The Date of Porphyry's ΚΑΤΑΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΩΝAuthor(s): Alan CameronSource: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Nov., 1967), pp. 382-384Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/638010 .

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THE DATE OF PORPHYRY'S KATA XPIL TIANQN

THE only evidence we have concerning the date of Porphyry's KaLa Xptcr-tavhov is that it was written during his stay in Sicily,' which lasted from 268 until his return to Rome after Plotinus' death in 270. How soon after is unknown. Castricius' lapse from the vegetarianism of the Plotinian school and Porphyry's attempt to recall him to the fold with De Abstinentia should presumably be placed after Plotinus' death, and Porphyry was still in Sicily at the time.z Cassius Longinus' letter from Phoenicia, apparently written after Plotinus' death, seems to have found Porphyry still in Sicily.3 Thus he may still have been there in 271, or possibly even later. There is nothing to support the common view that he returned to Rome immediately or even soon after Plotinus' death.

On the authority of Harnack the Kar& XpLarrav3ov is often placed in 270. What Harnack in fact wrote is: 'Wahrscheinlich kurz vor oder gleich nach dem Tode Plotins (um 270).'4 He did not argue the point, merely referring to Bidez. Bidez did not commit himself even to a guess, assigning it in the most general terms to some time during the reigns of Claudius II or Aurelian (268-75).5 R. Beutler contented himself with a cautious 'nach 268',6 while most recently S. Mazzarino put it 'about 269'.7 A precise date is unattainable, but a hitherto neglected consideration can bring the terminus post quem down to 270, and probably later.

One of the authorities Porphyry drew on was Callinicus Sutorius,s a sophist and historian from Petra who taught with great success in Athens in the late third century.9 This we know from St. Jerome's commentary on Daniel (the Kaard XptLcrtavWov itself is of course lost), which preserves (if only at second

hand)'? the gist of Porphyry's brilliant and definitive demolition of the tra- ditional date of Daniel." Cf. In Danielem, praef. (PL xxv. 494 A, Corp. Chr. lxxv A, pp. 775-88) : 'ad intellegendas autem extremas partes Danielis, multi- plex Graecorum historia necesse est: Sutorii videlicet Callinici, Diodori... quos et Porphyrius esse secutum se dicit.' Ib. xi. 36 (PL xxv. 566 D, Corp. Chr. p. 916. 7) : 'haec Porphyrius, sequens Sutorium....'

None of Callinicus' writings survives, but there can be no doubt that the work in question is the Hps- KAEorrdrpav 7rEpl 7vcv Kar' AAEJ

V•pELaV OTOptW^V

in ten books ascribed to him by 'Suidas'.'2 Editions of 'Suidas' punctuate after I Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iv. 19. 2; cf. J.

Bidez, Vie de Porphyre (1913), p. 67 n. 4. 2 Bidez, Vie, pp. 98-99. 3 E. Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen iii. 2,4

694 n. I.

* 'Porphyrius gegen die Christen', Abh. Preuji. Akad. 1916, I, p. I.

s Vie, pp. 65 f. 6 R.-E. xxii. I (I953), 298. Cf. P. de

Labriolle, La Reaction paienne (1939), P. 242, 'apr&s 268'.

7 The End of the Ancient World (Eng. Tr. 1966), p. 47 (original edition 1959).

8 ZoVrIw o-r, according to 'Suidas' (K.

231), Sutorius, according to Jerome (for references see text). Most earlier editions of Jerome and most reference works (e.g. R.-E., PIR, FGrH) give Suctorius, but the recent Corpus Christianorum edition by F. Glorie (1964) has revealed that this form has no manuscript authority whatever.

9 For sources see, briefly, PIR2 C. 229. 10 Cf. P. Courcelle, Les Lettres grecques en

occident de Macrobe d Cassiodorez (1948), pp. 64 f.

I1 The relevant passages are collected by Harnack, op. cit., pp. 67-73-

12 Adler K 231, s.v. KaAAOLVKos.

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THE DATE OF PORPHYRY'S KATA XPITIANON 383

KAeord''-pav, as though there were two separate works, one an address to

Cleopatra, the other a history of Alexandria. But as A. Stein pointed out,' this is wrong. What Callinicus wrote is a history of Alexandria dedicated to Cleopatra--just as he also wrote a 1p8o Aof ov rTEpl KaKo77qAL'S Pf7770ptKq' ('Suidas' loc. cit.: by a curious inconsistency it apparently never occurred to the editors who punctuated after KAEoTrT'-pav to punctuate after AoVr7ov too).

But who is this Cleopatra? As Stein again pointed out, it can only be Zenobia, queen of Palmyra. Zenobia claimed that she was a direct descendant of Cleopatra the Great (SHA Tyr. Trig. 27. I, 30. 2, Claud. i. I : that the claim was probably false is immaterial). And in 269, reigning in the name of her six- year-old son Vaballathus after murdering his father, she seized control of Egypt, and, such was her admiration for the last of the Ptolemies, seems actually to have taken the name Cleopatra (SHA Prob. 9. 5). Eager to restore the glory of Ptolemaic Egypt, she invited men of letters to her court, of whom the most famous was Cassius Longinus. It is likely enough that an invitation was also extended to Callinicus, Longinus' hardly less distinguished colleague at Athens.

