«Nobilissimus philosophus paganorum / falsus philosophus»: Porphyry in Augustine's Metaphilosophy

The aim of this article is to highlight Augustine’s judgment on Porphyry as a philosopher and to show whether and how it is related to Augustine’s general idea of philosophy. In Augustine’s evaluation Porphyry is a great philosopher and a false philosopher at the same time: a great philosopher as being an eminent exponent of the best among the schools of philosophy, Platonism; a false philosopher as being an archenemy of Christianity, which is the «uerissima philosophia». The question that this article tries to answer is: To what extent does Augustine think that Porphyry’s anti-Christian errors depend on the fact that Porphyry was a philosopher, which means a Platonic philosopher? In other words: How much is philosophy, especially Platonism, responsible for Porphyry’s anti-Christianism in Augustine’s opinion? By analysing Books VIII and X of the City of God, this article claims that Augustine wants to present Porphyry’s rejection of the Christian religion as not due to authentically philosophical reasons, and not necessarily consequent to Porphyry’s Platonism. Augustine argues that had been Porphyry a consistent Platonist and a consistent philosopher, he would have found in philosophy, if anything, reasons for embracing Christianity rather than dismissing it. The simultaneous presence of greatness and falsehood in the portrait of Porphyry painted by Augustine is not, therefore, due to contradiction in Augustines’s thought. On the contrary, such ambivalence is due to Augustine’s apologetic plan for depriving Porphyry’s anti-Christianism of any philosophical foundation and putting it at odds with the Platonic tradition itself, regarded as the school that has rightly gained primacy among the ancient philosophical schools.