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PORPHYRY'S AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS: THE LITERARY REMAINS
8: The Attack on Christian Apocalyptic Hopes
 
Apocrit. IV.1-IV.7
 
[I Cor. 7.31]
 
What can Paul mean when he says that the form [skema] of this world is passing away? And how can those who have [possessions] act as though they had nothing, or those who are satisfied -- how can they not be? How can the other fables [he recounts] be believed? How is the form of this world to pass away -- or more precisely, what is it that passes away and why does it do so?
 
For if the creator is the cause of its passing away he would be guilty of causing something securely established to change. And even if he could change its form for the better, he would nonetheless be guilty of ignorance in failing to provide a permanent and suitable form for the world at the time of its creation, and of making instead an imperfect mess [of his work]. [46]
 
More to the point, one cannot know that the world would be changed from bad to good at the end of time; hence, what would be the good result of rearranging the parts? If it's the way of the world to be a source of misery, it must be objected -- so loudly that the creator will cup his ears at the protest -- that he is the whole source of the misery and grief: he is the source of the problem. It is he who violates the rationality of nature, he who must repent for botching things, and he who must choose to patch up the holes in the wall of his own creation. [47]
 
Perhaps Paul means to say that the wealthy should behave as though their money were of no account -- since the creator -- in speeding the world toward its end -- acts as though it were not his possession. And perhaps Paul means that those who are satisfied should act as though they were not -- in the sense that the creator seems not to be satisfied when he gazes upon the beauty of what he has made, but instead grieves over it as though it were not beautiful. And so he gets on with his plan to remodel the house, the easier to pass it off to someone else.
 
[1 Thess. 4.15-17]
 
Another of his astonishingly silly comments needs to be examined: I mean that wise saying of his, to the effect that, "We who are alive and persevere shall not precede those who are asleep when the Lord comes; for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel; and the trumpet of God shall sound, and those who have died in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in a cloud to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall be forever with the Lord."
 
Indeed -- there is something here that reaches up to heaven: the magnitude of this lie. When told to dumb bears, to silly frogs and geese -- they bellow or croak or quack with delight to hear of the bodies of men flying through the air like birds or being carried about on clouds. This belief is quackery of the first rank: that the weight of our mortal flesh should behave as though it were of the nature of winged birds and could navigate the winds as easily as ships cross the sea, using clouds for a chariot! Even if such a thing could happen, it would be a violation of nature and hence completely unfitting.
 
For the nature which is begotten in all things from the beginning also assigns to those things a certain station and rank in the order of the universe: [48] the sea for creatures that thrive in water; the land for creatures who thrive on ground; the air for the creatures who have wings; the reaches of the heavens for the celestial bodies. Move one creature from its appointed place to another sphere and it will die away in its strange abode. "You can't take a fish out of water," for it will surely die on the dry land. Just the same, you can't hope to make land animals creatures of the sea: they will drown. A bird will die if it is deprived of its habitat in the air, and you cannot make a heavenly body an earthly one. [49]
 
The divine and active logos [word] of God has never tampered with the nature of things and no god ever shall, even though the power of God can affect the fortunes of created things. God does not work contrary to nature: he does not flaunt his ability but heeds the suitability of things [to their environment. in order to] preserve the natural order. Even if he could do so, God would not cause ships to sail across the continents or cause farmers to cultivate the sea. By the same token, he does not use his power to make evildoing an act of goodness nor turn an act of charity into an evil deed. He does not turn our arms into wings and he does not place the earth above the stars. Therefore, a reasonable man can only conclude that it is idiotic to say that "Men will be caught up ... in the air."
 
