Reconsidering Fragments of Porphyry’s "On Cult Images". Part One
Reconsidering Fragments of Porphyry’s "On Cult Images". Part One

Summary/Abstract: The subject of this article is a fragmentary treatise On Cult Images (Peri agalmaton) written by the Neoplatonist Porphyry of Tyre in the last quarter of the third century. The only source for it has so far been considered to be Eusebius’ Praeparatio Evangelica, which provides no insight into Porphyry’s own assumptions, arguments, aims, or literary patterns. In my approach, therefore, I have taken into account not only the Eusebian excerpts, but also a number of extra fragments in non-Christian literature,namely Lydus’ On the Months, Macrobius’ Saturnalia, Proclus’ Commentary of Plato’s Timaeus, and Pseudo-Chaeremon. In analyzing and interpreting them, I apply the philological method as well as the so-called hermeneutic circle. After summarizing the status quaestionis since 1655, I traced some select extra fragments and then showed how some of the topics, such as the iconography of gods and symbolism of sexes, appearing in Eusebius were continued and explained in Lydus and the others. Finally, I discovered that these explanations were dependent on the extant fragments of Apollodorus’ On the Gods in 24 Books (c. 146 BC), and concluded that this Hellenistic treatise rather than Cornutus’ Greek Theology may have been a literary pattern of Porphyry’s On Cult Images.

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