sic]. Although the theologians
(τῶν … θεολόγων) had expounded the characteristics of the god in this manner, it was not possible to
craft such an image (εἰκόνα) as their reasoning revealed, nor, if anyone thought of it, did he indicate the
qualities of life and thought and forethought by means of a sphere. So they have made the representation
of Zeus anthropomorphic… (354F 42–49).

There is no sense of either the verbal or the visual representation of the god being superior. Rather,
they are placed side by side as representations appropriate to their media. The point in common
between the two approaches is that both, according to Porphyry, identify Zeus with intellect (νοῦς)
and its creative, demiurgic activity in creating the world. What differs are the possibilities for
expressing this idea in verbal and visual forms. Here too, as elsewhere in On Statues, Porphyry’s
approach to images is to regard them as visual texts, albeit ones which have different possibilities
and limitations to written texts.
In regarding statues as visible representations of the invisible, Porphyry was certainly not alone.
Dio Chrysostom had already, through the persona of Pheidias, described the Zeus of Olympia in
these terms in his 12th oration. Like Porphyry, Dio also argues for the appropriateness of anthro-
pomorphism in creating an image of the supreme god (12.59).62 The differences between the inter-
pretations of Dio and Porphyry are, however, as revealing as their similarities. Where Dio stresses
the limitations of the materials with which a sculptor has to work (12.69–72),63 Porphyry is more
inclined to emphasize their suitability and inherent symbolism (352F). Moreover, the means by
which the invisible reality is to be expressed differ between these two authors. For Dio, the repre-
sentation is primarily physiognomic (for example 12.78), while for Porphyry it appears to have
been iconography which was of primary importance.
One of the most striking features of Porphyry’s text is his perception of the necessity of learning
to view. It is the ignorant who are unable to read images or even to recognize that they are legible
(351F 20–24), and On Statues aims to convey a general approach to images as well as interpreta-
tions of the specific examples which it contains. In this too Porphyry is not without precedent. In
On Isis and Osiris, Plutarch commends the view that by ‘not learning to understand names
correctly one will also misuse things’, illustrating this principle from the error made by ‘uneducated
Greeks’ who refer to statues as though they were themselves the gods (379C9–D6). Once again,
the error is ascribed to ‘those who do not learn rightly’ (τοὺς μὴ μανθάνοντας ὀρθῶς), just as it is
in Porphyry and in the passage of the allegorist Heraclitus quoted above. While already in Plato,
Socrates suggests that ignorant people and children may be deceived by mimetic images into
thinking that they are real (Republic 598c), implying at least a basic sort of learning to view, further
precedents for Porphyry’s assumption can be found in Second Sophistic literature rather than philo-
sophical writing proper. Lucian, for instance, contrasts the silent viewing of an uneducated viewer
with the very vocal response of an educated one (De Domo 1–2).64 Philostratus presents his Imag-
ines, a series of descriptions of paintings which may or may not have existed, precisely as an
education in viewing.65 The descriptions are to instruct both the internal audience (the young son

62 Maximus of Tyre makes a similar suggestion especially 160–67.

(2.3). On the similarity of ideas between Maximus and
Dio, see Clerc (1915) 235.
63 On the significance of the materiality of statues
for Dio and the relationship of the statue to time, see
Billault (1999).
64 On viewing in De Domo, see Goldhill (2001)
65 The Imagines are attracting an increasing amount
of scholarly attention: Conan (1987); Elsner (2000);
(2007); the essays in Costantini et al. (2006); Abbon-
danza (2008); Baumann (2011); Squire (2013). Philo-
stratus also has Apollonius of Tyana speak about the
necessity of learning to view at Life of Apollonius 2.22.
90 MILES

