Porphyry's Letter to His Wife: Concerning the Life of Philosophy and the Ascent to the Gods

Porphyry

ISBN 10: 0933999275 / ISBN 13: 9780933999275

Published by Phanes Press, 1986

Paperback. Pages are clean and unmarked. Covers show very minor shelving wear.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Ships same or next business day! Seller Inventory # 142512160031

Synopsis:

At an elderly age Porphyry the Neoplatonist married Marcella, a widow of a close friend who had seven children, but shortly thereafter he was called away, urged on by the gods, to attend to the affairs of the Greeks. Out of print for nearly a hundred years, Porphyry's Letter to Marcella is a personal and moving document. In addition to explaining why he chose Marcella as his partner in marriage, Porphyry consoles his wife and reminds Marcella not to neglect the life of philosophy, conceived of here as the care of the soul in its re-ascent to the One. Porphyry writes of how God is best honored and of the divine principles which must be upheld by the philosopher in daily life. He notes that "no things can be more entirely opposed to one another than a life of pleasure and ease, and the ascent to the gods." Porphyry here describes the preparatory stages of that ascent, and how the ascent is accomplished. Translated by Alice Zimmern

Review: "Porphyry, a scholar and philosopher of Semitic descent, lived during the second half of the third century C.E. Migrating first to Athens to study under the rhetorician Longinus, then to Rome to study with Plotinus, he became, after the latter's death, the leader of the school of Neoplatonism. His eclecticism and mysticism fashioned that philosophy into a weapon for the defense of Hellenistic culture against the onslaught of Christianity. Of his more than seventy-five works, this letter is one of a handful that survive. David Fideler, whose credentials are not mentioned, has ably set forth its place in Porphyry's ethics in an introduction that takes up more than half of this slight volume. He exaggerates, however, when he says "an unsuspecting reader ... might easily take the work to be an exposition of the highest Christian moral philosophy," and other commentators are not so certain that Porphyry did not intend his intellectual counterattack of the Christians as a justification for their persecution. The letter itself begins promisingly with a touching and witty attempt to console Marcella for his absence by likening it to the soul's need to absent itself from the body. As he elaborates on the purification of the soul, however, we lose the sense of a man corresponding with his wife, but he resumes this tone near the end of the manuscript. Not renowned for original thought, he nevertheless can offer something to chew on when he employs his usual epigrammatic style, e.g., "it is by their good hopes good men are superior to bad ones." When he is more discursive, the stiffness of this ninety-year-old translation becomes more evident than the need for this reprint ever does." --From Independent Publisher--Reviews

Bibliographic Details

Title: Porphyry's Letter to His Wife: Concerning ...
Publisher: Phanes Press
Publication Date: 1986
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Very Good