Re: PORPHYRY'S AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS: THE LITERARY REMAINS
Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 8:16 am
7: The Attack on Paul the Apostle
Apocrit. 111.30-111.36
[Acts 16.3]
[... You (Christians) seem to me to be like inexperienced seafarers, who while still afloat on one journey look ahead to another voyage on another sea. And so you are looking for other points to be put forward by us when you have not completely answered questions already put to you.] [37]
How is it that Paul says, "Being free, I have made myself the slave of all so that I might win all" [1 Cor. 9.19]; how, even though he called circumcision "mutilation," [38] he nevertheless circumcised a certain man named Timothy, as the Acts of the Apostles [16.3] instructs us. Ah! the asinine nature of all this. Such scenes are used in the theater in order to get a laugh. Jugglers give exhibitions like this! For how can a free man be everyone's slave?
How can someone so dependent as this gain anything? If he is an outlaw among the lawless who goes about with Jews as a Jew and with others as he pleases, then his slavery was service to his corruptness of nature, and he was a stranger to freedom. He is actually a slave and minister to the wrongdoing of others; he is an advocate of unhealthy things if he regularly squanders himself in serving people who have no law or accepts their actions as being the same as his own.
These are not the teachings of a healthy mind. This is not [the teaching] of unimpaired reason. The words indeed suggest someone who is mentally feeble and deficient in reasoning powers. And if he lives among the lawless yet accepts the religion of the Jews with an open heart, taking [as it were] a piece from each, then he is confused by each. He participates in their worst shortcomings and makes himself everyone's companion.
Anyone who makes circumcision the dividing line between believers and outsiders and then performs the ritual himself is his own worst accuser -- as he says himself: "If I build again the things that I tore down, I make myself a transgressor." [39]
[Acts 22.3; Acts 22.27-9]
Paul also seems to forget himself frequently, as when he tells the captain of the guard that he is not a Jew but a Roman, [40] even though he had said on another occasion, "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia and raised up at the feet of Gamaliel, educated in accordance with the strict manner of the law of our fathers." [omitting en te polei taute]. But anyone saying [both] "I am a Jew" and "I am a Roman" is neither, even if he would like to be.
The man who hypocritically pretends to be what he is not makes himself a liar in everything that he does. He disguises himself in a mask. He cheats those who are entitled to hear the truth. He assaults the soul's comprehension by various tactics, and like any charlatan he wins the gullible over to his side.
Whoever accepts such principles as a guide for living cannot but be regarded as an enemy of the worst kind -- the kind who brings others to submission by lying to them, who reaches out to make captives of everyone within earshot with his deceitful ways. And if, therefore, this Paul is a Jew one minute and the next a Roman, [or a student] of the [Jewish] law now, but at another time [an enemy of the law] -- if, in short, Paul can be an enemy to each whenever he likes by burglarizing each, then clearly he nullifies the usefulness of each [tradition] for he limits their worthwhile distinctions with his flattery.
We may conclude that [Paul] is a liar. He is the adopted brother of everything false, so that it is useless for him to declaim, "I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie" [Rom. 9.1]; for a man who one day uses the law as his rule and the next day uses the gospel is either a knave or a fool in what he does in the sight of others and even when hidden away by himself. [41]
[1Cor. 9.7]
[Paul] also misrepresents the gospel as his conceit requires, and uses the law for his own benefit: "Who serves as a soldier at his own expense, or who tends a herd without getting some of the milk?" And to get his portion, Paul invokes the law in support of his greed when he says, "Does not the law say the same, for it is written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain'" [1 Cor. 9.9].
He adds next a piece of foolishness designed to limit God's providence to humanity and to deprive animals of the divine care: "Does God care about the oxen? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake" [1 Cor. 9.10]. When he says such things, I think he makes the creator -- who ages ago brought these [creatures] into being -- look ridiculous, as though he had no concern [for his own creation].
For if it is true that God cares nothing for the oxen, why does scripture record, "He has made all things, sheep and oxen and beasts and birds and fishes, subject to him" [Ps. 8.8-9]. If [God] is concerned for fishes, then he must be all the more concerned for the toil of oxen! I am astonished at this man's pious regard for the law, since it is occasioned by his need to get donations from those who listen to his words.