of his host and a group of older boys) and the external audience (us readers) in how to view works
of visual art.66 It may seem a stretch to bring Porphyry into connection with Philostratus or Lucian,
but I would suggest that this tradition of teaching viewing is one of the types of writing which lies
behind Porphyry’s text.67 As we know from his own remarks about himself in his Life of Plotinus,
Porphyry was as educated in rhetoric and literature as in philosophy,68 and it is essential that we
attempt to understand his works on these levels as well as the philosophical, insofar as this is
possible when dealing with fragments. In any case, all of these precedents indicate the importance
of a notion of educated viewing to Greek thinking on visuality in general.
The comparison with Philostratus in particular reveals much about Porphyry’s approach. Like
Philostratus, Porphyry from time to time commands his reader to ‘look’: for example, ὅρα δὲ καὶ
τούτων τὰς εἰκόνας (‘And look also at the images of these’) (358F 10).69 In the Imagines, this
command is part of the text’s play with the distinction between verbal and visual illusion: the
description pretends to make visible what it describes. Unlike Philostratus, who gives detailed
ecphrases of specific images (whether or not these actually existed),70 Porphyry describes types
of images: statues of Zeus or Hera in general, for instance (354F 42–61, 356F). It is not the surface
aesthetic qualities of any given image which are important for Porphyrian viewing, but the image
as sign. Similarly, where Philostratus often dwells on the erotic appeal of the images which he
describes,71 this is passed over by Porphyry. In the discussion of Greek myth and imagery in the
course of which Eusebius quotes On Statues, the bishop objects to the all-too-human nature of the
deities, including ‘their sexuality’ (PE 3.2.3). If there had been more of this in Porphyry’s text, it
is very likely that it would have been cited. As it stands, this element is conspicuously absent in
the fragments. When discussing statues of Aphrodite, the youthful beauty of the images is ascribed
to her association with the evening star, which is described as ‘the most beautiful’ in a line quoted
from Homer (Il. 10.318).72 We are invited to ‘look at’ or ‘consider’ the breasts and genitals of the
goddess (359F 102–03), but only for their symbolic significance.73
These comparisons are not intended to denigrate Porphyry’s approach to his subject, but rather
to bring out some very different assumptions about viewing which these two writers hold, and the
different circumstances in which they were writing. The major difference is Porphyry’s practice
of symbolic viewing, as opposed to the realist/illusionist viewing which the Imagines exemplify.74
The shift in viewing practice which was mentioned above is, to make a broad generalization, one
towards the increasing dominance of a symbolic mode.75 The chronology both of Porphyry’s works

66 Cornutus similarly addresses his Stoic account of

Greek myth to a παιδίον, for example in his opening: Ὁ
οὐρανός, ὦ παιδίον, περιέχει κύκλῳ τὴν γῆν καὶ τὴν
θάλατταν …
67 Incidentally, Porphyry had almost certainly read
Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana, given how
closely his references to Apollonius (376F 92 and De
Abst. 3.3.41) follow the Philostratean account.
68 On the coexistence of rhetorical or literary and
philosophical concerns in Porphyry, see Edwards (2006)
108–11.
69 Commands to look pepper the Imagines: see, for
instance, 1.1.2.1, 1.7.2.5, 1.15.3.5. On the significance of
this command in Philostratus, see Bryson (1994) 269–70.
70 Details of this debate can be found in Schönberger
(1968). For an ingenious, though ultimately unconvincing,
attempt to prove the reality of the gallery, see Lehmann-
Hartleben (1941) with the response of Bryson (1994).
71 On this topic in Philostratus, see Mathieu-Castel-
lani (2006).
72 This is entirely in keeping with the astrological
associations which Porphyry employs in On Statues.
Though these are indeed a striking aspect of this text, it is
difficult not to agree with Buffière that Bidez ‘grossit un
peu l’importance de l’astrologie dans l’ouvrage de
Porphyre’ (1956) 539, n.72. Fazzo (1977) 203–04 reduces
still further the influence of astral religion in On Statues
(cited at length in Girgenti and Muscolino (2011) 628–29).
73 For a quite different appreciation of the appeal of
an image of Aphrodite, see [Pseudo?-] Lucian’s Amores
13–14. Philostratus’ version of this story in the Life of
Apollonius contrasts the reverent viewing of Apollonius
with the erotic viewing of the youth who wishes to marry
the statue (VA 6.40).
74 Philostratus was clearly not unfamiliar with a
symbolic mode of viewing. See, for instance, Apollonius’
admiration for the symbolic construction of the aniconic
Paphian Aphrodite (VA 3.58).
75 The fundamental work on this is Elsner (1995).
For a summary of his argument, that there was a move-
ment from the coexistence of symbolic viewing and a
more ‘deconstructive’ or ironic type associated with
 STONES, WOOD AND WOVEN PAPYRUS: PORPHYRY’S ON STATUES 91

