The Chaldean Oracles: Text, Translation, and Commentary

...rays of the sun conduct the soul upward; at the cosmic level, “connective” currents emanate from the Father, the Primal Fire, like rays from the sun, disseminating stability and harmony throughout the Universe.

3. Teletarchs

Beneath the Iynges and Connectors are located the Teletarchs (teletarchai, literally “masters of initiation”; see fragments 85 and 86), divine entities which are assimilated to the kosmagoi as rulers of the three worlds of Chaldean cosmology. As noted below, these three rulers may well parallel similar notions about various ruling powers both in Philo and the Gnostic sources. Lewy suggests an ultimate dependence here on the “Cosmokrators” or “Archons” of late Babylonian astral religion.Lewy, p. 423; compare Dodds, "New Light," 1961, p. 272 = Lewy², p. 701, who agrees with this interpretation. However, in contrast to the Babylonian Archons, who dominated the various planetary spheres, the Chaldean Teletarchs presided over the three worlds, a cosmogonic notion borrowed from the Platonic tradition.

Love

The Teletarchs are also associated with the Chaldean virtues of Faith (pistis), Truth (alētheia), and Love (erōs; see fragment 46), which function as faculties of the three rulers: Faith is connected with the Material Teletarch; Truth with the Ethereal Teletarch; Love with the Empyrean Teletarch. (A fourth virtue, “fire-bearing Hope”—elpis pyriphoros—is also mentioned; see fragment 47.) As such, these virtues are not to be understood as spiritual qualities (as is the case with the Pauline triad of Faith, Hope, and Charity),See, e.g., H. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Philadelphia, 1975), pp. 222-223 and notes, who cites numerous parallels to this triad in various Neoplatonic, Gnostic, and Christian sources. but as cosmic entities involved in the very creation and maintenance of the Universe: “For all things,” says the oracle, “are governed and exist in these three (virtues)” (fragment 48). As cosmic forces, Psellus (Hypotyposis 11) locates these three virtues at a middle point in the Chaldean “chain.”

In addition, Faith, Truth, and Love are also understood in a theurgic sense, as it is through these three virtues that the theurgist is said to unite with God (see fragment 48 and notes). Indeed, for Proclus, Faith is the supreme virtue, as it is Faith alone, as a “theurgic power” (theourgikē dynamis), which permits union with the One (see, e.g., Theology of Plato, I.25; On the Parmenides VII). But whether Proclus’ emphasis on Faith is authentic Chaldean teaching or his own innovation remains problematic.