Overview

In Late Antiquity Gaza was an exceptionally prosperous city, with wealth derived from a flourishing wine trade across the Mediterranean, as well as an intellectual centre whose leading lights combined traditional classical and Christian learning. Bishop Porphyry is famous for effecting the transformation in the early fourth century AD of this thriving community from a bastion of pagan beliefs into a Christian city, primarily through the destruction of the main temple to the god Marnas and other pagan sanctuaries and the working of miracles for the benefit of the local population. Conversion was neither easy nor guaranteed, since the leaders of local society at the time were solidly pagan and prepared to mobilize violence to defend their traditional ways. His success required missions to the empire’s capital, Constantinople, where he interacted with the Patriarch John Chrysostom and imperial authorities. On one occasion he managed with the help of Empress Eudoxia to outmanoeuvre Emperor Arcadius into acceding to his request for imperial authority and physical backing to secure the closure and demolition of temples. The two key versions of Porphyry’s biography are here presented together in new translations for the first time.

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9781836243342

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Reviews

'There are many reasons to welcome this volume and to be grateful to its three authors….they have produced readable, accurate translations. In and of themselves, the facing translations of the Greek and Georgian versions of the Life will make it a rewarding ex-perience to teach this text and to use it in survey courses and seminars…. the introduction to the volume is comprehensive and engaging… the indices are excellent, negotiating the opposed problems of completeness and detail and enabling readers to find items with ease. In short, “Mark the Deacon: Life of Porphyry of Gaza” is a welcome addition to the series, the volume is a stimulating scholarly work that is accessible to the general public at the same time that it makes full use of the most recent discoveries, and one hopes to see it in print for many years to come.' Richard Westall, Plekos 28, 2026

Author Information

Jeff Childers is Professor of Early Christianity at Abilene Christian University. He specializes in eastern Christianity, manuscript studies, patristics, New Testament textual criticism, early Christian spirituality, and the history of Bible interpretation Claudia Rapp is Professor of Byzantine Studies, University of Vienna; Director, Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences. She specializes in the social and cultural history of Late Antiquity and Byzantium. Michael Whitby is Emeritus Professor at the University of Birmingham. His many publications include The Cambridge Ancient History XIV, Late Antiquity, Empire and Successors A.D. 425-600 (Cambridge University Press 2000) co-editor with Averil Cameron and Bryan Ward-Perkins; Theodore Syncellus: The Homilies 'On the Robe and 'On the Siege' (Translated Texts for Historians 86, LUP 2024); with Richard Price, Theodore of Sykeon: The Life by George and the Encomium by Nicephorus the Treasurer (Translated Texts for Historians 87, LUP 2024) and with Jeff Childers and Claudia Rapp, Mark the Deacon: The Life of Porphyry of Gaza (Translated Texts for Historians 89, LUP 2025).

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