Daemonic Trickery, Platonic Mimicry: Traces of Christian Daemonological Discourse in Porphyry’s De Abstinentia

Abstract

Porphyry of Tyre’s discussion of daemons and animal sacrifice in De Abstinentia strays from traditional Platonic formulations of daemonic involvement in the Graeco-Roman cult. As a result, scholars have struggled to identify the intellectual pedigree for Porphyry’s daemonology. By contrast, I propose that Porphyry draws upon Christian Platonic daemonologies, best represented in the writings of Origen of Alexandria. To substantiate this hypothesis, I first outline the dissonance between Porphyry’s daemonology and his Hellenic predecessors, before outlining the several daemonological tenets he shares with Christian writers. Second, I note the extensive conceptual commonalities between Origen and Porphyry’s respective daemonologies, Finally, I reexamine Porphyry’s attribution of his daemonology to “certain Platonists,” a claim which, when read in light of Porphyry’s Vita Plotini, places Origen squarely within the intellectual circles from which Porphyry was drawing his daemonological discourse.