And there is more to Paul's lying: He very clearly says. "We who are alive." For it is now three hundred years since he said this and nobody -- not Paul and not anyone else -- has been caught up in the air. It is high time to let Paul's confusions rest in peace! [50]
 
[Matt. 24.14]
 
On the same subject, there is a saying given by Matthew. It is as servile a piece of work as ever came from a drudge in a factory: "The Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, and then the end will come." [51] Consider that every corner of the world has heard of the gospel; that everyone -- everywhere -- has the finished product -- but that the end has not come and will never come. This saying should be whispered, not said aloud! [52]
 
[Acts 18.9-10]
 
Let us see what Paul was told: "The Lord said to Paul at night in a vision, 'Do not be afraid: speak, for I am with you, and no one will pounce on you to harm you.'" But as soon as [Paul] was taken prisoner in Rome, the very same -- who had said that we shall judge the angels -- had his head cut off! So, too, Peter, who was given the duty to feed the lambs [John 21.17] was nailed to a cross and then impaled for display. Many others of the same opinions have been burned, scourged, or otherwise put to death as punishment [for their teachings]. But it is not befitting the will of God -- nor even the wishes of a good man -- that thousands should be tortured for their beliefs while the time of his coming and their reward [resurrection] remains unknown. [53]
 
[Matt. 24.4-5]
 
In another place there is a slippery little saying attributed to Christ when he says, "Be on guard, so that no one will deceive you: for many will come in my name saying, 'I am Christ' and [they] will deceive many."
 
And see: more than three hundred years on, no one of the sort has appeared anywhere. Unless, of course, you are going to throw up the case of Apollonius of Tyana, that paragon of philosophy. But there is no other, and in any case [Jesus] predicts not that one but that many such Christs would arise. [54]
 
[Apocalypse of Peter]
 
There are plenty of other statements [regarding this cataclysm expected by the Christians]. In the Apocalypse of Peter [he] says that heaven will be judged along with the earth: "The earth will belch forth all the dead on the day of God's judgment, and it shall be judged together with the heaven which contains it." [55] Is anyone so illiterate, so dim, that he does not know that earthly things [alone] are subject to disturbance and do not behave in such a way as to maintain their existence and order but are, rather, erratic in their movement.
 
The things of heaven, on the other hand, possess an order that belongs entirely to them and is always the same. It maintains itself in perfect harmony [by the divine will]; it never changes and it will never be other than what it is.
 
[This order] is God's masterwork of precision. And since all that exists is as it is by virtue of the divine ordinance, it is impossible that the order of creation can be other than what it is; no better order can be conceived for it.
 
Further: why would heaven be judged? Will you tell us that once upon a time it committed some great sin -- even though it manifests the order declared for it by God and does not and has never suffered any alteration in its movement? Or perhaps you will tell us that it is enough for the creator to interfere with the [orderly operation of the heavens] on a whim, spewing curses at his own handiwork -- wonderful and great as it is. [56]
 
[Isa.34.4]
 
And the sacred word used [by the Christians] slanderously asserts that "all the power of heaven will melt away, and heaven will be rolled up like a scroll, and the stars will fall like leaves from the vine, as leaves fall from a fig tree." To make the lie fouler than it already smells, [Matthew] says, "Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away." Odd, is it not, to imagine that the words of Jesus would still be heard if there were no heaven and earth to contain them? And if Christ should do this -- bring heaven down -- then he would be acting like the worst of sinners, those who murder their own children, since the Son admits that God is the father of heaven and earth when he says, "Father: Lord of heaven and earth" [Matt. 11.25].
 
And the baptizer John praises heaven and the gifts that come from heaven when he says, "A man can accomplish nothing unless it is given to him from heaven" [John 3.27]. And the prophets say that heaven is the habitation of God, writing, "Look down from your holy habitation [heaven] and bless your people Israel" [Deut. 26.15].
 
If, therefore, heaven is of such great importance, as the testimony of scripture would suggest, where shall its ruler live after it passes away? Where shall be his throne? And if the earth perishes, where will God put his feet, since he says, "The heaven is my throne and the earth is the footstool of my feet." So much for the passing away of heaven and earth! [57]
_______________
 
Notes:
 
46. This represents a continuation of the critique of Paul's teaching, but thematically it is centered on Christian belief in the parousia, or second coming, and attendant signs of judgment and resurrection. The idea that the creator had made a "mess" of his work recalls Marcion's objections to the work of the demiurge: cf. Tertullian, Against Marcion 1.28. In the same section Tertullian takes up the question of abstinence -- also highly regarded by the Marcionite Christians -- arguing in familiar fashion that "commendation given to abstinence is of no account when prohibition is imposed" (1.29).
 
