Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras and Athanasius’ Life of Antony

A little over a century ago, it was discovered that Athanasius’ Life of Antony echoes Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras in two different passages, and scholars have since debated the implications of this clear intertextual linkage. Building on these initial findings, the present article adduces a previously undiscovered third echo of the Porphyrian Life and argues that Athanasius deploys this intertext in order simultaneously to subvert Porphyry’s idealized portraiture of Pythagoras and to elevate his own hagiographic protagonist Antony.