The Chaldean Oracles Attributed To Zoroaster
By William Wynn Wescott
(footnotes removed for brevity)
Preface by Sapere Aude
These Oracles are considered to embody many of the principal features of Chaldæan philosophy. They have come down to us through Greek translations and were held in the greatest esteem throughout antiquity, a sentiment which was shared alike by the early Christian Fathers and the later Platonists.
The doctrines contained therein are attributed to Zoroaster through to which particular Zoroaster is not known; historians give notices of as many as six different individuals all bearing that name, which was probably the title of the Prince of the Magi, and a generic term.
The word Zoroaster is by various authorities differently derived: Kircher furnishes one of the most interesting derivations when he seeks to show that it comes from TzURA = a figure, and TzIUR = to fashion, ASH = fire, and STR = hidden; from these he gets the words Zairaster = fashioning images of hidden fire;—or Tzuraster = the image of secret things. Others derive it from Chaldee and Greek words meaning "a contemplator of the Stars."
It is not, of course, pretended that this collection as it stands is other than disjointed and fragmentary, and it is more than probable that the true sense of many passages has been obscured, and even in some cases hopelessly obliterated, by inadequate translation.
Where it has been possible to do so, an attempt has been made to, elucidate doubtful or ambiguous expressions, either by modifying the existing translation from the Greek, where deemed permissible, or by appending annotations.
It has been suggested by some that these Oracles are of Greek invention, but it has already been pointed out by Stanley that Picus de Mirandula assured Ficinus that he had the Chaldee Original in his possession, "in which those things which are faulty and defective in the Greek are read perfect and entire," and Ficinus indeed states that he found this manuscript upon the death of Mirandula. In addition to this, it should be noted that here and there in the original Greek version, words occur which are not of Greek extraction at all, but are Hellenised Chaldee.
Berosus is said to be the first who introduced the writings of the Chaldæans concerning Astronomy and Philosophy among the Greeks, and it is certain that the traditions of Chaldea very largely influenced Greek thought. Taylor considers that some of these mystical utterances are the sources whence the sublime conceptions of Plate were formed, and large commentaries were written upon them by Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Pletho and Psellus. That men of such great learning and sagacity should have thought so highly of these Oracles, is a fact which in itself should commend then to our attention.
The term "Oracles" was probably bestowed upon these epigrammatic utterances in order to enforce the idea of their profound and deeply mysterious nature. The Chaldæans, however, had an Oracle, which they venerated as highly as the Greeks did that at Delphi.
THE ORACLES OF ZOROASTER.
1. But God is He having the head of the Hawk. The same is the first, incorruptible, eternal, unbegotten, indivisible, dissimilar: the dispenser of all good; indestructible; the best of the good, the Wisest of the wise; He is the Father of Equity and Justice, self-taught, physical, perfect, and wise—He who inspires the Sacred Philosophy.
2. Theurgists assert that He is a God and celebrate him as both older and younger, as a circulating and eternal God, as understanding the whole number of all things moving in the World, and moreover infinite through his power and energizing a spiral force.
3.
The God of the Universe, eternal, limitless, both young and old,
having a spiral force.
4. For the Eternal Æon is the cause
of never failing life, of unwearied power and unsluggish energy.
5.
Hence the inscrutable God is called silent by the divine ones, and is
said to consent with Mind, and to be known to human souls through the
power of the Mind alone.
6. The Chaldæans call the God Dionysos (or Bacchus), Iao in the Phoenician tongue (instead of the Intelligible Light), and he is also called Sabaoth, signifying that he is above the Seven poles, that is the Demiurgos.
7.
Containing all things in the one summit of his own Hyparxis, He
Himself subsists wholly beyond.
8. Measuring and bounding all
things.
9. For nothing imperfect emanates from the Paternal
Principle.
10. The Father effused not Fear, but He infused
persuasion.
11. The Father hath apprehended Himself and hath not
restricted his Fire to his own intellectual power.
12. Such is the
Mind which is energized before energy, while yet it had not gone
forth, but abode in the Paternal Depth, and in the Adytum of God
nourished silence.
13. All things have issued from that one Fire.
The Father perfected all things, and delivered them over to the
Second Mind, whom all Nations of Men call the First.
14. The
Second Mind conducts the Empyrean. World .
15. What the
Intelligible saith, it saith by understanding.
16. Power is with
them, but Mind is from Him.
17. The Mind of the Father riding on
the subtle Guiders, which glitter with the tracings of inflexible and
relentless Fire.
18. After the Paternal Conception I the Soul
reside, a heat animating all things. For he placed the Intelligible
in the Soul, and the Soul in dull body, so the Father of Gods &
Men placed them in us. 19. Natural works co-exist with the
intellectual light of the Father. For it is the Soul which adorned
the vast Heaven, after the Father, but her dominion is established on
high.
20. The Soul, being a brilliant Fire, by the power of the
Father remaineth immortal, and is Mistress of Life, and filleth up
the many recesses of the bosom of the World.
21. The channels
being intermixed therein she performeth the works of incorruptible
Fire.
22. For not in Matter did the Fire which is in the first
beyond enclose His active Power, but in Mind; for the framer of the
Fiery World is the Mind of Mind.
23. Who first sprang from Mind,
clothing the one Fire with the other Fire, binding them together,
that he might mingle the fountainous craters, while preserving
unsullied the brilliance of His own Fire.
24. And thence a Fiery
Whirlwind drawing down the brilliance of the flashing flame,
penetrating the abysses of the Universe; for from thence downwards do
all extend their wondrous rays.
25. The Monad first existed, and
the Paternal Monad still subsists.
26. When the Monad is extended,
the Dyad is generated.
27. And beside Him is seated the Dyad which
glitters with intellectual sections, to govern all things, and to
order everything not ordered.
28. The Mind of the Father said that
all things should be cut into Three, whose Will assented, and
immediately all things were so divided.
29. The Mind of the
Eternal Father said into Three, governing all things by Mind.
30.
The Father mingled every Spirit from this Triad.
31. All things
are supplied from the bosom of this Triad.
32. All things are
governed and subsist in this Triad.
33. For thou most know that
all things bow before the Three Supernals.
34. From thence floweth
forth the Form of the Triad, being preexistent; not the first
Essence, but that whereby all things are measured.
35. And there
appeared in it Virtue and Wisdom, and multiscient Truth.
36. For
in each World shineth the Triad, over which the Monad ruleth.
37.
The First Course is Sacred, in the middle place courses the Sun, in
the third the Earth is heated by the internal fire.
38. Exalted
upon High and animating Light, Fire, Ether and Worlds.