On the Chaldean Oracles

to contain; it is handed down on page 20 that matter was generated. Compare Damascius A 5th-century Neoplatonist philosopher volume I, 288, 13: "as they themselves also wish to say and the oracles bear witness, not only the more recent ones, but also Iamblichus and Porphyry." original Greek: ὡς καὶ αὐτοὶ βούλονται λέγειν καὶ τὰ λόγια μαρτύρονται, οὐχ οἱ νεώτεροι μόνοι, ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἰάμβλιχος καὶ Πορφύριος But in the books that have come down to us, not even a single oracle is mentioned. The same applies to Iamblichus, whom we have just learned did not despise the oracles; compare Marinus, Life of Proclus 26: "diligently reading his (Syrianus') commentaries on Orpheus and the countless writings of Porphyry and Iamblichus on the Oracles and the related works of the Chaldaeans." original Greek: τοῖς τε εἰς Ὀρφέα αὐτοῦ (Syriani) ὑπομνήμασιν ἐπιμελῶς ἐντυγχάνων καὶ τοῖς Πορφυρίου καὶ Ἰαμβλίχου μυρίοις ὅσοις εἰς τὰ λόγια καὶ τὰ σύστοιχα τῶν Χαλδαίων συγγράμματα Damascius gives more in volume I, 86, 5: "just as the great Iamblichus deemed worthy in the 28th book of the Most Perfect Chaldaean Theology" and 154, 13: "as Iamblichus admittedly says in the Chaldaean Matters; and they themselves also call the gods to witness, in which verses they speak to the theurgist A practitioner of 'god-working' or ritual magic intended to unite the soul with the divine (p. 11)." Therefore, in his most extensive work on Chaldaean theology, he made use of the oracles; it is probable that he mixed with them another Chaldaean tradition taken from the prose books of Julian Likely Julian the Theurgist or another, or both. In the book On the Mysteries, the oracles are frequently referenced but not cited. Syrianus, as Suidas The Suda, a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia testifies, composed a Harmony of Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato with the Oracles¹), which Proclus signifies in Platonic Theology 215, 41 "in the writings of the Harmony" (namely the compositions?). Likewise, Hierocles, in the fourth book of On Providence, attempted "to bring the so-called oracles and the hieratic Priestly or sacred ordinances (the precepts of the theurgists) into harmony with the doctrines of Plato" (Photius, codex 214, p. 173ᵃ 13). Marinus speaks of the studies devoted by Proclus to the oracles in chapter 26: "And having gathered the interpretations of the philosophers before him with the appropriate judgment, he worked out the other Chaldaean hypotheses and set down the greatest of his commentaries on the god-given oracles, completing them in five whole years. Following these, he also beheld that divine dream. For the great Plutarch Plutarch of Athens, the Neoplatonist seemed to foretell to him in a dream that he would live as many years as the number of quaternions A gathering of four folded sheets of parchment, making eight leaves or sixteen pages(quaternions) composed by him on the oracles. And having counted them, he found them to be seventy." He himself mentions these books in On the Republic 359, 39 B: "and the unsuitability of it . . . has been told..."

¹) I have written "with" Latin: pros instead of "about" Latin: peri; compare Damascius I, 324, 14: "in the Harmony begun to be written by Asclepiades of the Egyptians with the other theologians": in this way all difficulties are removed (Jahn VIII. Schoell preface to Proclus' On the Republic 5 note). It is likely that such a selection of authors was made also for the purpose of opposing something to the Christian canon. Compare Proclus, On the Parmenides 801, 22: "and the wise men have agreed concerning them, Plato, Pythagoras, Orpheus, and the gods have clearly borne witness to these."