Utopian Elements in Porphyry’s De abstinentia

Di Serio, Chiara

dc.contributor.author	Di Serio, Chiara
dc.date.accessioned	2021-08-27T10:02:56Z
dc.date.available	2021-08-27T10:02:56Z
dc.date.issued	2020-12-23
dc.identifier.issn	2084-140X
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/11089/38895
dc.description.abstract	In the long passage of De abstinentia, IV, 2–18, Porphyry mentions a series of “groups” (ἔθνη) as examples of abstinence from animal food: the ancient Greeks of the “golden age”, the Lacedaemonians of Lycurgus’ era, the Egyptian priests, the Essenes among the Jews, the Magi among the Persians and the gymnosophists among the Indians. Such an association does not seem at all accidental, since Porphyry refers to a tradition in which these communities have similar habits of life, including the prohibition of eating meat and drinking wine, sexual abstinence, absence of diseases and wars, separation from the civil sphere, devotion to the sacred. All these elements constitute the specific connotation of a human existence that evokes the “time of the origins”, substantially a paradisiac dimension, far from history. It is a deliberate symbolic shift. This brief research will investigate the reasons and the deep meaning of the connection based on utopian life traits.	en
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher	Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego	pl
dc.relation.ispartofseries	Studia Ceranea. Journal of the Waldemar Ceran Research Centre for the History and Culture of the Mediterranean Area and South-East Europe	en
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
dc.subject	golden age	en
dc.subject	abstinence from meat	en
dc.subject	sexual abstinence	en
dc.subject	remoteness from civilization	en
dc.subject	familiarity with the sacred	en
dc.subject	utopian lifestyle	en
dc.title	Utopian Elements in Porphyry’s De abstinentia	en
dc.type	Article
dc.page.number	47-61
dc.contributor.authorAffiliation	University of Rome La Sapienza	en
dc.identifier.eissn	2449-8378
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dc.contributor.authorEmail	diseriochiara111@gmail.com
dc.identifier.doi	10.18778/2084-140X.10.03
dc.relation.volume	10

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