INTRODUCTION

But Julian the son, like his father, was also a practitioner of magic or, more precisely, "theurgy" (hence his surname, "the Theurgist"). Indeed, as Saffrey notes, it may well be that the Oracles themselves were transmitted via the theurgical technique of "calling" and "receiving," with Julian the Theurgist functioning as the "medium" through whom Julian the Chaldean extracted oracles from Plato’s "soul." [4] (The crucial evidence here is a passage from Psellus; see especially notes to fragments 84 and 138.) Saffrey further distinguishes between these Platonizing or "philosophical" oracles and those he labels as "theurgy proper"—the so-called "magical" oracles composed of "older" material, perhaps gathered or collected by Julian the Chaldean. [5] Although the Oracles (in whole or in part) may well have been "received" via a mediumistic trance (other scholars would label the Oracles "forgeries"), [6] a clear and precise distinction between "philosophical" and "theurgical" fragments remains problematic.

Whatever the mode of transmission, of singular importance is the fact that the Oracles were regarded by the later Neoplatonists—from Porphyry (c. 232-303 C.E.) to Damascius (c. 462-537 C.E.)—as authoritative, revelatory literature, equal in importance only to Plato's Timaeus. [7] Cumont was, I believe, the first to refer to them as the "Bible of the Neoplatonists." [8] Unfortunately, only fragments of the Oracles remain.

[4] Saffrey, p. 219.
[5] Saffrey, pp. 219-220.
[6] This is the opinion, for example, of P. Merlan, "Religion and Philosophy from Plato's Phaedo to the Chaldean Oracles," JHPh, I, 1963, p. 174. E. R. Dodds also admits this possibility, but adds: "Their diction is so bizarre and bombastic, their thought so obscure and incoherent, as to suggest the trance utterances of modern 'spirit guides' rather than the deliberate efforts of a forger" (see "Theurgy and its Relationship to Neoplatonism," JRS, 37, 1947, p. 56 = The Greeks and the Irrational, Boston, 1957, p. 284). Dodds suggests mediumship as the source but, unlike Saffrey, assigns Julian the son only the role of recording these utterances. The true authorship must remain in doubt. See P. Hadot, "Review and Perspectives on the Chaldean Oracles," in Lewy², pp. 703-706, who outlines all the problems without reaching hard and fast conclusions. Similarly, É. Des Places, Chaldean Oracles (Paris, 1971), p. 7, thinks it best to "protect the anonymity of the Oracles."
[7] See Dodds, "Theurgy," 1947, pp. 57-60 = 1957, pp. 285-289.
[8] See F. Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (London, 1911; rpt. New York, 1956), p. 279, n. 6. Cf. W. Theiler, Studies in Neoplatonism (Berlin, 1966), p. 252: "...for the later Neoplatonists, the Bible originating from the Orient."