What more suitable dedicatee can be imagined for a history of the capital city of the Ptolemies? It is possible to see even from Jerome's paraphrase of Porphyry that Callinicus covered in detail-as was to be expected-the period of the Ptolemies. It is alleged in the Historia Augusta (Tyr. Trig. 30. 22) that Zenobia was so interested in the history of Alexandria that she wrote an epitome of it herself. One may perhaps doubt this, but it seems legitimate to conclude that Callinicus did the job for her. Stein's brilliant suggestion com- pletely persuaded F. Jacoby, and must, I think, be accepted.2

Now Zenobia's Egyptian kingdom was shortlived. By 271 she was driven out of Alexandria, and by 274 she was walking in chains in Aurelian's trium- phal procession through the streets of Rome.3 Callinicus' history must have been written while she still ruled in Alexandria, that is to say between 269 and 271. Probably nearer the latter than the former, if we allow time for Callinicus to establish himself at Zenobia's court, do the necessary research, and write the ten books of his history. It is probably safe to say not before 270, and early 271 is perfectly possible.

So if Callinicus did not write his history before 270, clearly Porphyry cannot have read and quoted it before that year. We must also allow time for Porphyry to have heard about the book and obtained a copy. This need only have taken a month or so, but clearly we cannot rule out the possibility of a delay of several months, if not a year or more. Thus the composition of the Ka7r XptcLatavc^v cannot be possibly be placed before late in 270, and is more likely to be 271 or later still.4

The point is not of purely academic interest. The Ka7a' XptoatavC^v was the most authoritative and comprehensive attack on Christianity that had ap- peared so far. And it was to become, directly or indirectly, the source of almost all later anti-Christian writings. Its importance as a weapon in the battle

I Hermes lviii (1923), 448. 2 FGrH III A, Komm. p. 365. 3 CAH xii. 302 f. * It is in any case likely that the Kal-'

Xpta-rtav6,v was written after Porphyry's

History and was made possible by the research

that work involved. The History goes down to Claudius II, and cannot therefore have been completed before 270 at earliest. I owe this point to Fergus Millar, who proposes to treat the subject at length.

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384 ALAN CAMERON

between paganism and Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries is suf-

ficiently illustrated by the frequent (if unsuccessful) attempts made by Chris- tian emperors to ban and burn it.' Yet we do not know why Porphyry wrote the work. Various suggestions have of course been made, of which the most

popular is that Porphyry was following up a wish or suggestion of Plotinus.2 It has also been conjectured that Porphyry was acting as a spokesman for the

Emperor Claudius.3 Since there is no other evidence that Claudius was or showed any signs of becoming a persecutor, this would be of no little importance if true.4

But Claudius died very early in 270. Since he was succeeded for a month or twos by his brother Quintillus, before Aurelian established himself as sole

emperor by March or April, his death cannot be placed later than early February.5 Now the Ka7& Xptu-rtavWv, as we have seen, cannot have been written until late in 270 at the earliest. It is a long work-fifteen books-and must presumably have taken Porphyry several months to write. With a lesser man we might have said several years, but Porphyry was a phenomenally fast worker: with nearly eighty works to his credit, many of them in several books, not to mention his edition of Plotinus' Enneads,6 he must have averaged a

couple a year at least. On balance, then, it seems likely that it was both con- ceived and executed after Claudius' death. So we should probably abandon the idea that Porphyry was influenced in any way by Claudius. He was

writing under Aurelian. Now although Aurelian never actually had recourse to persecution, he was widely believed to have been on the point of one when he was murdered in 275.7 A number of writers, pagan and Christian, speak of his hostility to the Church. Whether or not Porphyry would have been in- fluenced by such a consideration seems questionable. He does not seem the sort of man to have had much sympathy for Aurelian's sun-worship. However, now that we know that Porphyry wrote the work under Aurelian, not Claudius, we can at least pose the question.

Bedford College, London ALAN CAMERON

x Cf. de Labriolle, op. cit., pp. 242 f. 2 e.g. Beutler, R.-E. xxii. I. 298, following

Harnack. It should be pointed out, however, that there is really no evidence for the widely held view that Plotinus was hostile to Chris- tianity. After all, writing when he did, he could very easily have said so quite openly (cf. N. H. Baynes, Byzantine Studies and other

Essays [19551, p. 13 n. 12). In particular Porphyry could have had no reason at all to conceal and every reason to mention the fact in his Life of Plotinus, written in the years immediately preceding the Great Persecu- tion. Yet neither did so. For the Gnostics attacked by Plotinus in Enn. ii. 9, some of

whose writings were discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945, cf. H. C. Poech et al. in Les Sources de Plotin: Fondation Hardt, entre- tiens sur l'antiquite classique v (1957), 162-90.

3 Harnack, loc. cit. (n. 4): the possibility seems to be entertained by W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (1965), p. 468 n. Io.

4 Cf. Frend, op. cit., p. 442. s See D. Magie's note on SHA Claud.

xii. 5 (iii, p. 176 n. 4). 6 See the list in Bidez's Vie, pp. 65* f., and

by Beutler in R.-E., s.v. Porphyrios. 7 Frend, op. cit. 443 f.

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