and Philostratus’ is uncertain, so we cannot say how much later On Statues was written than the
Imagines.76 What can be said with more confidence is that Porphyry’s work exemplifies where
the practice of viewing was heading in this period.
It is this exclusive focus on the symbolic value of images which is responsible for Porphyry’s
silence on the possible aesthetic and erotic appeal of the images which he discusses. If, as Porphyry
says in his introduction to On Statues, a statue is essentially a visual text to be deciphered by the
viewer for information about divinity, the beauty of a particular image is of no more concern than
the attractiveness of the handwriting in which a manuscript is written. Likewise, the erotic appeal
of some images of deities could only be a distraction from the task of reading. This singleness of
vision may well have been in part at least a defensive posture. The opening passage implies that
Porphyry is defending the use of cult images against its impious (βέβηλοι) opponents (primarily
Christians), so there is a pressure on Porphyry to find ‘serious’ meaning in these statues. This is
not to say that he would not otherwise hold such a belief, merely that his situation is quite different
to that of Philostratus: along with his philosophical position and temperament, the defensive
posture which Porphyry is obliged to take renders impossible the kind of aesthetic play in which
Philostratus was free to engage.77
If statues are texts which viewers must learn to read, the question arises of what they speak
about. Porphyry’s response is given in the same programmatic passage discussed above: τὸν θεὸν
καὶ τοῦ θεοῦ τὰς δυνάμεις (352F 15–16). This, given that the focus of the text is on statues of
gods, is to an extent no surprise, but the further question which it raises is what is meant by ‘the
powers of god’ (τοῦ θεοῦ τὰς δυνάμεις). Félix Buffière suggests that the work organizes and defines
the functions of the Hellenic and Egyptian gods, discussing first the supreme deity, then the indi-
vidual divine powers at work in the world. This is plausible, given the order of Eusebius’ attack,
though it must be added that we are better informed about the first section, dealing with the cosmic
deity, than with subsequent parts.
The range of meanings which δύναμις can bear, especially in philosophical contexts, is broad,
so the implications of what Porphyry says about these ‘powers’ must be treated with care. The
power or powers of a god are already spoken about in Plato’s Cratylus, where Socrates remarks
that the name of Apollo is admirably suited to ‘the power of the god’ (τὴν δύναμιν τοῦ θεοῦ) (404e5)
and indicates his four powers or capacities (τέτταρσι δυνάμεσι) (405a1): music, prophecy, medicine
and archery. Some ingenious etymologies are employed to substantiate this claim. Thus Porphyry
speaks with Platonic precedent about the δύναμις of a god. Similar language is also used by Plotinus,
for instance at Enneads 2.9.9.35–39. There, Plotinus speaks of the ‘power of god’ (δύναμιν θεοῦ)
as reflected in the individual deities, urging that polytheism is a better way of reflecting the greatness
of divinity than contracting the divine into one. A similar approach is implicit in On Statues, which
appears to have treated the individual powers of god, starting with the supreme god over all.78
Also similar to Porphyry’s approach, however, are the uses of δύναμις in the Stoic interpretive
vocabulary. In Diogenes Laertius’ report of the teaching of Zeno (7.147), the one supreme deity
is called by many names according to its powers (κατὰ τὰς δυνάμεις) (7.147.7–8). Diogenes goes
on to list various divine names and to give etymologizing accounts of their significance. These
etymologies can readily be paralleled elsewhere, for instance in Cornutus and in On Statues

