Porphyry seems to suggest that Ammonius was instrumental in helping Plotinus think about philosophy in new ways:

By the third century criticism of Christianity had mounted, partly as a defense against it, and the 15 volume Adversus Christianos by Porphyry was written as a comprehensive attack on Christianity, in part building on the pre-Christian concepts of Plotinus.

Later, the Neoplatonist Iamblichus changed the role of the " One ", effectively altering the role of the Demiurge as second cause or dyad, which was one of the reasons that Iamblichus and his teacher Porphyry came into conflict.

His Commentary on Daniel was expressly written to offset the criticisms of Porphyry, who taught that Daniel related entirely to the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and was written by an unknown individual living in the 2nd century BC.

Against Porphyry, Jerome identified Rome as the fourth kingdom of chapters two and seven, but his view of chapters eight and 11 was more complex.

He reminds us that the Platonic writer Porphyry wrote in the 3rd century AD that the cave-like temple Mithraea depicted " an image of the world " and that Zoroaster consecrated a cave resembling the world fabricated by Mithras The ceiling of the Caesarea Maritima Mithraeum retains traces of blue paint, which may mean the ceiling was painted to depict the sky and the stars.

Porphyry reported that Plotinus was 66 years old when he died in 270, the second year of the reign of the emperor Claudius II, thus giving us the year of his teacher's birth as around 205.

An Imperial subsidy was never granted, for reasons unknown to Porphyry, who reports the incident.

Plotinus was unable to revise his own work due to his poor eyesight, yet his writings required extensive editing, according to Porphyry: his master's handwriting was atrocious, he did not properly separate his words, and he cared little for niceties of spelling.

Iamblichus of Calcis ( Syria ), a student of Porphyry ( who was himself a student of Plotinus ) taught a more ritualized method of theurgy that involved invocation and religious, as well as magical, ritual.

Porphyry says Milo's house at Croton was burned and the Pythagoreans within stoned.

The vita of Porphyry of Gaza, mentions the great god of Gaza, known as Marnas ( Aramaic Marnā the " Lord "), who was regarded as the god of rain and grain and invoked against famine.

Variations on his Athenian origin and his deformity are found in numerous ancient sources, including Diogenes Laertius, who said that the Athenians regarded him as deranged, and Porphyry, who labelled him " one-eyed ", and Justin, who believed that he was sent to the Spartans by the Athenians as a deliberate insult.

According to Porphyry of Tyros, the Egyptians used an X within a circle as a symbol of the soul ; having a value of nine, it was used as a symbol for Ennead.

Greek philosophers such as Porphyry, who claimed influence from Platonism, and the fathers of the Christian Church, held that the world was pervaded with spirits, the latter of whom advanced the belief that demons received the worship directed at pagan gods.

Purple was the color of royalty, and the " Imperial Porphyry " was a deep purple igneous rock with large crystals of plagioclase.

The road from the quarry westward to Qena ( Roman Maximianopolis ) on the Nile, which Ptolemy put on his second-century map, was described first by Strabo, and it is to this day known as the Via Porphyrites, the Porphyry Road, its track marked by the hydreumata, or watering wells that made it viable in this utterly dry landscape.

Porphyry was used for the blocks of the Column of Constantine in Istanbul.

In the 1850s, the term was applied to a range of colors or hue, for example by Thomas De Quincey, who wrote " Porphyry, I have heard, runs through as large a gamut of hues as marble.

Formerly assumed to be identical with the Alexandrian grammarian and lexicographer Didymus Chalcenterus, because Ptolemy and Porphyry referred to him as Didymus ho mousikos ( the musician ), classical scholars now believe that this Didymus was a younger grammarian and musician working in Rome at the time of Nero ( Richter 2001 ).

This was an advance over the logica antiqua, which treated the Isagoge of Porphyry, Divisions and Topics of Boethius, the Categories and On Interpretation of Aristotle, and the Summule logicales of Peter of Spain.

Porphyry makes note that the Enneads, before being compiled and arranged by himself, were merely the enormous collection of notes and essays which Plotinus used in his lectures and debates, rather than a formal book.

