Porphyry: On Abstinence from Killing Animals

229 Pages·2000·1.49 MB·English

by  Aristotle

PORPHYRY
On Abstinence from Killing Animals
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PORPHYRY
On Abstinence
from Killing Animals
Translated by
Gillian Clark
LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published in 2000 by Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd.
Paperback edition first published 2014
© Gillian Clark 2000
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to be identified as Author of this work.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-0-7156-2901-7
PB: 978-1-7809-3889-9
ePDF: 978-1-7809-3888-2
Acknowledgements
The present translations have been made possible by generous and imaginative funding from the
following sources: the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Research
Programs, an independent federal agency of the USA; the Leverhulme Trust; the British Academy;
the Jowett Copyright Trustees; the Royal Society (UK); Centro Internazionale
A. Beltrame di Storia dello Spazio e del Tempo (Padua); Mario Mignucci; Liverpool University;
the Leventis Foundation; the Arts and Humanities Research Board of the British Academy;
the Esmée Fairbairn Charitable Trust; the Henri Brown Trust; Mr and Mrs Egon; the Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO/GW). The editor wishes to thank Margaret Atkins, Bill Fortenbaugh,
Andrew Smith, Dominic Montserrat, Catherine Osborne, and Frank Romer for their comments
on the volume, and Sylvia Berryman for preparing the volume for press.
Typeset by Ray Davies
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Introduction 1
Translation 29
Book 1 31
Book 2 55
Book 3 80
Book 4 100
Notes 121
Bibliography 195
English-Greek Glossary 201
Greek-English Index 203
Subject Index 205
Index of Names and Places 215
Index of Animals, Birds, Reptiles and Fishes 219
In memoriam
H.J. Blumenthal
30.3.1936 – 23.4.1998
Introduction
1. On Abstinence from Killing Animals
On Abstinence from Killing Animals, written in the last third of the third
century CE, is a treatise in the form of an open letter from Porphyry of Tyre
to his friend Firmus Castricius. Both were philosophers, but Castricius
had ‘reverted to consuming flesh’ (1.1.1): that is, he had abandoned the
vegetarian diet which he and Porphyry had both thought essential for a
committed philosopher. To reconvert him, Porphyry offers an impressive
repertory of debate and observation about animals, humans and gods.
Biology and theology, ethology and anthropology, are called in to support
philosophy; food for the body and food for the soul are equal concerns. Are
animals non-rational beings, and thereby excluded from any human com-
munity, to be used as humans see fit – exploited as workers, killed for food
or medicine or pleasure, or sacrificed to the gods? Do true gods demand
the sacrifice of living creatures, or is what passes for religion only a cover
for human greed and demonic manipulation? Why do humans acquiesce
in the somnolent, desire-driven life of the body, ignoring the evidence that
they are immortal souls, and what should they do to break free?
Porphyry and Castricius probably met in Rome, when Porphyry joined
(in 263 CE) the group which studied with the philosopher Plotinus. Forty
years later, Porphyry described the group in the Life of Plotinus which he
prefixed to the Enneads, his edition of the philosophical writings of
Plotinus.1 This preface gives the most vivid picture we have of a late-
antique philosopher among his students. The members of the group varied
greatly in their choice of lifestyle. Plotinus, who came from somewhere in
Egypt, would not talk about his home or family, had no property (he lodged
in the house of a Roman lady, Gemina), was celibate and vegetarian, and
ate, drank and slept little. Yet he accepted the social responsibilities of
friendship. He acted as arbitrator in legal disputes, and took seriously his
financial and educational duties as guardian for children whose father had
died.2 Some of his students had heavier domestic, political and business
commitments. There were Roman senators, doctors (from Palestine, Ara-
bia and Alexandria), and even a professional public speaker who was also
a moneylender. Castricius had estates in Campania, the best farming land
in Italy, and probably decided on a political career. The senator Roga-
tianus, in contrast, abandoned a political career for the study of philoso-
phy. He refused to act as praetor (a very senior post with special
responsibility for law) even when his official escort came to summon him,
and he stayed with friends instead of being accessible in his own great
1
Introduction
house. Rogatianus, Porphyry, Castricius, and probably others, were vege-
tarian.3
As Porphyry said (Abst. 1.48.1), most philosophers approved of a frugal
diet, but vegetarianism meant more than that. The title of this translation,
On Abstinence from Killing Animals, tries to convey some of Porphyry’s
purpose. His book is conventionally known as On Abstinence, or by the
Latin title de Abstinentia, but its full title is On Abstinence from Animates:
in Greek, peri apokhês empsukhôn. This is difficult to translate into Latin,
or into English.4 apokhê is ‘holding back’, empsukha are not just living
creatures (zôia) but creatures with souls. According to Porphyry, animals
(unlike plants) have rational souls, less rational than human souls but still
recognisably kin to humans. Animals can be seen to recognise and assess