47. This is an echo of a familiar criticism leveled at Christian belief (cf. Hoffmann, Celsus. pp.101-103). Porphyry's high regard for the rationality of the created order derives from Plotinus (2 Ennead 10, 13, esp. 9.8): "The universe is a life organized, effective, complex, all-comprehensive, displaying an unfathomable wisdom. How then can anyone [viz., the "gnostics"] deny that it is a clear image, beautifully formed, of the Intellectual Divinities? No doubt it is a copy, not original; but that is its very nature; it cannot be at once a symbol and reality. But to say that it is an inadequate copy is false. Nothing has been left out which a beautiful representation within the physical order could include."
 
Macarius in his reply completely misses the eschatological issue at stake in Paul's comment and Porphyry's criticism. Working from the Jewish perspective of his day, Paul could only reject the proto-gnostic views of some Christian communities, who were attracted to a more pronounced form of dualism than Paul felt able to embrace. The Epistle to the Romans, for example, is written in the interest of preserving the theoretical value of Jewish law within the Christian context of fulfillment (cf. Rom. 13.10), whereas gnostic and Marcionite teachers thought of the law in terms of antithesis and dichotomy -- the old supplanted by the new, or the inferior and known superseded by the superior and unknown (cf. Tertullian, Against Marcion 1.2-6). Paul's eschatological perspective does not issue in a condemnation of the created order: the world is a visible symbol of the "eternal power and divine nature" (Rom. 1.19-20). By the same token, this world is "passing away" (Rom. 13.11-12). It is difficult to trace anything in Paul's thought comparable to Porphyry's high estimate of the orderliness of the connative world. Macarius is even further from Paul's logic than his opponent, however, in suggesting that Paul is speaking of the passing "fashions" of the world rather than about the end of time.
 
48. The source of this objection derives from Plotinus' theory of the divisibility of the soul as a fragmented and widely repeated image of the soul-in-unity: 4 Ennead 8-9; cf. 2 Ennead 1-2. Christian writers such as Paul had made use of miscellaneous Hellenistic models in reaching for a coherent view of the resurrection of the dead at the eschaton; see note following.
 
49. Compare this to Paul's language in 1 Cor. 15.39-45. The Greeks had no difficulty in conceiving of the immortality of the soul, but the idea of a raised body was difficult. Paul had tried to strike a compromise by saying that the resurrection will respect the natural order, within which there are diverse "kinds" of bodies; hence, the resurrected body would be a new and imperishable one. The philosopher's point is directed against this premise. On Plotinus' view of the organization of souls, which forms the basis for Porphyry's discussion, see 4 Ennead 3.15-16: Of the "variation of bodies entered by souls," he comments that "they live by the code of the aggregate of beings, the code which is woven out of the Reason-Principles and all other causes ruling in the Cosmos, out of the soul movements and out of the laws springing in the Supreme; a code, therefore, consonant with those higher existences, founded upon them, keeping unshakably true all that is capable of holding itself set toward the divine nature, and loading round by all appropriate means whatsoever is less natively apt" [15b].
 
50. A literal interpretation of the philosopher's words at this point would place the writing at around 350 C.E. -- given a traditional dating for Paul's correspondence with the Thessalonian church (ca. 51 C.E.). Of course there is no reason to suppose that Porphyry himself knew anything of the chronology of the letters and is doubtless guessing at a plausible date based on what he may have known of traditions about Paul's life or the time of his death. Crafer observes (p. xvii) "a round number does not count for much -- especially in days before time was reckoned in the Christian era."
 
If the date is exaggerated in any direction, then in the service of his point (i.e., that three full centuries have passed without Christian hopes materializing) it is obviously on the long side. In this case, the sentence may be read colloquially as "The best part of three centuries has passed since Paul wrote this."
 
