The Texts
The Chaldean Oracles
The Chaldean Oracles are fragments of a lost Greek poem, probably of the late 2nd century CE, linked to two men called Julian and quoted as divine revelation by later Platonists. The best free English text is G.R.S. Mead’s (1908); the standard edition is Ruth Majercik’s, with the Greek, a translation and a commentary (Brill, 1989).
On this page: what they are · who wrote them · how they survived · where to read them · how fragments are numbered · which translation · what they say · later readers
What the Chaldean Oracles are
The Chaldean Oracles are the remains of one Greek poem, not a book of separate oracles. Later Platonists quoted it as “the Oracles”, “the Chaldaeans” or “the gods”, and Wilhelm Kroll (1894) was the first to show that all these quotations go back to a single poem in hexameter verse (Mead, The Chaldaean Oracles, I, 1908, pp. 14-15). No manuscript of the poem survives. What we have are lines and paraphrases embedded in later commentaries.
The date is an estimate. Kroll placed the poem at the end of the 2nd century CE or the start of the 3rd; Mead thought the 1st century just as possible (I, pp. 17-19). Álvaro Fernández Fernández, in his doctoral thesis, says it is commonly dated to the late 2nd century (Granada, 2011, preface, p. IX). “Chaldaean” is a Greek word for Babylonian that by then also meant a sage or astrologer (Mead, I, pp. 11-12); it says nothing certain about where the poem was written.
Who wrote the Chaldean Oracles
Ancient tradition links the Chaldean Oracles to two men, a father and a son, both called Julian. The Byzantine encyclopaedia known as the Suda calls the father “the Chaldaean, a philosopher” and the author of books on daemons; the son, “called the Theurgist”, lived under Marcus Aurelius and wrote Theurgica, Telestica and oracles in epic verse (Suda ι 433-434, Suda On Line).
Whether the Julians composed the poem is disputed. G.R.S. Mead argued that Porphyry wrote a separate commentary on “the doctrines of Julian the Chaldaean” and that Proclus and Damascius quote “the Theurgist” apart from the Oracles, so they did not treat him as the author (I, p. 18). Fernández Fernández (2011) defends the historical existence of both Julians against sceptics and treats the authorship as an open problem. Our page on theurgy follows the word theourgos back to the younger Julian.
The name of Zoroaster, under which the Oracles circulated from the Renaissance to the 19th century, is a later error. Kroll traced it to the Byzantine philosopher Gemistos Plethon; ancient writers never linked the founder of the Magi with these verses (1894, preface, n. 1).
How the fragments survived
The Chaldean Oracles survive only in quotations. Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus wrote whole treatises on them; all are lost (Mead, I, pp. 13-14). What remains comes from Neoplatonists from Porphyry to Damascius and Simplicius, who quoted the verses, and from five Byzantine texts that deal with them directly: excerpts from Proclus and three works by Michael Psellus, among others (Kroll 1894, ch. 1; Mead, I, p. 13). Fernández Fernández counts 42 fragments in Psellus’ Exegesis, the rest coming mostly from Proclus and Damascius; he places the loss of the manuscript tradition, apparently, between 529 and the 11th or 12th century (2011, preface, p. IX).
Where to read the Chaldean Oracles
You can read the Chaldean Oracles free and legally in every public domain edition below. The modern editions are in copyright.
| Public domain | What it contains | Free scan |
|---|---|---|
| Plethon, Magika logia, Paris 1538 | Greek: Plethon’s selection, printed by Tiletanus (Cory says with his commentary) | Salamanca |
| Patrizi, Hamburg 1593 | Latin: “Zoroaster and his 320 Chaldaean oracles”, with Hermetic texts; first printed Ferrara 1591 | Internet Archive |
| Stanley, London 1662 | English, with Greek and Patrizi’s Latin, and the commentaries of Plethon and Psellus | Internet Archive |
| Cory, 2nd ed., London 1832 | Greek and English, by subject, pp. 239-280, with Taylor’s marks | Internet Archive |
| Kroll, Breslau 1894 | Latin study with the Greek fragments and apparatus; no translation | Internet Archive |
| Westcott, London 1895 | English, revised from Taylor and Cory (Collectanea Hermetica VI) | HathiTrust |
| Mead, 1908, 2 vols | English by theme, with comment and Kroll page numbers | vol. I, vol. II |
| Modern | What it contains | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Hans Lewy, 1956 | Study of the fragments and of theurgy, not an edition | Cairo: IFAO; 3rd ed. by Michel Tardieu, Paris: Études augustiniennes, 2011 |
| Édouard des Places, 1971 | Greek and French, with a choice of ancient commentaries | Paris: Les Belles Lettres (Collection des universités de France) |
| Ruth Majercik, 1989 | Greek and English, commentary, doubtful fragments | Leiden: Brill (Studies in Greek and Roman Religion 5), facsimile reprint, Prometheus Trust |
| Francisco García Bazán, 1991 | Spanish, with testimonies of Proclus, Psellus and Italicus; same volume as Numenius | Madrid: Gredos (Biblioteca Clásica Gredos 153), BNE record |
| Brigitte Tambrun-Krasker, 1995 | Plethon’s recension: Greek, French, commentary | Athens: Academy of Athens |
PDFs of Lewy and Majercik on file-sharing sites are unauthorised copies of books in copyright. For the Hermetic texts read alongside the Oracles in the Renaissance, see our list of Hermetica scans.
