Abstract

In a letter to his wife, Marcella, Porphyry invites her to collect her scattered limbs from her body. Commentators have shown little interest in this metaphor, which we propose to explore and understand. Since it cannot be a question of physical limbs (Marcella must gather them up far from the body), what organs is Porphyry talking about? In what sense does the soul have organs, and how can it bring them together? Drawing on other crucial texts by Plotinus and Porphyry, we propose to understand the dismemberment of the soul as that of its power, scattered and divided in the organs of the body when it acts within it. This interpretation enables us to shed light on Porphyry’s thought on alienation in the body, and to identify something akin to a Neoplatonic discourse on sexuality and on the union between two beings.