their situation, plan for the future, respond to each other and to humans,
communicate with each other and (so far as human understanding allows)
with humans. It is therefore wrong to kill animals for any reason other
than immediate self-defence. It is especially wrong if the purpose is only
to provide people with meat, a kind of food which for most people is both
unnecessary and unhealthy. Porphyry of course approves of frugality and
of kindness to animals, but these are not his only reasons for abstinence
from killing and eating animals.
Most philosophers agreed that commitment to philosophy requires a
disciplined and moderate lifestyle. Porphyry and Castricius were Platon-
ist philosophers, and for Platonists it was especially important to mini-
mise the distraction caused to the soul by the desires of the body. They
believed that the true self is the intellectual soul, which has temporarily
fallen away from contemplating God because it is involved with the mortal
body. Platonists (like Plato himself) had different ideas about the cause of
this involvement: it might be inherent weakness, or excessive self-confi-
dence, or natural affinity of souls for bodies, or a god-given mission to
illuminate the material world.5 Whatever the cause, the soul now inhabits
a world which is mortal, corporeal and changeable, at the furthest remove
from God, and the mortal body demands the soul’s attention. But the soul
is able to turn back towards God, and philosophers must work to purify
body and soul from the contaminating effects of existence in the material
world. The philosopher aims to ‘become like God’ (Plato, Theaetetus 176b),
that is, ‘to be just and holy with wisdom’ so that the true self may rise
towards God even in this life and be ready for return to God after death.
Porphyry argues that the philosopher should concentrate on feeding the
intellect with contemplation and thoughts about God. The body also must
be fed, but not on meat. Meat requires expensive and distracting prepara-
tion (1.46.2); it obstructs the soul by weighing down the body and stimu-
lating desire (1.47.2); and it cannot be acquired without doing harm.
Killing animals harms them because it takes away their souls (2.13.1),
whereas God, who is wholly good, does no harm to anything (3.26.11). That
2
Introduction
is a challenge to traditional Graeco-Roman belief about the relationship of
humans, animals and gods.
Meat-eating was closely linked to the Graeco-Roman mode of animal
sacrifice, in which the inedible parts of the victim were burned for the
gods, and the edible parts were eaten by the worshippers or sold off by the
priests for others to eat. The everyday Mediterranean diet was based on
grain made into bread or porridge and enlivened with whatever was
available as a ‘relish’ (opson): oil, olives, herbs and vegetables, cheese,
sometimes fish. For most people, only special occasions made it worth
killing an animal for food. Such occasions – religious festivals and major
life-events – also required the animal to be offered to the gods, in honour
or thanksgiving or hope of benefit (2.24.1). This is not to say that meat was
unobtainable without sacrifice. In town markets it was always available,
and had not always been ritually butchered and offered.6 But Porphyry
still had to counter the religious argument that by authorising sacrifice,
the gods have authorised meat-eating by humans.
The standard definition of ‘human’ (used by Porphyry in his Introduc-
tion to Aristotle’s Categories) was ‘mortal rational animal’. We are below
the gods because we are mortal like the other animals, but above the other
animals because we are rational like the gods. This status is acknowledged
when we offer sacrificial animals to gods, who need no food, and eat the
meat ourselves. But according to Porphyry, gods, humans and animals are
all rational. Animals are less rational than humans, but are still too close
kin for us to kill them unless it is in immediate self-defence, as we would
kill a dangerous human (2.22.2). Humans are less rational than gods, but
are still capable of assimilation to the divine when freed from the body
(perhaps even in brief experiences of union in this life), and should try to
be as much like the gods as human life allows. We should therefore
understand that gods do no harm and have no needs, least of all for dead
flesh. They welcome simple bloodless offerings, such as grain or barley-
cakes or flowers, which manifest the respect of ordinary unphilosophic
people. From the philosophic few, the proper offering is contemplation and
pure thought uncontaminated by the concerns of the body (2.34.2-3).
When Porphyry heard that Castricius had lapsed from the beliefs they
had shared, he knew it could not be from simple greed or from mistaken
ideas about health, and he was anxious about the possible motives for this
change (1.1.1-2.2). Why should he be anxious? As On Abstinence pro-
gresses, some reasons become clear. Castricius might have been convinced
by philosophic arguments that it is impossible, or simply mistaken, to
treat animals as if they were humans, that is, to regard them as part of
our society and kill them only in self-defence (1.4.1-4). But he might
instead have been persuaded by Gnostics among the students of Plotinus
that his enlighted soul was not affected by the experiences of his body (1
chs 41-2). Their position could seem to be supported by Plotinus’ belief
(which was, as he knew, untraditional in Platonism) that there is a part
3