INTRODUCTION

Fragments of the Oracles are quoted for the most part by various Neoplatonists, although Chaldean concepts are also found in the writings of such Platonizing Christians as Arnobius of Sicca (c. 253-327 C.E.), Marius Victorinus (c. 280-363 C.E.), and Synesius of Cyrene (c. 370-413 C.E.). The Byzantine philosopher Michael Psellus (c. 1019-1078 C.E.) also wrote several commentaries on the Oracles, inspired by Proclus. Fortunately, much of Psellus' work is extant, providing us with an important, albeit often Christianized, interpretive model. The extensive commentaries of Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus are lost. However, from the fragments we do have, we can securely locate the Oracles within a Middle Platonic milieu, especially that type of Middle Platonism which had affinities with both Gnosticism [9] and Hermeticism [10] as well as links with Numenius. [11] John Dillon has aptly labeled this congruence of Gnostic, Hermetic, and Chaldean thought as the "underworld of Platonism." [12]

[9] G. Kroll, On the Chaldean Oracles (1894), referred to the Oracles as a form of "pagan gnosis." Recently, M. Tardieu has reaffirmed Kroll's position—arguing that the system of the Oracles is incomprehensible without seeing the development of the Gnostic systems around Valentinus at its foundation—while simultaneously refusing to characterize the Oracles with the term "gnosis." Tardieu’s structural analysis focuses on five propositions locating the Oracles and Valentinianism in a shared physics. However, Tardieu’s claim that the Oracles were dependent on this type of Gnosticism is overstated. The striking parallels between the Oracles and, for example, "Sethian" Gnosticism preclude such a conclusion. A better solution is that of Lewy, who opts for a common Middle Platonic milieu.
[10] At one time, Bousset had suggested the Chaldean system was dependent on Hermetic thought; however, a mutual dependence on a common milieu best accounts for the similarities.
[11] The parallels here are, in certain instances, so similar that some form of direct dependency is surely involved. (See, for example, Numenius fragment 17 and Ch. Or. fragment 7; Numenius fragment 15 and Ch. Or. fragment 8.) But in what direction? Festugière and Waszink argue for the priority of Numenius; Dodds and Des Places argue for the priority of the Oracles. Lewy and Dillon do not rule out a common source. My own guess is that Numenius was later, but that he borrowed selectively from the Oracles, as the differences in the two systems are often as striking as the similarities.
[12] Dillon, The Middle Platonists (1977), p. 384.