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Saint Porphyry ((ラテン語:Porphyrius); , ''Porphyrios''; Slavonic: Порфирий, ''Porfiriy''; –420) was bishop of Gaza from 395 to 420, known from the account in his ''Life'' for Christianizing the recalcitrant pagan city of Gaza, and demolishing its temples. Porphyry of Gaza is known to us only from the vivid biography by Mark the Deacon. The ''Vita Porphyrii'' appears to be a contemporary account of Porphyry that chronicles in some detail the end of paganism in Gaza in the early fifth century. However the text has been identified in the 20th century as hagiography rather than history and some elements of it are certainly examples of the stereotyped events characteristic of this form of fiction.〔Apparent use of Theodoret and other later sources convinced P. Peeters that it was actually written after 534. (P. Peeters, "La vie géorgienne de Saint Porphyre de Gaza" ''Analecta Bollandiana'' 59 1941, pp 65–216.〕 On the other hand the author was certainly intimately familiar with Gaza in late Antiquity,〔Helen Saradi-Mendelovici, "Christian Attitudes toward Pagan Monuments in Late Antiquity and Their Legacy in Later Byzantine Centuries" ''Dumbarton Oaks Papers'' 44 (1990, pp. 47–61) pp 53f instances as history the destruction of the temples in Gaza in ''Vita Porphyrii''.〕 and his statements are of interest at least as reflecting attitudes in the 5th century. A street in the village of Zejtun, Malta, bears his name. == The Account in ''Vita Porphyrii'' == Gaza had a history as a place hostile to the early Christians. Several had suffered martyrdom there in the persecution of Diocletian (303-313), and the brief pagan revival under Julian (362-363) had seen the burning of the Christian basilica and various Christians put to death.〔http://www.baladna.ps/SPCGaza.htm〕 The people of Gaza were so hostile to the Christians that the Christian church had been built outside the walls, at a safe distance, and the Christian bishops of the 4th century were specifically termed "bishops of the churches about Gaza". The Christian community then scarcely numbered 280 in Gaza, according to the ''vita'' of St. Porphyry, and the community-at-large resisted the closing of temples and destruction of pagan images which had started in more Christianized regions.〔 Compare the contemporary treatment of the Serapion of Alexandria of Alexandria in 391, followed soon after by the destruction of the temples of Heliopolis and Apameia.〕 According to the ''vita'', St. Porphyry was appointed bishop at the age of 45. He arrived in the city without incident, but a drought followed the same year, and the pagans "imputed the thing to the coming of the blessed man, saying that 'It was revealed unto us by Marnas that the feet of Porphyry bring bad luck to the city'." (Vita 19-20) Further harassment followed (Vita 21, 25) with the support of local officials. In response St. Porphyry sent Marcus, his deacon and chronicler, to Constantinople in 398, to obtain an order to close the pagan temples of Gaza. An official named Hilarius duly arrived with soldiers to close the temples, but the Marneion remained open because Hilarius was bribed with a large sum of money (''Vita'' 27). There was no great change, however, in the attitude of the people, who refused to allow Christians "to hold any civil office, but entreated them as naughty slaves" (''Vita'' 32). St. Porphyry then went himself to Constantinople during the winter of 401-402, accompanied by the bishop of Caesarea Palaestina, and together they convinced the Empress Eudoxia, who was the dominant force at the court of Arcadius, to prevail upon the Emperor and obtain from him a decree for the destruction of the pagan temples at Gaza. Cynegius, a special imperial envoy, executed the decree in May, 402. Eight temples, those of Aphrodite, Hecate, the Sun, Apollo, Kore (Persephone), Tyche (''Tychaion''), the shrine of a hero (''Heroeion''), and even the Marneion, were either pulled down or burnt. "And there were also other very many idols in the houses and in the villages," Marcus relates, but the upper class who had such things had fled from the city in advance. Simultaneously soldiers, who were billeted in the vacated houses visited every house, seizing and burning the idols and private libraries as "books of magic". The Marneion, the temple sacred to Zeus Marnas, who was the local Hellenistic incarnation of Dagon, the patron of agriculture, a god who had been worshipped in the Levant since the third millennium BCE, was set afire with pitch, sulfur and fat; it continued to burn for many days; stones of the Marneion were triumphantly reused for paving the streets. This temple had been rebuilt under the direction of Hadrian (ruled 117-138), who visited Gaza; it was represented on the Gaza coins of Hadrian himself. To one of Hadrian's visits, also, we may conjecturally assign the foundation of the great temple of the god Marnas, which the ''Vita'' describes with a mixture of pride and abhorrence. For the temple is first represented on the coins of Hadrian himself. The ' Olympian ' Emperor who founded the great temple of Zeus on the sacred mountain Gerizim of the Samaritans would not be slow to recognize the claims of the ''Cretan Zeus'' of the Gazaeans. After the suppression of a revolt of the Jews in 119 AD, Hadrian allegedly selected Gaza as the place at which to sell his Jewish captives. Directly upon the ruins of the Marneion was erected, at the expense of the empress, a large church called the ''Eudoxiana'' in her honor, which was dedicated on April 14, 407. Thus with approved violence, paganism officially ceased to exist in Gaza. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Porphyry of Gaza」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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