realist art to an overwhelming dominance of the former
type, see (1995) 10.
76 On the uncertainty of Porphyry’s chronology, see
above (n.35); on the equally difficult chronology of the
works in the Corpus Philostrateum, see de Lannoy
(1997); Grossardt (2006) 3–24.
77 The closest which Philostratus comes to a defence
of visual art is in the much-quoted opening lines of the
proem to the Imagines: ‘Whoever does not embrace
painting commits an injustice against truth, commits an
injustice against wisdom …’ (Ὅστις μὴ ἀσπάζεται τὴν
ζωγραφίαν, ἀδικεῖ τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ἀδικεῖ καὶ σοφίαν ...).
78 This is not to suggest that On Statues exhibits
clear Plotinian influence: it does not. The similarity of
thought here could just as well be due to the Middle
Platonic background from which both philosophers
emerged. Fazzo (1977) 203 also sees the individual
powers as acting within the overall power of Zeus.
92 MILES

itself.79 The term δύναμις is used frequently in Cornutus’ Stoic interpretations of Greek myth,80
and this choice is clearly compatible with the Stoic content of On Statues.
Though the sample of interpretations which survive from On Statues is relatively small, and
these examples have, moreover, been compressed, Porphyry does go on to treat the gods whom he
discusses as individual potencies in the natural world.81 Zeus, as the supreme god, is the cosmos as
a whole, but Hera is, according to the common etymology, Aer82 or the power of air (τοῦ … παντὸς
ἀέρος ἡ δύναμις Ἥρα) (356F 1), while Leto is the sublunary air alone (356F 2–6). Hestia is ‘the
leading element of the earthly power’ (τὸ … ἡγεμονικὸν τῆς χθονίας δυνάμεως) (357aF 1–2).83
One of the most striking features of Porphyry’s interpretation of images is that he largely elides
physical specificity, despite the implicit recognition of different possibilities for images and texts
in the discussion of Zeus (354F 42–49). This goes beyond the choice to treat types of images rather
than specific examples, leading him to consider the physical features of his images only in so far
as they signify something else. This mode of interpretation largely ignores the statue as an object
in space, and, unlike Dio Chrysostom, Porphyry does not appear to have taken a particular interest
in it as an object in time. It is telling that many of the interpretations which Porphyry offers can be
found in authors dealing not specifically with statues but with narratives about the gods, such as
Cornutus. The specificity of representation in plastic form has little effect on many of these inter-
pretations. In other words, it is characteristic of Porphyry’s textual approach to statues that he regards
them primarily as signs rather than objects in space with particular physical properties. When such
properties of material do appear, it is rather for their symbolic than their aesthetic possibilities.

IV. Conclusions
A close observation of Eusebius’ excerpting in the section of the Praeparatio Evangelica in which
the fragments of On Statues appears should encourage an attitude of caution in approaching them.
It is highly likely that the text as a whole contained more interpretation by reference to the non-
physical realities which Eusebius wished to place firmly off-limits in the interpretation of pagan
antiquities. However, even with the limitations to our knowledge of the work as a whole, it is
possible to form some idea of Porphyry’s mode of interpretation in it.
Reading and viewing were evidently treated as closely related activities, and the visual image
regarded as a sort of text, from which meanings could be drawn using methods very similar to the
allegorical reading which Porphyry applies to written texts. In practising a symbolic viewing,
Porphyry made a deliberate choice among the options presented by the viewing culture of his time,
and it is the choice of a symbolic mode which tends to exclude the surface appeal of a statue or
text from his consideration. This defence of the wisdom of images is part of a wider project of
defending and defining traditional ‘pagan’ wisdoms, both Greek and barbarian, in the face of emer-
gent Christianity, and this defensive project, as well as Porphyry’s own philosophic position, inform
the type of viewing which he presents.

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