Porphyry of Tyre

When did Porphyry live?

Porphyry of Tyre is dated c. AD 234 – c. 305 in the archive, which places Porphyry in the Ante-Nicene Church (AD 180–313). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.

What did Porphyry write?

Porphyry of Tyre has 1 catalogued writing in the archive: Against the Christians (fragments).

Which early sources mention Porphyry?

Porphyry of Tyre is named in 3 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome of Stridon and Augustine of Hippo. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was Porphyry from?

The archive associates Porphyry of Tyre with Tyre, Rome. The sources record more than one location, so the places are listed in the order the record moves through them.

Some, eager to find an explanation of the wickedness of the Jewish writings rather than abandon them, had recourse to interpretations inconsistent with them… Origen, a Greek educated in Greek learning, drove headlong toward barbarian recklessness.

Earliest witness · Syriac version (St Petersburg codex, dated AD 462) (AD 462)

Why need I say this, when even Porphyry, who settled in Sicily in our own time and wrote books against us, mentions Origen — attempting to slander him, and unwittingly commending him?

[Augustine gives the tenth book to answering Porphyry by name — the pagan philosopher he engages more closely, and rates more highly, than any other.]

Augustine's De Civitate Dei, the twenty-two books written between AD 413 and 426. Critical text: Bernhard Dombart and Alfons Kalb, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 47–48 (1955). English translation by Marcus Dods, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st series, vol. 2 (1887), public domain.