INTRODUCTION

The Chaldean Oracles are a collection of obscure, hexameter verses said to have been "handed down by the gods" (theoparadota) to a certain Julian the Chaldean and/or his son, Julian the Theurgist, who lived during the late second century C.E. Although the term "Chaldean" is generally understood metaphorically to indicate Julian's "spiritual" affinity with Eastern wisdom, it has also been argued that Chaldea was the actual homeland of Julian the father, who may have migrated to Rome following the Emperor Trajan’s military campaigns in the East. [1] Another possibility, recently suggested by H.-D. Saffrey, is that the Juliani may have been of Syrian origin. [2] This suggestion is supported in part by the presence of the names "Ad" and "Adad" (the latter a corruption of the Syrian Hadad) in Chaldean material preserved by Proclus (see especially the notes to fragment 169). Additionally, the striking parallels between several of the Oracles fragments and the fragments of Numenius (who was both a contemporary of Julian the son and a native of Apamea in Syria) point in the same direction.

Saffrey also understands the term "Chaldean" in a metaphorical sense, but specifically as one skilled in magic—an association commonly made in antiquity. Thus, the citation in the Suda [3] that Julian the father was both "Chaldean" and "philosopher" would mean that he was both a practitioner of magic and a speculative thinker (and not, for example, a philosopher from the region of Chaldea). However, it was Julian the son (or Julian the Theurgist; see Suda, no. 434) who was the actual "author" of the Oracles (logia d'epōn), as well as the writer of works on theurgical and ritual matters. The later Neoplatonists also attest to other prose works by Julian the son, such as several books on the Celestial Zones (see Proclus, In Tim., III, 27, 10). According to the Suda entry, Julian the father wrote only four books On Demons.

[1] This was the opinion, for example, of J. Bidez, The Life of Emperor Julian (Paris, 1930), p. 75; F. Cumont, The Solar Theology of Roman Paganism (Paris, 1909), p. 476. H. Lewy, Chaldean Oracles and Theurgy (Cairo, 1956¹; Paris, 1978²), p. 428, opts for a more general "Oriental origin."

[2] See H.-D. Saffrey, "The Neoplatonists and the Chaldean Oracles," REA, XXVI, 1981, p. 225.

[3] See Saffrey, p. 216. Saffrey also notes here (following the suggestion of F. Cremer, The Chaldean Oracles and Iamblichus’ On the Mysteries, Meisenheim am Glan, 1969, p. 132, n. 224) that the expression vir in Chaldea bonus (a man good in Chaldean rites) as cited in Porphyry, On the Return of the Soul, should be understood as "a man worthy with respect to the Chaldean rites" and not as "a man of worth from Chaldea" (which is the usual translation). In this latter sense, see Lewy, p. 286 and n. 106, who identifies this unnamed man as Julian the Chaldean.