Resumen de Universal Salvation in Late Antiquity: Porphyry of Tyre and the Pagan-Christian Debate by Michael Bland Simmons (review)
Porphyry's soteriological thought reached its fruition, according to Simmons, in the Philosophy from Oracles (dated debatably to 302/3), in which a tripartite schema provided a first path of salvation for the uneducated masses through traditional cults, a second path for the novice philosopher through the virtue of continence, and a third path for the elite philosopher.The specialist on Porphyry may find more troublesome Simmons's assertion that his chronological reconstruction of the philosopher's writings is based on the premise that universalism was the primary objective of Porphyry's literary career (20).[...]a work that denies finding universalism (the Regr. anim.) is placed early, while the allegedly universalistic Phil.Aside from the prologue's explicit declarations that the work is intended for an elite few, the claim that salvation is offered to all is not found in these fragments, which are addressed to the person who is "giving birth to truth" (a Platonic allusion indicating a philosophical not an uneducated recipient of salvation); Simmons's reading of fr. 303.29-30 as ten holen katharsin diverges from the critical editions of Mras and Smith without indication that he is doing so; and finally, Simmons's assertion that the Phil.
