02873cam a22003733u 4500 77014 UtSlPG 20260610134801.0 m cr n 260607r20251823utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d UtSlPG en iso639-1 B Porphyry Select works of Porphyry Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg, 2025 1 online resource : multiple file formats text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Release date is 2025-10-08 The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) "Select works of Porphyry : Containing his four books on abstinence from animal…." by Porphyry is a collection of philosophical treatises written in the 3rd century. It gathers his ethical case for abstaining from animal food, an allegorical interpretation of Homer’s Cave of the Nymphs, and brief auxiliaries for understanding intelligible realities, here presented in English with scholarly framing. The focus is Neoplatonic ethics and metaphysics aimed at a contemplative, purified life, with a translator’s appendix elaborating the Odyssey’s allegory. The opening of the volume presents a translator’s introduction that sketches Porphyry’s life, his role in transmitting and clarifying Platonism, and outlines the contents and aims of the included works. Then Book I of On Abstinence begins as a letter rebuking a friend (Firmus) for returning to meat-eating; Porphyry announces that he will answer the strongest objections—from Stoics, Peripatetics, Epicureans, and a polemicist named Clodius—and he summarizes their claims about justice, utility, law, sacrifice, medicine, population, and transmigration. He then marks off his true audience—those seeking a contemplative life—and argues that happiness is living according to intellect, which requires withdrawing from the senses and passions (especially those inflamed by diet), cultivating solitude and moderation, and choosing light, simple foods so the soul loosens its bond to the body and turns upward to intelligible being. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Originally published: London: Thomas Rodd, 1823 Odysseus, King of Ithaca (Mythological character) Soul -- Early works to 1800 Mind and body -- Early works to 1800 Vegetarianism -- Early works to 1800 Neoplatonism -- Early works to 1800 Taylor, Thomas, 1758-1835 https://archive.org/details/b28747197/page/n21/mode/2up https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77014 117738 117738