The bearing of the reading on authorship, however, should not be overlooked. Porphyry became Plotinus' disciple in 263, about seven years before his teacher's death in Campania. The collecting and organizing of Plotinus' works seems to have begun straightaway. Porphyry died in 303, a date which suggests that his treatise against the Christians would have been completed toward the end of his philosophical career. The Gottingen professor Magnus Crusius (cf. J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 10: 1343f.) argued for a date toward the beginning of the fourth century. And the French Roman Catholic scholar Louis Duchesne (De Macario Magnete et scriptis eius [Paris: Klincksieck, 1877]) places the Apocriticus itself at the beginning of the fourth century. Duchesne, however, saw the pagan objections as coming from a "lesser man" than Porphyry, namely his disciple, the neoplatonist Hierocles.
 
Against the idea that Hierocles rather than Porphyry is the author of the objections (cf. Crafer, p. xiii) is the fact that Hierocles is not known to have written a tract "against" the Christians, but rather two books titled The Friend of Truth (Philaletheis Logoi; cf. Lactantius, Divine Institutes 5.2) intended for their instruction. As a contemporary of Porphyry, Lactantius (d. 320) was in a position to know the differences in style, tenor and substance of the two works. Eusebius, moreover, describes the work of Porphyry as "an attempt to slander the sacred scriptures" and indicts his efforts for showing a lack of philosophical argument (Ecclesiastical History 6.19.2-3). The strongly anti-Origenist and anti-allegorical twist of Porphyry's line of argument may have something to do with Eusebius' claim that Porphyry as a young man had met and listened to Origen and developed a dislike for his teaching. Origen died in 254 when Porphyry would have been about twenty-two, so the possibility of their meeting is not remote. Slanders against Origen, alleged by Eusebius as a feature of Porphyry's writing, have been removed or omitted by Macarius.
 
A further issue is the suggestion that the polemic was written considerably later than the objections of the philosopher. Crafer has argued persuasively that, "If Macarius is writing a long time after Christianity has ceased to be an unlawful religion [i.e., if this Macarius is a fifth-century bishop of Magnesia who attended the synod of Oak in 403] why should he adopt such a trembling attitude before his opponent and need to brace himself continually against a nameless dread which nearly overwhelmed him?" (p. xvii)
 
In short, it is far more likely that the pagan and Christian are near contemporaries than that the ideas of a pagan philosopher should he dredged up for ridicule in the fifth century, by which time most of the philosophical criticisms would seem stale and tangential to the main lines of post-Nicene controversy. By the same token, there is no reason to think that Macarius was not working from an epitome of the Kata Christianon rather than from the books themselves, though a likelier solution in my view is that he is far more selective in manipulating his opponent's work than Origen was in his treatment of Celsus' Alethes Logos.
 
In the passage quoted from 1 Thess., Porphyry wishes to remind the Christians of the empirical "disconfirmation" of their early apocalyptic hopes. The ploy is lost in the Origenist interpretation given by Macarius, who suggests that Paul's confident assertion, "We who are alive ... " shows only that "he is fond of identifying his own humanity with that of the whole race."
 
51. Porphyry abbreviates the text of Matt. 24.14.
 
52. The substance of this saying is not of much help in dating the philosopher's writing, since Tertullian could already make exaggerated claims for the growth of the church at the end of the second century (e.g., Apology 50). Macarius recites a list of people to whom the gospel has not yet been preached, including "seven races of the Indians who live in the southeastern desert, and the Macrobians of Ethiopia." The philosopher doubtless means the Roman world, divided between east and west, while the Christian writer reaches into Herodotus for details.
 
A writer of around the year 300 could be expected to comment on the extent of the appeal and success of Christianity and to employ the growing political confidence of the new religion as a contrast to its original apocalyptic interests. Macarius' defense against this "reminder" is to challenge the philosopher's interpretation of the word telos (end), as Matthew uses it, and to give it a more philosophical twist: the end (telos) God desires is the end of wickedness through the preaching of the Gospel. Theoretically, there is no literal end to such an enterprise until it can be shown that wickedness has been conquered once and for all. Until this happens, the "end" in its eschatological sense cannot come. "And so God in his mercy prorogues the cycle of time which moves toward an end." The logic represented by Macarius is ultimately that which informs the imperial ecclesiology of the later fourth century.
 