The system used in the west today, dividing instruments into wind, strings, and percussion, is of Greek origin ( in the Hellenistic period, prominent proponents being Nicomachus and Porphyry ).

Writers in the 200's such as Hippolytus, Porphyry, and the anonymous author of De Rebaptismate also used the " Longer Ending.

* A Life of Pythagoras, one of the main sources used by Porphyry and Iamblichus, for their ( extant ) Lives of Pythagoras.

From Porphyry, who also states that Aspasius wrote commentaries on Plato, we learn that his commentaries on Aristotle were used in the school of Plotinus.

Neither the two sections at Porphyry, where he Apista as a historical source for his Life of Pythagoras used, yet the few surviving papyrus fragments extend our knowledge of the structure and content of the novel significantly.

Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs | The Tetrarchs, a Porphyry ( geology ) | porphyry sculpture sacked from a Byzantine palace in 1204, now standing at the southwest corner of St Mark's Basilica, Venice

Porphyry ( geology ) | Porphyry sarcophagi of Byzantine emperor s on display outside the Istanbul Archaeology Museums.

There he associated in the imperial circle with the administrator and polemicist Sossianus Hierocles and the pagan philosopher Porphyry ; here he will first have met Constantine, and Galerius, whom he cast as villain in the persecutions.

" Richly detailed glimpses of imperial circles and great names in Constantinople are all fake ; specific important people — an archbishop, a governor, and others — are all fake ; and Mark and Porphyry themselves may never have existed at all ," is MacMullen's conclusion ( 1984: 87 ).

Within the highest ranks of the imperial administration, however, there were men who were ideologically opposed to the toleration of Christians, like the philosopher Porphyry of Tyre, and Sossianus Hierocles, governor of Bithynia.

According to Porphyry, the parents of Ammonius were Christians, but upon learning Greek philosophy, Ammonius rejected his parents ' religion for paganism.

This distrust extended to the body, including his own ; it is reported by Porphyry that at one point he refused to have his portrait painted, presumably for much the same reasons of dislike.

The Roman emperor Julian, not content with Eunapius ' more modest eulogy that he was inferior to Porphyry only in style, regarded Iamblichus as more than second to Plato, and claimed he would give all the gold of Lydia for one epistle of Iamblichus.

He studied at Alexandria under Ammonius Saccas and Origen the Pagan, and taught for thirty years in Athens, one of his pupils being Porphyry.

In his private life Longinus seems to have been amiable ; for although his pupil Porphyry left him, declaring that he would seek a better philosophy in the school of Plotinus, Longinus did not show him any ill-will, but continued to treat him as a friend, and invited him to come to Palmyra.

Porphyry is best known for his contributions to philosophy.

Porphyry is also known as an opponent of Christianity and defender of Paganism ; his defense of traditional religion, Philosophy from Oracles, written before the persecutions of Christians under Diocletian and Galerius, set out the basis for them:

French philosopher, Pierre Hadot, maintains that for Porphyry, spiritual exercises are an essential part of spiritual development.

Pythagorean and Platonic philosophers like Plotinus and Porphyry condemned " Gnosis " that would later characterize Gnosticism ( see Neoplatonism and Gnosticism ) for their treatment of the monad or one.

After first working as a clerk in Lubbock's Bank, he was appointed Assistant Secretary to the Society for the Encouragement of Art ( precursor to the Royal Society of Arts ), in which capacity he made many influential friends, who furnished the means for publishing his various translations, which besides Plato and Aristotle, include Proclus, Porphyry, Apuleius, Ocellus Lucanus and other Neoplatonists and Pythagoreans.

St. Porphyry then went himself to Constantinople during the winter of 401-402, accompanied by the bishop of Caesarea Palaestina, and together they convinced the Empress Eudoxia, who was the dominant force at the court of Arcadius, to prevail upon the Emperor and obtain from him a decree for the destruction of the pagan temples at Gaza.

A fragment from his Against Empedocles, preserved by Porphyry, discusses the need for law in society.