Porphyry: Ethnicity, Language, and Alien Wisdom*
Porphyry: Ethnicity, Language, and Alien Wisdom*
This chapter discusses Porphyry's linguistic and educational background, his identity in terms of his Tyrian origins, and the possible relevance of these origins to his relationship to the Semitic-language cultures of the areas in the Near East. It also examines the works of Porphyry and attempts to interpret them as the product of an oriental culture and mentality. In Porphyry's use of foreign cultures, three oriental features stand out: (1) his sources were works that had either been composed in Greek or had already been translated from some other language; (2) he deploys a wide variety of non-Greek belief systems; and (3) he does not seem to give any special place to “Phoenicians” or “Syrians,” or to assert any positive relationship to them.
Keywords: Porphyry, Tyrian, Semitic, Near East, oriental culture, Phoenicians, Syrians
North Carolina Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