53. Porphyry's logic is oblique in this passage. Essentially he is continuing a digression on the apocalyptic expectations of Christianity, and here his approach is to use passages from scripture antithetically in relation to extra canonical traditions. Thus Paul, who was "emboldened to speak by a promise of immunity from harm," died the death of a martyr nonetheless. Peter was curtailed as well in his efforts to preach the gospel.
 
According to a late second-century work, The Acts of Paul, the apostle was martyred on the left bank of the Tiber three miles outside Rome. The place, known as Ad Aqua Salvias, was renamed Tre fontana, from the legend that when Paul's head bounced three times, three fountains sprang forth. Tradition locates his death in the Neronian persecution, ca. 65; Tertullian adds the detail -- apparently widely accepted -- that he was beheaded (Prescription against Heretics 36).
 
For the philosopher the deaths of the martyrs are not testimonies to their courage or the solidity of their belief in the resurrection of the dead. Rather, they are proof that Christian teaching runs contrary to the will of God, since he seems to act as an adversary to their cause. Further, he does not offer them the satisfaction of knowing when he might bring persecution to an end.
 
Whether these persecutions are contemporary (or nearly so) with the philosopher's objections cannot be determined. In 303 -- the year of Porphyry's death -- Diocletian initiated the "Great Persecution" at the urging of Galerius and Porphyry's disciple Hierocles.
 
54. It is not clear that the philosopher understands the context of the saying in Matthew's gospel, where the point is to distinguish false messiahs from the true Christ. In any case, Porphyry does not credit the saying since he does not find it borne out by historical evidence. It follows for him that if no false Christs have appeared (Apollonius of Tyana being the named exception), then the proliferation of messianic claims cannot he used to exonerate Christian beliefs about the end of history.
 
Macarius offers in rebuttal an unlikely assortment of names -- from Manes of Persia to Montanus, Marcion, and Dositheus of Cilicia -- as messianic pretenders and antichrists. It is not clear whether Macarius takes the point that the coming of false messiahs was linked to the imminence of the second coming of Jesus and the judgment of the world. Porphyry seems to suggest that no one making precisely the same messianic claims as Jesus has come. Celsus had offered the related objection that the prophecies used by the Christians in support of their messianic beliefs could be applied to any one of dozens of pretenders to the title of messiah (cf. Hoffmann, Celsus, p. 58).
 
55. The work referred to dates from the first half of the second century and is mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, who regarded it as authentic, and by Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History 6.14.1) who regards it as a forgery. It remained one of the most popular apocryphal writings until its definitive exclusion from Athanasius' canon of 367. Undoubtedly Porphyry thinks of the book as canonical. It includes both the text of Matt. 24.5 (the reference to false Christs) as well as a vivid description of the melting of the heavens on the day of judgment (Apocalypse of Peter 5). The philosopher quotes accurately from the source, that heaven and earth will be judged together, and seems also to know the tradition of Isa. 34.4, that "heaven shall be rolled up like a fig tree." The objection to these images of destruction is paraphrased from Plotinus' theory of the permanence of the heavenly order, 2 Ennead 1.4.
 
56. The passage has suffered some mutation and cannot be translated satisfactorily as it now appears in the text. Crafer's attempt to render the passage (p. 130, n. 1) is unsatisfactory. On the probable source of Porphyry's argument cf. Plotinus, 2 Ennead 4.5.
 
57. Porphyry's tactic is to take Christian imagery in its most literal sense. If heaven and earth pass away, then God would have no dwelling place. This subject is never broached in Christian apocalyptic thought, which chose instead to emphasize the creation of a "new heaven and a new earth" (Isa.65.17).
 
Macarius responds to the objections by identifying the logoi referred to by Jesus in Matt. 24.35 with the Stoical logos which provides the reason or rationale for the created order; thus, "all created things that come to an end do so to achieve a second and better beginning."