Porphyry's Life and Philosophical Affiliation

According to the Arabic sources, Porphyry came from Tyre, Syria (F, Q, IAU, B, K, C); his lifetime was after Alexander (F) and Galen (F, Q) but before Ammonius (F, C). He lived under the emperor Diocletianus (B) and was a renowned and subtle commentator of Aristotle’s works (F, Q, B, C). Indeed, Q (followed by K and C) expands this bit of information, describing how, in Porphyry’s time, people baffled by the difficulty of Aristotle’s books addressed to him the request of commenting upon them; Porphyry replied that Aristotle’s system of science was too difficult to be understood without an introduction, and he wrote the Isagoge in order to comply with the request; the Isagoge was then placed before Aristotle’s writings (p. 257.3-4 Lippert), a story which is clearly reminiscent of Ammonius’ commentary on the Isagoge (p. 22.12-23 Busse), and is repeated also in other Alexandrian commentaries (e. g., Elias; on the Neoplatonic exegesis of Aristotle’s logical corpus in Alexandria, see Hadot 1987, 1991, 1992; on the influence of this tradition in the Arab world, see Hein 1985). B mentions also the name of Chrysaorius - the addressee of the Isagoge - as the friend who asked Porphyry to explain Aristotle’s doctrines, an information coming ultimately from Ammonius, that does not appear in Q. Thus, the Arabic Porphyry is unanimously presented as a thinker of Aristotelian allegiance, indeed as a leading commentator on Aristotle, a profile which features also in the Theology of Aristotle (see the entry on Plotinus, Arabic in this volume), where “Porphyry from Tyre’’ is presented twice as the commentator of Aristotle’s book on ‘‘Theology’’ (p. 3.6 and 8.4 Badawl), and in other sources (see below ‘‘Other Works’’).