Who Is the Allegorist? Nature and the Origins of Meaning in Porphyry’s On the Cave of the Nymphs

This article re-examines Porphyry’s On the Cave of the Nymphs as a reflection on the nature of allegory itself. Scholarship has usually read the treatise as a defence of Homeric allegoresis or as an exercise in philosophical exegesis; I argue that Porphyry develops an account of allegorical meaning grounded in his understanding of nature (phusis). The treatise presents the cave at Ithaca as an enigma whose significance precedes both poetic representation and philosophical interpretation. Through an analysis of Porphyry’s treatment of ancient wisdom traditions and Homeric imagery, I show that allegorical meaning derives from relations of manifestation and concealment already operative within the cosmos. Nature is thus the primary source of signification, and ritual, poetry, and philosophical exegesis are successive responses to this prior order. This helps to explain Porphyry’s insistence on the importance of historia – whether applied to physical entities or inspired texts – as well as his criticism of arbitrary interpretations. More broadly, I suggest that Porphyry’s commitment to textual authority rests upon a cosmological theory of meaning in which the sensible world itself functions as the first allegorist.