[Rom. 7.12, 14]
Paul next turns around like a man startled awake by a nightmare, screaming, "I, Paul, testify that if a man keeps any bit of the law then he is indebted to the whole law." [Gal. 5.3, paraphrased; cf. James 2.10]. He says this rather than simply asserting that it is wrong to keep the commandments set down in the law.
A man whose intellectual powers are worthy of admiration -- one instructed in the specifics of the law of his fathers, one who frequently invokes the authority of Moses -- is also one, it seems, so sotted with wine that his wits have abandoned him. Does [Paul] not erase the law for the sake of the Galatians when he says, "Who bewitched you? How is it that you do not obey the truth," which is the gospel [Gal. 3.1)? And as if to press the point and make it an offense for anyone to heed the law he says, "Those who are under the law are under a curse" [Gal 3.10].
The same man who writes, "The law is spiritual" to the Romans, and "The law is holy and the commandment holy and just" now puts a curse upon those who obey what is holy! Then, as if to confuse the point further, he turns everything around and throws up a fog so dense that anyone trying to follow him inevitably gets lost, bumping up against the gospel on the one side, against the law on the other, stumbling over the law and tripping over the gospel -- all because the guide who leads them by the hand has no idea where he is headed! [42]
[Rom. 5.20]
Look again at this charlatan's record. Following any number of references to the law which he used to find support [for his case], he nullifies his argument by saying "The law entered so that the offense might increase" and previous to this, "The goad of death is sin and the power of sin is the law" [1 Cor. 15.56].
With a tongue sharp as a sword, [Paul] mercilessly cuts the law into little pieces. But this is [nevertheless] the man who tends to keep the law and finds it virtuous to obey its commandments. By clinging to inconsistency, as he does apparently by habit, he overturns his judgments in all other cases. [43]
[1 Cor. 10.20-26; 8.4, 8]
Further, when Paul talks about eating what has been sacrificed to idols, his advice is essentially that it's all indifferent: [he tells his inquirers] not to ask too many questions, and that even though something has been a sacrifice to an idol, it can be eaten -- just as long as no one tells them about it in advance! He says, in effect, "What they sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and I would not wish you to associate with demons."
But then he says, with indifference as to their dietary habits, "We know that an idol is nothing real, and that there is no God but one." Still later, "Food will not endear us to God: we are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do." Then following this prattle, [Paul] mutters like a man on his deathbed, "Eat whatever's sold in the meatmarket without raising questions on the basis of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and everything in it."
How ridiculous this farce, based on nothing but the unparalleled inconsistency of his rantings! His sayings undercut each other as if by a sword. O brave new archery! that makes a target of the man who draws the bow! [44]
[1 Tim. 4.1; 1 Cor. 7.25]
In letters written by him [Paul] gives us to believe that virginity is to be praised. Then he turns around and says, "In these last days some will depart from the faith and will find themselves swayed by seducing spirits who forbid them to marry and command them to abstain from meat" [1 Tim 4.1, 3]. But then, in his letter to the Corinthians, he says, "But with regard to virgins I have no commandment of the Lord."
Thus, anyone who remains single is not doing the right thing -- and anyone who refrains from marriage as though it were evil is not acting in accordance with [the commandments of Jesus], since there is no record of Jesus' words concerning virginity. What about those people who brag of being virgins as if they were singled out to be filled with the holy spirit, as was the mother of Jesus. [45]
_______________
Notes:
37. The introductory remarks of iii.30 are those of Macarius rather than his opponent and are contrived to extend the fiction of a dialogue. At this point in the manuscript the word hellene is inserted as if to signal the point at which the actual words of the philosopher begin. That Macarius thus envelops the recorded words of his opponent for the sake of creating a sense of drama, see Crafer's discussion, p. xvii. Harnack (p. 57) omits the introductory material beginning with "pos ho Poulos elegteros gar on, legei, etc." ["How was it that Paul says ... ?"].
