Collection of the Chaldean Oracles

The following remains of Chaldean theology are not only venerable for their antiquity, but inestimably valuable for the unequalled sublimity of the doctrines they contain.

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EXCERPT

They will, doubtless, too, be held in the highest estimation by every liberal mind, when it is considered that some of them are the sources whence the sublime conceptions of Plato flowed; that others are perfectly conformable to his most abstruse dogmas; and that the most important part of them was corrupted by the Gnostics, and, in this polluted state, became the fountains of barbarous and gigantically daring impiety.

That they are of Chaldaic origin, and were not forged by Christians of any denomination, as has been asserted by some superficial writers, is demonstrably evident from the following considerations: In the first place, John Picus, earl of Mirandula, in a letter to Ficinus, informs him that he was in possession of the Oracles of Zoroaster in the Chaldean tongue, with a commentary on them, by certain Chaldean wise men. And that he did not speak this from mere conjecture (as Fabricius thinks he did) is evident from his expressly asserting, in a letter to Urbinatus, that, after much labour, he had at length learned the Chaldean language. And still farther, as we shall see, he has inserted in his works fifteen conclusions, founded on this very Chaldean manuscript. That this circumstance should have escaped the notice of mere verbalists, is not surprising; but it is singular that it should not have been attended to by a man of such uncommon erudition, and extensive reading, as Fabricius.

In the next place, as Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus, wrote large commentaries on these oracles, and are well known to have ranked amongst the greatest enemies of the Christian religion; there is not even poetical probability, that men of such great learning and sagacity should have been duped by the shallow artifice of some heretical Christian knave. To which we may add, that Porphyry, in his life of Plotinus, express!; mentions, that certain revelations ascribed to Zoroaster, were circulated, in his time, by many Christians and heretics who had abandoned the ancient philosophy, and that he showed, by many arguments, these revelations were spurious; from which it is evident, that the oracles commented on by him, were not those forged by the heretics of his time.