How the fragments are numbered
Modern scholars cite the Chaldean Oracles by the fragment numbers of Édouard des Places’ edition (1971). Tomaz De Tassis calls it the only modern critical edition of the text and uses its order as the current one; Majercik’s text rests largely on des Places (Translatio 28, 2024, pp. 19-20 and nn. 14, 17).
Older books use other systems. Kroll did not number the fragments: he quoted them inside his Latin argument, so they are cited by his page (Kroll, preface; De Tassis, pp. 18-19). Mead uses Kroll’s pages: “K. 11” next to a line means Kroll, page 11, and “C.” means Cory’s collection (I, pp. 8, 23). Cory and Westcott sort the verses by subject and mark them, after Thomas Taylor, Z (ascribed to Zoroaster), T (to the Theurgists) or “Z or T” (either) (Cory, p. 239 n.).
One fragment shows how the systems line up. The lines on grasping the highest principle “with flower of mind” are Kroll p. 11, from Damascius (De principiis I, 154), and fragment 1 in des Places (De Tassis, p. 21); Mead prints them as “K. 11” (I, p. 23). When a book gives a number without saying whose, check the concordance in the edition you use.
Which translation of the Chaldean Oracles to choose
- To study them: Majercik (1989), the Greek with an English translation and a commentary, including the doubtful fragments; Prometheus Trust calls it “still the standard collection” of the fragments. With French, des Places (1971), the critical text.
- Free, in English: Mead (1908), arranged by theme and keyed to Kroll; it is a theosophist’s reading, but it follows Kroll’s text.
- Free, with the Greek: Cory (1832) for Greek beside English; Kroll (1894) for the Greek with variant readings, if you read Latin.
- In Spanish: García Bazán (Gredos, 1991).
- For the history of reception, not the text: Stanley (1662), Cory and Westcott (1895). They carry the name of Zoroaster and add lines that are not from the poem: Cory includes a passage that Eusebius gave to “the Persian Zoroaster”, which Kroll left out (Mead, I, p. 22).
What the Chaldean Oracles say
The surviving lines of the Chaldean Oracles describe a highest god called simply the Father, or Mind, or Fire, and Mead found no fragment that speaks of it directly (I, pp. 21-22). Below the Father stand a second Mind and a female power, Hekate. In Mead’s reading Hekate is the Great Mother or World-Soul, set between the two Minds, from whose right side the soul of the cosmos flows, and he quotes: “And from her back, on either side the Goddess, boundless Nature hangs” (K. 29; I, pp. 45-49). Sarah Iles Johnston devoted a book to her roles in the Oracles, Hekate Soteira (Atlanta, 1990).
The second volume of Mead’s translation follows the soul: its bondage to the body, its “vehicles”, purification by fire and the way back up, together with the ritual art of the theurgists (II, contents). That ritual side is what later Platonists called theurgy; Fernández Fernández’s thesis is a study of it.
From Proclus to the Golden Dawn
Plethon’s collection, known in Italy from the 15th century (De Tassis, p. 18) and printed in Paris in 1538, made the Oracles a work of Zoroaster for Renaissance readers (Kroll, preface, n. 1); a critical edition of his recension appeared in 1995 (Tambrun-Krasker). Gemistos Plethon also opens the chain of ancient sages with Zoroaster, as our page on prisca theologia shows.
Marsilio Ficino translated a set of them into Latin as Magica dicta magorum ex Zoroastre, edited by Iliana Klutstein (Florence, 1987), and Brian Copenhaver studied their use in Ficino’s De vita (1987). Pico della Mirandola boasted of a “Chaldee” original in which the corrupt Greek lines were complete; Kroll quotes him from his collected works (preface, n. 1), and Thomas Stanley, retelling it in English, says Pico wrote this to Ficino (1662).
Francesco Patrizi published the first full collection (Ferrara, 1591), reprinted in Hamburg in 1593 next to the Hermetic treatises. Thomas Taylor added about fifty more in the Classical Journal (Cory, p. liii), in 1818 according to Kroll, whose preface also records Christian Lobeck mocking Taylor’s belief in their hidden wisdom. From Taylor and Cory came the English version that William Wynn Westcott revised as “Sapere Aude” for his Collectanea Hermetica (1895); Westcott was one of the three Freemasons who founded the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in February 1888 (Denisoff, 2013). Mead’s translation, made from Kroll, followed in 1908; on him see our page on G.R.S. Mead.
| What it is | Fragments of one Greek poem in hexameters, quoted by later Platonists (Kroll 1894, via Mead 1908) |
|---|---|
| Date | Commonly late 2nd century CE (Fernández Fernández 2011); Kroll: late 2nd or early 3rd |
| Attributed to | Julian the Chaldaean and his son Julian the Theurgist, under Marcus Aurelius (Suda); disputed |
| Zoroaster | Later attribution, traced to Plethon (Kroll 1894) |
| Main sources | Proclus, Damascius, Psellus (42 fragments in his Exegesis) |
| Standard editions | des Places 1971 (Greek-French); Majercik 1989 (Greek-English) |
| Numbering | des Places’ fragment numbers; Kroll cited by page |
| Free and legal | Plethon 1538, Patrizi 1593, Stanley 1662, Cory 1832, Kroll 1894, Westcott 1895, Mead 1908 (free scans in the table) |
| Checked | 6 November 2026 |
Fair questions
Where can I read the Chaldean Oracles online for free?
