On the Chaldean Oracles

183,23 One must not wonder, says the interpreter of such trifles original: "δεῖ δὲ μὴ θαυμάζειν, φησὶν ὁ τῶν τοιούτων λήρων ἐξηγητής". And as for the doubt raised at the end—whether Orpheus plundered the Chaldeans or the Chaldeans plundered Orpheus—this seems entirely worthy of Proclus A 5th-century Neoplatonist philosopher known for his complex metaphysical systems.

But the greatest part of the fragments is owed to the Platonists. Among them, Porphyry¹) seems to have been the first to employ the oracles; not yet indeed in his books On the Philosophy from Oracles (Lobeck 103 ff. Wolff preface 29), but in his books On the Return of the Soul, as Augustine testifies in The City of God X 29, 32: “When, however, Porphyry says near the end of the first book of 'On the Return of the Soul' that a single sect has not yet been received which contains a universal way of liberating the soul, whether from some most true philosophy or from the customs and discipline of the Indians or the induction of the Chaldeans... and certainly he could not remain silent about having taken divine oracles from the Chaldeans, of which he makes constant mention.” Ibid. 23: “Porphyry also says that it was responded by divine oracles that we are not purged by the teletae initiatory rites or mysteries of the moon and the sun... finally, he says it is expressed by the same oracle that the 'principles' the origins are able to purge... what he calls the principles, we know as a Platonist; for he speaks of God the Father and God the Son, whom he calls in Greek the 'Paternal Intellect' or 'Paternal Mind' (that is, patrikon noun: ibid. p. 436,27 D.).” But the "Paternal Intellect" is not characteristic of the Platonists, but of the Chaldeans. Furthermore, what Augustine says regarding a third god in the middle between these—whose nature he did not fully perceive—and regarding the World Soul following the Paternal Intellect (Zeller V³ 648¹ ex.), these points agree excellently with the obscure teachings concerning the "Second Mind" and the seat of the World Soul (p. 14 ff.). Therefore, we are not dealing with the mere opinions of Porphyry, as Zeller estimates in the place cited, but with Chaldean doctrines associated in whatever way with Porphyrian ones. The mysteries of the moon and sun do not appear in the remaining fragments, but the last fragment I present is very similar. Also, he drew from these oracles the ethereal or empyrean heights of the world and the celestial firmaments original: "στερεώματα" (stereomata) (Aug. X 27. 9 cf. p. 31 ff.), and from these also the angels descending to the theurgists practitioners of "god-working" or ritual magic intended to unite the soul with the divine and the malice of demons.

— The passage of Aeneas of Gaza (p. 51 Boiss.) is corrupt: “This at least both the Chaldeans and Porphyry teach; he titles the book as a whole, which he brings forward into the midst of the Oracles of the Chaldeans, in which he asserts that matter has come into being” original Greek: "τοῦτό γε καὶ Χαλδαῖοι διδάσκουσι καὶ ὁ Πορφύριος· ἐπιγράφει δὲ καθόλου τὸ βιβλίον, ὃ εἰς μέσον προάγει τῶν Χαλδαίων τὰ λόγια, ἐν οἷς γεγονέναι τὴν ὕλην ἰσχυρίζεται" from the emendation of which it is better to [refrain]—

¹) Nothing is proved by those things which I noted from Plotinus on p. 25¹. Jahn (11) is in error.