passions. Superior to this is purifying virtue, which came in contact with the Gospel. Plotinus held that
-* the evil principle is only apparent, and that only the good has a substantial and permanent existence. The opposers concluded that as the teachings of < Ihristianity could not he entirely ignored or disproved, the philo-
completely sets the soul free from affections. Its object. is t • •> make us resemble God, and by it wo become dae- monical men or good (heinous. In the higher grade, when entirely given up to knowledge and the soul, man
becomes a god, till at last he lives only to reason, and so sophical system must be brought upon the same plat- becomes the tat lnr of gods, one with the one Supreme form as a rival of t lie Gospel
Being (Sent. 34). Porphyry appears to have taught (in All former attacks against Christianity had proved his si\ hooks jrspi BXne) more distinctly than Plotinus (utile because the (io-pel could claim supernatural ori- the doctrine of the emanation of matter from the super- gin, and demonstrate it- claims by the response which sensuous, and proximately from the soul i Procl. /'" Tim. its teachings found in the depths of the human soul. p. 109, 133,189). The doctrine that the world is without Instead, therefore, of denying the grand ethical and re- beginning in time was defended by Porphyry against ligious principles of the evangelical scheme, Porphyry the objections of Aniens ami Plutarch (Procl. in Tim. sought supernatural surroundings for his own system.
ings and then moved in bold attack against the supernatural in ( ihristianity, seeking to disprove, not the substance of the Gospel teachings, hut the record* in which that substance is delivered an attack so general in our day among the disbelievers of the supernatural claims of Christianity. See RATIONALISM. Porphyry's course was in all respects a novel one. Indeed, it was the re- verse of that pursued by all other opponents of the new religion who had preceded him. By them the facts, the records of the Gospel were acknowledged, hut the Facts were held to 1 .e wrong, and to ha\ e In en produced by an unauthorized agency, to have been the work of magic or charms ; now t he lapse of a hundred VI at- has convinced the enemy that the method of attack afford- ing any hope of success is the direct one against the
authority, the inspiration of the documents of the Gos-
p. 119).
His Attacks agniiixt c/instHim/y.— Porphyry has es- pecial interest for us. however, not so much as a philos- opher of the New-Platonic school, great as lie was as such, but as the constructor of a new philosophy, the aim of which was not merely speculation and the en- chantment of reason, but its acceptance as a national creed, and its dethronement of Christianity. When made aware that his system could not of itself accom- plish all that he desired, he left the apologetic domain, and became the most determined of heathen polemics
the world ever beheld or Christianity ever encountered.
Luctan and Celsus, a hundred years earlier, had vainly striven to stay the rising fortunes of the Gospel. lie now came forward to attempt the death-grapple, and it mii-i i>e confessed that he made a most vigorous effort
to retrieve a sinking cause, to turn back the tide of new pel. If by the trenchant knife of criticism these sup- idea-, and to reinstate in the minds of the people of the purls could he cut away, the system would be 1. It to
Roman empire the principle- of an effete religious sys- sink down upon a level with philosophy, with all merely tern, of a waning and insufficient philosophy. As al- human systems of speculation.
ready indicated above. Porphyry was a man of remark- (II the nature and merits of the work by Porphyry able powers of mind and ol high culture, of a calibre against Christianity it is not easy to judge, as it has not alto-ether above that of Lucian and Celsus. I.iician. come down to us. He is reputed to have written it about though endowed with keen wit, was a careless jester, the year 270, while in retirement in Sicily. It was enti- tled Kara Xpioriav&v. In A.D. 135 all the copies extant were burned by order of the emperor, and its contents arc only preserved 1" us in pari bj the lengthy extracts made of it in the numerous refutations which were pub- nily. an elevation of lone, an apparent candor in the lished by the Christian apologists of the early Church.
The entire work consist* d of fifteen books, but only con- cerning tive of these is information thus afforded. From these «e barn that the first bunk of his work dragged to lmhi some of the discrepancies, real or supposed, in Scripture. The examination of the dispute between Peter and I 'aid wa- quoted as an instance of the ad- mixture of human ingredients in the body of apostolic teaching. His third book was directed to the subject.
of ."scripture interpretation, especially, with some incon- sistency, against the allegorical or my.-tical tendency which at that lime mark d the whole Church, and e.-pc-
ei.ilh the Alexandrian fathers. The allegorical method
coincided with, if it did not arise from, the Oriental in- stinct of symbolism, the natural poetry of the human mind. But in the mind- oi .1, w- and Christians it had been sanctified by its use in the lb brew religion, and