ZOROASTER, Oracles of. - Under this name the so-called Chaldean Oracles (χαλδαϊκά λόγια) are presented by cod. Vat. gr. 1416 (16th cent.): and the attribution is undoubtedly due to George Gemistus Pletho (v.) who, in his ambitious dream of religious reform, appealed, in his Commentary on the Chaldean Oracles, to the authority of Z. (cf. J. Bidez, Les Mages hellénisés, I, Paris 1938); from him the false attribution passed to the writers of the Renaissance (e.g., in Marsilio Ficino, Theol. plat., IV, 2; De christ. rel., 22; cf. the letter of Pico della Mirandola to Ficino, in Pici Opera, I, ed. Basel 1601, p. 367). In reality, the ancient writers never speak of Oracles of Z., but generically of λόγια and rarely also of χαλδαϊκά λόγια: not even Porphyry (Vita Plot., 16) in his brief survey of the apocryphal works circulating in his time.
Of the Chaldean Oracles, which constituted, it seems, a kind of Greek poem in hexameters, some fragments remain, preserved by Proclus (In Tim., 128 b; 137 c; 157 a; 267 a; Theol. plat., 333, 29; 365, 1; In Parm., 800, II; 1091, 6), Syrianus (In Met., 883 b 16), Simplicius (In Arist. Phys., 616, 33), Olympiodorus (In Phaed., 195, 21), Damascius (De princ., I, 154, 16; II, 16, 20; II, 89, 31; II, 157, 15), Synesius (De ins., 135 a; 138 c; 140 c; 151 c), Lydus (De mens., 20, 7; 4, 13; 4, 20), etc.; the oracle cited by Plotinus, I, 9 (which would therefore be the oldest source) seems problematic (cf. W. Kroll, De oraculis chaldaicis, Breslau 1894). Notable is the Exposition of the Chaldean Oracles by Michael Psellus (in PG 122, 1115-22; later edited by Opsopaeus, under the title Oracula magica Zoroastris, Paris 1589), as well as the aforementioned Commentary of Pletho, edited by Tiletano in Paris in 1538 under the title Μαγικά λόγια τῶν τοῦ Ζωροάστρου Μάγων. A complete collection was attempted by Francesco Patrizi (v.) in the work Zoroaster et eius CCC.XX oracula chaldaica, ed. in Ferrara in 1591, with the Latin version (text republished later by L. H. Gray in the appendix to A. V. W. Jackson, Zoroaster the prophet of anc. Iran, New York 1901).
The author is unknown: Lambecius thought that the Chaldean Oracles were even an invention of Julian, the Chaldean theurgist who lived in the time of Marcus Aurelius (to whom the "Suda" attributes some λόγια. Cf. E. R. Dodds, Theurgy and its relationship to neoplatonism, in Journ. of Roman stud., 1947, p. 55 ff.). Their origin goes back to the 2nd cent. A.D.: contemporary therefore with the rise of the Corpus Hermeticum, to which they are akin for the strange mixture of soteriological and metaphysical interests and for the taste for abstractions and exoticism. Arising in an era in which the various philosophical currents sought their own reconciliation in ancient religious traditions, they seem to be the fruit of the activity of certain Platonizers, who under exotic symbols and divinities took pleasure in adumbrating already mature philosophical concepts. As such, the Chaldean Oracles were celebrated or commented upon by Porphyry, Iamblichus, Hierocles, Proclus, Damascius, Julian the Apostate, by Pico della Mirandola, Mars. Ficino, Fr. Patrizi, A. Steuco of Gubbio, G. Gemistus Pletho, C. Agrippa... But they are still one of the most conspicuous testimonies of the syncretistic tendencies of the time, a profession of faith very close to Gnosticism and, it seems, the sacred book of a religious community: the concepts of monad and dyad reveal clear affinities with Neopythagoreanism; the metaphysics and the cult of fire betray influences not only Stoic-Heraclitean, but also Oriental; the theory of intermediary demons, if on the one hand it shares conceptions already dear to Middle Platonism, on the other it welcomes Jewish elements. The cosmotheological system, which still shines through from the scanty fragments and which a ὑποτύπωσις κεφαλαιώδης of Psellus (publ. by Kroll, op. cit., pp. 73-76) allows approximately to reconstruct, with its extremely complicated triadic series destined to minimize ever more the infinite distance that intervenes between the "paternal abyss" (πατρικός βυθός) and visible reality, with the concept of the mediating "second mind," with the theory of the pilgrim soul destined to return to the Principle by means of gnosis and theurgic art, fits easily within that metaphysical schema, which would assume in Plotinus profound human and religious meanings.
The Chaldean Oracles collected by Psellus were translated into Latin by Opsopaeus (Paris 1589); those collected by Pletho by Marsilio Ficino (whose youthful translation is probably identical to that preserved in folio 26 of cod. Laurent. 36, 35) and by Giacomo Martano (ed. cit. of Opsopaeus); those of the Patrizi collection also by Heurnius (Lyons 1600).