Porphyry on Asclepius’s and the Gods’ Departure from Rome

Eusebius transmits a fragment of Porphyry’s Contra Christianos in which the philosopher claimed that a disease or plague (νόσος) had seized the city for many years because there was no longer any sojourn (ἐπιδημία) of Asclepius and the gods there. Since Jesus was honored, no one experienced any public help from the gods. Porphyry’s claim that Asclepius and the gods no longer dwelt in Rome resembles one of the elements of the ancient Roman ritual of evocatio, in which the tutelary deities were called out of a city by a Roman commander. It is only an analogy, since the Christians did not promise the tutelary deities that their images would be carried to their own city and given a cult, and they certainly did not make use of an obscure Roman military ceremony. Whether or not the ritual was practiced in the Imperium is not the central question of this article. Instead I wish to show that the implicit debate between Eusebius and Porphyry alludes to similar arguments between pagans and Christians in antiquity and that there are important analogies between Porphyry’s argument about the departure of Rome’s tutelary gods due to the presence of worship of the Christian deity in the city and the ritual of evocatio.