Presence and the Image Controversies in the Third and Fourth Centuries AD

Late Antiquity is usually considered to have begun in the third century, around the same time that Plotinus (c. AD 205-70) introduced a new system of theory, Neoplatonism, which derived from a metaphysical way of thinking. Plotinus’ writings, the Enneads, were collected and edited by his pupil Porphyry and published around AD 300. They included ideas about statue animation, which built on earlier ideas about divine presence in images, and became highly influential in Late Antiquity,1 when Christianity included many conflicting factions, not least with regard to religious images and iconoclastic behaviour.