38. "Pos se kai ten peritomen legon katatomen .... " The point seems to be that Paul regarded circumcision as a mutilation of the flesh or of no particular value. In fact, his comments in Phil. 3.2f. are more ambiguous that Porphyry's reading suggests.
39. With respect to Porphyry's generally high regard for the discipline of the Jewish law, see Of Abstinence 4.11-15. The philosopher seems to regard Paul's comments in 1 Cor. 9.19 less as a declaration of freedom from the law than as license to deal with converts dishonestly, as the need for persuasion warrants. Further, he tends to equate Paul's equivocal comments concerning gentile freedom from the law with "lawlessness" in the sense of moral anomie. Macarius argues that Paul behaved as a good teacher or doctor would, recognizing that the need to advance the gospel sometimes called for exceptional strategies -- thus the circumcision of Timothy. Macarius sees no contradiction between Paul's expressed views toward circumcision and the account given by Luke in Acts 16.3 of Timothy's circumcision.
40. The exact formulation attributed to Paul ("Ego eimi aner loudaios gegennemenos en Tarso .... ") is taken to contradict the information supplied in Acts 22.27f., where Paul announces to the tribune that he was born (gegennemai) a citizen. Acts 21.40 represents him speaking to the people in Hebrew rather than in Greek (cf. 21.37). The account in the Book of Acts has always been problematical since nowhere in his letters does Paul claim Roman citizenship, and the degree of citizenship available to Jews living outside Rome is widely discussed. Here, however, neither Porphyry nor Macarius in his rebuttal regards citizenship as the issue. It is seen rather as an "ethnic" question, with Porphyry regarding Paul's claim to be Jewish as proof that he cannot have been a Roman, and Macarius responding that Paul's rejection by the Jews makes him an "honorary" Roman.
41. The hypocrisy of Christian teachers was a feature of pagan polemic from at least the time of Celsus, who regards the charge as well established (Hoffmann, Celsus, p. 53).
42. The philosopher shows a good deal of perception with respect to certain inconsistencies in Paul's evaluation of the law and Paul's occasional appeals to the law as a means of settling disputes. Macarius fairly represents the complexity of the apostle's thought, however, when he responds, "If a man keeps countless commandments and leaves only one undone, it is as bad as leaving one gate of a city unprotected out of thirty-five" (iii.11). As to appeals to the law (e.g., to Deut. 25.4 in 1 Cor. 9.9 or to Lev. 7.28 in 1 Cor. 9.13), Macarius aptly responds that this is less an appeal than an allegorical application of an Old Testament prototype; hence the law is "spiritual" or "holy" as interpreted in the light of Christ's coming: "Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake."
43. Neither Porphyry nor Macarius distinguishes between Paul's speculative use of the law (cf. Rom. 7.14) and his prudential use (e.g., Rom. 7.21ff.), and Paul at times blurs his own distinction, as in the passage cited (1 Cor. 15.56). This discussion is remarkable in that it centers on a controversy long settled by the fourth century and of no particular doctrinal importance. Even second-century writers had lost sight of the original context of Paul's concern over Christian freedom from the requirements of Jewish law [cf.1 Tim. 1.8-9; James 2.18-26], preferring instead allegorical summaries such as the one provided by Macarius in chapter xli: the law is like the moon, drawing what light it has from the greater light of the sun, but destined to fade away as the sun reveals its glory. Like the moon, it has no power of its own, even though its place in the order of the universe is guaranteed.
44. According to Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas are sent as delegates to gentile populations in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia with an apostolic decree to the effect that the congregations abstain from eating meat obtained through pagan sacrifice. Porphyry does not deal with the contradictions between the information provided by Luke and Paul's cautious endorsement of freedom of conscience with respect to the dietary practices of gentile converts. In his rebuttal Macarius refers his opponent to his own words in the Peri tes ek Logion Philosophios (The Philosophy from Oracles), which serves as his sourcebook for information concerning the sacrifices of the mystery cults. Crafer mistakenly concludes (p. xiv; p. 111. n. 1) that this referral counts against Harnack's belief that the writer of the objections is Porphyry himself. On the contrary, it is obvious in context that Macarius is toying with his opponent and in this instance taunting him with his own book; thus. "You may learn accurately the record of the things sacrificed when you read the oracle of Apollo concerning sacrifices, handed down to the initiates in a mystery [recounted) by Porphyry in his arrogant delight, [where they are bound] by a terrifying oath [not to tell] the mystery to the people. The tragic result of this new superstition would be well known to you ... " [emphasis mine]. It seems to me very likely that this response, replete as it is with Macarius' citing his opponent's words from an established source, is one of the surest evidences that the opponent is indeed Porphyry.
