Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #porphyry
Most recents (3)
“Whence is it that you found the truth, o, Plato? … I know your teachers, although you seek to conceal them: you learned geometry from the Egyptians, astronomy from the Babylonians, you received pious invocations from the Thracians; the Assyrians taught you a great deal. > 1/2
>And, to the extent the laws [you expound] are true and glorify God, you have benefited yourself from the Jews.”
—Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 2/2
—Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 2/2
Klement adds that Plato took up the doctrine of the immortal soul from Pythagoras, who in turn had appropriated this from the Egyptians.
Origen deplored Plato, who took pains to learn the languages of Easterners, thus, ‘instead of remaining a Greek’, he opted for ‘behaving as a barbarian in order to benefit Egyptians & Syrians’, wherefore he ended up saying nothing helpful both to those barbarians & to the Greeks.
#Porphyry did not see Plato as an authority, not to mention his loathing of Socrates.
Aeneas of Gaza writes with contempt of Plato having misused the knowledge he received from the Egyptians and introducing transmigration of souls to animals, unlike ‘Plotinus, Harpocration, Boethus, and Numenius.’
Context is the rise in interest in ethical treatment of animals - one thinks of #PeterSinger - and also a different way to approach thought in #Islam away from usual stereotypes 2/
The key text of the #Greek background is #Porphyry On Abstention books.google.co.uk/books?id=B5ojA… which presents a Neoplatonic case for forgoing meat as pleasure 3/ 
