Porphyry the Theurgist: "You proved yourself to be at once poet, philosopher, and priest"
Something I've had on my mind for a while and have shared with friends who share my interests in ancient late Platonist philosophy of a controversial nature. Modern academic characterization of Porphyry of Tyre as anti-theurgic/anti-hieratic gives an incomplete and, I'd even say, a completely incorrect picture of the man.
If I could say a thing about the Letter to Anebo, this is really the central text to the controversy, it'd be that the format is generally interrogative. The philosopher here posits questions (for which I believe he implicitly possesses answers of his own). And his student, Iamblichus, writes in turn to answer his master. I sense no antagonism here. To entertain questions gives us no precise glimpse at one's own opinions. For that I'd say we'd do well to look elsewhere.
We do not possess in full Porphyry's Commentary on the Chaldean Oracles, apart from what is fragmented and named by the Christian polemicists his Philosophy from Oracles generally. However, what is evident is that he did and was the very first in the Platonic school, before Iamblichus, to write exegesis on the texts where the term theurgy was first coined and entered into the philosophical vocabulary. Granted, we don't know what exactly the contents are. Though perhaps he did hold them highly as others like Damascius and Proclus said he confused the Intelligible Father for the First Principle. Compare with Plotinus who was probably aware of the oracles, having mirrored one verse in his treatise Ennead I.9: On Exiting from the Body, but never explicitly referencing it again.
If that is hardly enough, we can also consider the books of his On Abstinence. I've been of the opinion that this is one of Porphyry's most hieratic extant works and even a manual of sorts for the preliminary undertakings of theurgy. This might not be apparent to someone who only has a surface level understanding of what is written here. Yes Porphyry argues that abstinence from the killing and eating for living beings is more just towards the community and familiarity of all animal life, and he does argue that it contributes to ascetic self-control. But he also saw its value to the philosopher because it gave him the material purity necessary to relate directly to the gods and in especially during mystic and initiatic rites. "...shall the priest of the father allow himself to become a tomb for dead bodies, full of contamination, when he wants to converse with the greater?" And so he points to the abstinence observed by various groups of barbarian priests, in other words the preliminaries to theurgic initiations, as evidence of their familiarity and wisdom concerning divine matters. This relationship between abstinence and theurgy is supported by Hierocles in his Commentary on the Golden Verses, where he says little about the rites themselves but that they accompany restrictions of diet and beget purity to the material soul (which is also a distinctly Porphyrian stance on theurgic efficacy).
Another obvious place to look for evidence of Porphyrian theurgy is his treatise On Cult-Statues, in which the philosopher examines the unseen causes underlying the preparation and appearances of Greek and Egyptian agalmata. I'd say obviously a subject proximate to telestic theurgy.
The Christian author Augustine clearly values Porphyry as an authority on theurgy and writes that he had certain Chaldean teachers and friends on this subject.
What might differentiate Porphyry from the hieratics is preference or predilection. As, Damascius says, he like Plotinus preferred simple philosophy to the sacred rites while Iamblichus and Proclus had preferred theurgy. But predilection isn't outright dismissal. As Plotinus was rumored to have been present at the theophany of his own god-daemon in the Roman Isaeum.