45. Porphyry's objection is based on his generally high regard for sexual abstinence. He appears to know that Paul's argument in 1 Cor. applies to unmarried men as well as to women and is linked to Paul's eschatological teaching rather than to gnostic or neoplatonic pessimism. As a pupil of Plotinus, Porphyry would have been in sympathy with his teacher's correction of Platonic philosophy on this point (e.g., 2 Ennead 9.17-18), and thus may have been in sympathy with Paul's view that sexual abstinence is a provisional mode of conduct entailed by "the present distress" (1 Cor. 7.26- 31) rather than a means of expressing the doctrine that the corporeal is inferior to the spiritual. In the Letter to His Wife Marcella. Porphyry writes that "it is a great proof of wisdom to hold the body in thrall; often men cast off certain parts of the body; be ready for the soul's safety to cast the whole body away," (Letter 29-34, pp. 56-59). In view of the traditional acquaintance of Origen and Porphyry, the reference to "cutting" or casting away parts of the body may refer to the Christian teacher's castration, carried out in accordance with a reading (or misreading) of Matt. 19.12. Neither Porphyry nor Macarius would have been aware that the view represented in 1 Tim. is a later writer's effort to improve Paul's views on virginity. Without the contradiction, the objection fails.
Macarius turgid response argues that, as virginity is an unnatural state, it is left for the individual to choose it, with greater merit arising from its being a matter of choice than if it were made compulsory. The heretics envisaged in 1 Tim. 4.1f. would have made it the latter, and so would have deprived chastity or sexual abstinence of its value.
Apocrit. 111.30-111.36
[Acts 16.3]
[... You (Christians) seem to me to be like inexperienced seafarers, who while still afloat on one journey look ahead to another voyage on another sea. And so you are looking for other points to be put forward by us when you have not completely answered questions already put to you.] [37]
How is it that Paul says, "Being free, I have made myself the slave of all so that I might win all" [1 Cor. 9.19]; how, even though he called circumcision "mutilation," [38] he nevertheless circumcised a certain man named Timothy, as the Acts of the Apostles [16.3] instructs us. Ah! the asinine nature of all this. Such scenes are used in the theater in order to get a laugh. Jugglers give exhibitions like this! For how can a free man be everyone's slave?
How can someone so dependent as this gain anything? If he is an outlaw among the lawless who goes about with Jews as a Jew and with others as he pleases, then his slavery was service to his corruptness of nature, and he was a stranger to freedom. He is actually a slave and minister to the wrongdoing of others; he is an advocate of unhealthy things if he regularly squanders himself in serving people who have no law or accepts their actions as being the same as his own.
These are not the teachings of a healthy mind. This is not [the teaching] of unimpaired reason. The words indeed suggest someone who is mentally feeble and deficient in reasoning powers. And if he lives among the lawless yet accepts the religion of the Jews with an open heart, taking [as it were] a piece from each, then he is confused by each. He participates in their worst shortcomings and makes himself everyone's companion.
Anyone who makes circumcision the dividing line between believers and outsiders and then performs the ritual himself is his own worst accuser -- as he says himself: "If I build again the things that I tore down, I make myself a transgressor." [39]
[Acts 22.3; Acts 22.27-9]
Paul also seems to forget himself frequently, as when he tells the captain of the guard that he is not a Jew but a Roman, [40] even though he had said on another occasion, "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia and raised up at the feet of Gamaliel, educated in accordance with the strict manner of the law of our fathers." [omitting en te polei taute]. But anyone saying [both] "I am a Jew" and "I am a Roman" is neither, even if he would like to be.
