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...lion original Greek: λέοντα 1133 ^b, 1138 ^ab. Furthermore, he mixed in a maxim which was never present in the Oracles: Do not lead [the soul] out, lest it depart carrying something with it original Greek: μὴ ἐξάξῃς, ἵνα μὴ ἐξίῃ ἔχουσά τι 1125 ^c. Plotinus (Enneads I.9) teaches us that these words are not actually corrupted from a hexameter verse: You shall not lead it out, lest it depart original Greek: οὐκ ἐξάξεις, ἵνα μὴ ἐξίῃ.¹) For it will go out carrying something with it so that it may indeed depart. I suspect, therefore, that Proclus—since he indulges in digressions to a wonderful degree—introduced this maxim (which I believe is Pythagorean; see Zeller I ⁵ 451 ¹ and Rohde, Psyche 202 ¹) for the sake of explaining some passage of the Oracles. — From this short work by Psellus, Nicephorus Gregoras drew the material he presents in his commentary on Synesius’s book On Dreams original Greek: περὶ ἐνυπνίων (Synesius edited by Petavius, Paris 1633, p. 351 ff.).

Another booklet by Psellus in the Paris manuscript 1182 bears this title: By the same author: A summary and concise exposition of the doctrines of the Chaldaeans original Greek: τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἔκθεσις κεφαλαιώδης καὶ σύντομος τῶν παρὰ Χαλδαίοις δογμάτων: published by Patricius on folio 6^v, then by Opsopoeus and Gallaeus p. 110 ff., and from the latter by Migne 1149^c ff. A third version, which I intend to publish in the appendix from the Laurentian manuscript 58,29, has this title: By the same Psellus: A summary sketch of the ancient doctrines of the Chaldaeans original Greek: τοῦ αὐτοῦ Ψελλοῦ ὑποτύπωσις κεφαλαιώδης τῶν παρὰ Χαλδαίοις ἀρχαίων δογμάτων. It is demonstrated by both the wording and the matching sequence of doctrines that both flow from the same source; what kind of source it was, he himself reveals at 1154^b: Most of these doctrines were accepted by both Aristotle and Plato, while the followers of Plotinus, Iamblichus, Porphyry, and Proclus followed them in all things and accepted them without question as divine voices. original Greek: τούτων δὲ τῶν δογμάτων τὰ πλείω καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης καὶ Πλάτων ἐδέξαντο... For what he presents as "Chaldaean theology" is in reality Proclian referring to the Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus, as will soon become apparent. — I have ignored the brief treatise published by Patricius on folio 6^r, as it offers nothing new.

After Psellus, let us consider a letter-writer who lived during the reign of Alexios Komnenos,²) whose letters from the 14th-century Barocci manuscript 131 were published by Cramer in Anecdota Oxoniensia III. The seventeenth letter (p. 180 ff.), hitherto neglected by learned men, contains an exposition of Chaldaean doctrines very similar to those of Psellus and derived from the same source. Cf. 181,3: The One is for them the very first principle, just as it is found theologized among the Greeks, and especially by the followers of Plato original Greek: τὸ ἕν ἐστιν αὐτοῖς πρώτιστον... and especially...

¹) In this passage, R. Volkmann, following Bouillet, ought not to have added the phrase "carrying something" original Greek: ἔχουσά τι as being "from the oracles of Zoroaster." You will not be surprised that Ruellius attributed something to the collection of Patricius, given the man's general ignorance.
²) He is distinct from Psellus for this very reason, a point I make because of Jahn (p. 33).