Daemonic Trickery, Platonic Mimicry: The Discourse of Daemonic Sacrifice in Porphyry's De Abstinentia

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Proctor, Travis Wayne
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Religious Studies

Abstract

Porphyry of Tyre's discussion of daemons and animal sacrifice in his De Abstinentia strays from traditional Graeco-Roman formulations of daemonic benevolence and physiology. As a result, past studies have struggled to identify the intellectual lineage for Porphyry's daemonology. By contrast, I propose that Porphyry draws his daemonology from Christian Platonic sources, best represented in the writings of Origen of Alexandria. I provide an extensive survey of early Christian views on daemonic physiology and encroachment upon sacrificial ritual, with a special section devoted to a comparison with the daemonology of Origen. There are notable similarities between the daemonologies of Porphyry and early Christian writers, likely occasioned by Porphyry's familiarity with Christian daemonological discourses. Porphyry attributes his daemonological discussion, moreover, to certain Platonists, a claim which, when read in light of Porphyry's Vita Plotini, places Origen (and other Christians) squarely within the intellectual circles from which Porphyry was drawing his daemonological discourse.

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