The man who hypocritically pretends to be what he is not makes himself a liar in everything that he does. He disguises himself in a mask. He cheats those who are entitled to hear the truth. He assaults the soul's comprehension by various tactics, and like any charlatan he wins the gullible over to his side.
Whoever accepts such principles as a guide for living cannot but be regarded as an enemy of the worst kind -- the kind who brings others to submission by lying to them, who reaches out to make captives of everyone within earshot with his deceitful ways. And if, therefore, this Paul is a Jew one minute and the next a Roman, [or a student] of the [Jewish] law now, but at another time [an enemy of the law] -- if, in short, Paul can be an enemy to each whenever he likes by burglarizing each, then clearly he nullifies the usefulness of each [tradition] for he limits their worthwhile distinctions with his flattery.
We may conclude that [Paul] is a liar. He is the adopted brother of everything false, so that it is useless for him to declaim, "I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie" [Rom. 9.1]; for a man who one day uses the law as his rule and the next day uses the gospel is either a knave or a fool in what he does in the sight of others and even when hidden away by himself. [41]
[1Cor. 9.7]
[Paul] also misrepresents the gospel as his conceit requires, and uses the law for his own benefit: "Who serves as a soldier at his own expense, or who tends a herd without getting some of the milk?" And to get his portion, Paul invokes the law in support of his greed when he says, "Does not the law say the same, for it is written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain'" [1 Cor. 9.9].
He adds next a piece of foolishness designed to limit God's providence to humanity and to deprive animals of the divine care: "Does God care about the oxen? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake" [1 Cor. 9.10]. When he says such things, I think he makes the creator -- who ages ago brought these [creatures] into being -- look ridiculous, as though he had no concern [for his own creation].
For if it is true that God cares nothing for the oxen, why does scripture record, "He has made all things, sheep and oxen and beasts and birds and fishes, subject to him" [Ps. 8.8-9]. If [God] is concerned for fishes, then he must be all the more concerned for the toil of oxen! I am astonished at this man's pious regard for the law, since it is occasioned by his need to get donations from those who listen to his words.
[Rom. 7.12, 14]
Paul next turns around like a man startled awake by a nightmare, screaming, "I, Paul, testify that if a man keeps any bit of the law then he is indebted to the whole law." [Gal. 5.3, paraphrased; cf. James 2.10]. He says this rather than simply asserting that it is wrong to keep the commandments set down in the law.
A man whose intellectual powers are worthy of admiration -- one instructed in the specifics of the law of his fathers, one who frequently invokes the authority of Moses -- is also one, it seems, so sotted with wine that his wits have abandoned him. Does [Paul] not erase the law for the sake of the Galatians when he says, "Who bewitched you? How is it that you do not obey the truth," which is the gospel [Gal. 3.1)? And as if to press the point and make it an offense for anyone to heed the law he says, "Those who are under the law are under a curse" [Gal 3.10].
The same man who writes, "The law is spiritual" to the Romans, and "The law is holy and the commandment holy and just" now puts a curse upon those who obey what is holy! Then, as if to confuse the point further, he turns everything around and throws up a fog so dense that anyone trying to follow him inevitably gets lost, bumping up against the gospel on the one side, against the law on the other, stumbling over the law and tripping over the gospel -- all because the guide who leads them by the hand has no idea where he is headed! [42]
[Rom. 5.20]
Look again at this charlatan's record. Following any number of references to the law which he used to find support [for his case], he nullifies his argument by saying "The law entered so that the offense might increase" and previous to this, "The goad of death is sin and the power of sin is the law" [1 Cor. 15.56].
With a tongue sharp as a sword, [Paul] mercilessly cuts the law into little pieces. But this is [nevertheless] the man who tends to keep the law and finds it virtuous to obey its commandments. By clinging to inconsistency, as he does apparently by habit, he overturns his judgments in all other cases. [43]
[1 Cor. 10.20-26; 8.4, 8]
Further, when Paul talks about eating what has been sacrificed to idols, his advice is essentially that it's all indifferent: [he tells his inquirers] not to ask too many questions, and that even though something has been a sacrifice to an idol, it can be eaten -- just as long as no one tells them about it in advance! He says, in effect, "What they sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and I would not wish you to associate with demons."
But then he says, with indifference as to their dietary habits, "We know that an idol is nothing real, and that there is no God but one." Still later, "Food will not endear us to God: we are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do." Then following this prattle, [Paul] mutters like a man on his deathbed, "Eat whatever's sold in the meatmarket without raising questions on the basis of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and everything in it."
How ridiculous this farce, based on nothing but the unparalleled inconsistency of his rantings! His sayings undercut each other as if by a sword. O brave new archery! that makes a target of the man who draws the bow! [44]
[1 Tim. 4.1; 1 Cor. 7.25]
In letters written by him [Paul] gives us to believe that virginity is to be praised. Then he turns around and says, "In these last days some will depart from the faith and will find themselves swayed by seducing spirits who forbid them to marry and command them to abstain from meat" [1 Tim 4.1, 3]. But then, in his letter to the Corinthians, he says, "But with regard to virgins I have no commandment of the Lord."
Thus, anyone who remains single is not doing the right thing -- and anyone who refrains from marriage as though it were evil is not acting in accordance with [the commandments of Jesus], since there is no record of Jesus' words concerning virginity. What about those people who brag of being virgins as if they were singled out to be filled with the holy spirit, as was the mother of Jesus. [45]
_______________
Notes:
37. The introductory remarks of iii.30 are those of Macarius rather than his opponent and are contrived to extend the fiction of a dialogue. At this point in the manuscript the word hellene is inserted as if to signal the point at which the actual words of the philosopher begin. That Macarius thus envelops the recorded words of his opponent for the sake of creating a sense of drama, see Crafer's discussion, p. xvii. Harnack (p. 57) omits the introductory material beginning with "pos ho Poulos elegteros gar on, legei, etc." ["How was it that Paul says ... ?"].
38. "Pos se kai ten peritomen legon katatomen .... " The point seems to be that Paul regarded circumcision as a mutilation of the flesh or of no particular value. In fact, his comments in Phil. 3.2f. are more ambiguous that Porphyry's reading suggests.
39. With respect to Porphyry's generally high regard for the discipline of the Jewish law, see Of Abstinence 4.11-15. The philosopher seems to regard Paul's comments in 1 Cor. 9.19 less as a declaration of freedom from the law than as license to deal with converts dishonestly, as the need for persuasion warrants. Further, he tends to equate Paul's equivocal comments concerning gentile freedom from the law with "lawlessness" in the sense of moral anomie. Macarius argues that Paul behaved as a good teacher or doctor would, recognizing that the need to advance the gospel sometimes called for exceptional strategies -- thus the circumcision of Timothy. Macarius sees no contradiction between Paul's expressed views toward circumcision and the account given by Luke in Acts 16.3 of Timothy's circumcision.
40. The exact formulation attributed to Paul ("Ego eimi aner loudaios gegennemenos en Tarso .... ") is taken to contradict the information supplied in Acts 22.27f., where Paul announces to the tribune that he was born (gegennemai) a citizen. Acts 21.40 represents him speaking to the people in Hebrew rather than in Greek (cf. 21.37). The account in the Book of Acts has always been problematical since nowhere in his letters does Paul claim Roman citizenship, and the degree of citizenship available to Jews living outside Rome is widely discussed. Here, however, neither Porphyry nor Macarius in his rebuttal regards citizenship as the issue. It is seen rather as an "ethnic" question, with Porphyry regarding Paul's claim to be Jewish as proof that he cannot have been a Roman, and Macarius responding that Paul's rejection by the Jews makes him an "honorary" Roman.
41. The hypocrisy of Christian teachers was a feature of pagan polemic from at least the time of Celsus, who regards the charge as well established (Hoffmann, Celsus, p. 53).
42. The philosopher shows a good deal of perception with respect to certain inconsistencies in Paul's evaluation of the law and Paul's occasional appeals to the law as a means of settling disputes. Macarius fairly represents the complexity of the apostle's thought, however, when he responds, "If a man keeps countless commandments and leaves only one undone, it is as bad as leaving one gate of a city unprotected out of thirty-five" (iii.11). As to appeals to the law (e.g., to Deut. 25.4 in 1 Cor. 9.9 or to Lev. 7.28 in 1 Cor. 9.13), Macarius aptly responds that this is less an appeal than an allegorical application of an Old Testament prototype; hence the law is "spiritual" or "holy" as interpreted in the light of Christ's coming: "Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake."
43. Neither Porphyry nor Macarius distinguishes between Paul's speculative use of the law (cf. Rom. 7.14) and his prudential use (e.g., Rom. 7.21ff.), and Paul at times blurs his own distinction, as in the passage cited (1 Cor. 15.56). This discussion is remarkable in that it centers on a controversy long settled by the fourth century and of no particular doctrinal importance. Even second-century writers had lost sight of the original context of Paul's concern over Christian freedom from the requirements of Jewish law [cf.1 Tim. 1.8-9; James 2.18-26], preferring instead allegorical summaries such as the one provided by Macarius in chapter xli: the law is like the moon, drawing what light it has from the greater light of the sun, but destined to fade away as the sun reveals its glory. Like the moon, it has no power of its own, even though its place in the order of the universe is guaranteed.
44. According to Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas are sent as delegates to gentile populations in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia with an apostolic decree to the effect that the congregations abstain from eating meat obtained through pagan sacrifice. Porphyry does not deal with the contradictions between the information provided by Luke and Paul's cautious endorsement of freedom of conscience with respect to the dietary practices of gentile converts. In his rebuttal Macarius refers his opponent to his own words in the Peri tes ek Logion Philosophios (The Philosophy from Oracles), which serves as his sourcebook for information concerning the sacrifices of the mystery cults. Crafer mistakenly concludes (p. xiv; p. 111. n. 1) that this referral counts against Harnack's belief that the writer of the objections is Porphyry himself. On the contrary, it is obvious in context that Macarius is toying with his opponent and in this instance taunting him with his own book; thus. "You may learn accurately the record of the things sacrificed when you read the oracle of Apollo concerning sacrifices, handed down to the initiates in a mystery [recounted) by Porphyry in his arrogant delight, [where they are bound] by a terrifying oath [not to tell] the mystery to the people. The tragic result of this new superstition would be well known to you ... " [emphasis mine]. It seems to me very likely that this response, replete as it is with Macarius' citing his opponent's words from an established source, is one of the surest evidences that the opponent is indeed Porphyry.
45. Porphyry's objection is based on his generally high regard for sexual abstinence. He appears to know that Paul's argument in 1 Cor. applies to unmarried men as well as to women and is linked to Paul's eschatological teaching rather than to gnostic or neoplatonic pessimism. As a pupil of Plotinus, Porphyry would have been in sympathy with his teacher's correction of Platonic philosophy on this point (e.g., 2 Ennead 9.17-18), and thus may have been in sympathy with Paul's view that sexual abstinence is a provisional mode of conduct entailed by "the present distress" (1 Cor. 7.26- 31) rather than a means of expressing the doctrine that the corporeal is inferior to the spiritual. In the Letter to His Wife Marcella. Porphyry writes that "it is a great proof of wisdom to hold the body in thrall; often men cast off certain parts of the body; be ready for the soul's safety to cast the whole body away," (Letter 29-34, pp. 56-59). In view of the traditional acquaintance of Origen and Porphyry, the reference to "cutting" or casting away parts of the body may refer to the Christian teacher's castration, carried out in accordance with a reading (or misreading) of Matt. 19.12. Neither Porphyry nor Macarius would have been aware that the view represented in 1 Tim. is a later writer's effort to improve Paul's views on virginity. Without the contradiction, the objection fails.
Macarius turgid response argues that, as virginity is an unnatural state, it is left for the individual to choose it, with greater merit arising from its being a matter of choice than if it were made compulsory. The heretics envisaged in 1 Tim. 4.1f. would have made it the latter, and so would have deprived chastity or sexual abstinence of its value.