Legally, in the public domain scans on the Internet Archive: G.R.S. Mead’s English translation (1908, two volumes), Isaac Preston Cory’s Greek and English (1832), Wilhelm Kroll’s Greek fragments (1894) and Thomas Stanley’s English (1662). Plethon’s Greek collection of 1538 is free in the Salamanca university repository.
Which translation of the Chaldean Oracles is best?
For study, Ruth Majercik’s The Chaldean Oracles: Text, Translation and Commentary (Brill, 1989), with the Greek, an English translation and a commentary. In French, Édouard des Places (1971); in Spanish, Francisco García Bazán (Gredos, 1991). The best free English is Mead (1908).
Who wrote the Chaldean Oracles?
Nobody knows for certain. Tradition names Julian the Chaldaean and his son Julian the Theurgist, who lived under Marcus Aurelius (Suda). G.R.S. Mead (1908) doubted the link; the name of Zoroaster is a later error traced to Plethon.
Is there a Chaldean Oracles PDF?
Yes, legally for the old editions: the Internet Archive offers PDFs of Stanley (1662), Cory (1832), Kroll (1894) and Mead (1908), and HathiTrust shows Westcott (1895) in full view. The editions of des Places (1971) and Majercik (1989) are in copyright, so free PDFs of them online are unauthorised.
What do the Chaldean Oracles say about Hekate?
She is the female power between the Father and the second Mind; in Mead’s reading (1908) the Great Mother or World-Soul, from whose side the soul of the cosmos flows. Sarah Iles Johnston’s Hekate Soteira (1990) is the book-length study.
Sources & further reading
- Wilhelm Kroll, De oraculis Chaldaicis, Breslauer philologische Abhandlungen VII.1 (Breslau: Koebner, 1894): preface and n. 1, ch. 1; scan at the Internet Archive.
- G.R.S. Mead, The Chaldaean Oracles, 2 vols, Echoes from the Gnosis VIII-IX (London and Benares: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1908): I, pp. 8-23, 43-49; II, contents; vol. I and vol. II at the Internet Archive.
- Isaac Preston Cory, Ancient Fragments, 2nd ed. (London: Pickering, 1832), pp. liii-lv and 239-280; scan at the Internet Archive.
- Thomas Stanley, The History of the Chaldaick Philosophy (London: Thomas Dring, 1662), section “The Chaldaick Oracles” (dated 1661); Wellcome Collection scan at the Internet Archive.
- Francesco Patrizi, Magia philosophica, hoc est ... Zoroaster et eius 320 oracula chaldaica (Hamburg, 1593); Wellcome Collection scan at the Internet Archive. Plethon, Magika logia ton apo tou Zoroastrou magon (Paris: Tiletanus, 1538), open access at GREDOS, University of Salamanca; ed. Brigitte Tambrun-Krasker (Athens: Academy of Athens, 1995).
- W. Wynn Westcott (ed.), Collectanea Hermetica VI: The Chaldaean Oracles of Zoroaster, edited and revised by “Sapere Aude” (London, 1895), Library of Congress record; full view at HathiTrust (University of California copy); also as the file “Volume 06” in an undated community upload of vols I-X at the Internet Archive. Dennis Denisoff, “The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 1888-1901”, BRANCH (2013), online.
- Suda, ι 433 and ι 434 (Julian), trans. Catharine Roth, Suda On Line (2004).
- Édouard des Places (ed. and trans.), Oracles chaldaïques, avec un choix de commentaires anciens (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1971), Library of Congress record.
- Ruth Majercik, The Chaldean Oracles: Text, Translation, and Commentary, Studies in Greek and Roman Religion 5 (Leiden: Brill, 1989), ISBN 90-04-09043-6, Library of Congress record; facsimile reprint, Prometheus Trust.
- Hans Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy (Cairo, 1956); 3rd ed. by Michel Tardieu (Paris: Institut d’études augustiniennes, 2011), BnF record.
- Sarah Iles Johnston, Hekate Soteira: A Study of Hekate’s Role in the Chaldean Oracles and Related Literature (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), Library of Congress record.
- Tomaz De Tassis, “Oráculos caldeus: proposta de tradução em língua portuguesa”, Translatio 28 (2024), pp. 18-21 and nn. 12-17, open access.
- Álvaro Fernández Fernández, La teúrgia de los Oráculos caldeos: cuestiones de léxico y de contexto histórico, thesis (Granada, 2011), open access at Digibug. Francisco García Bazán (trans.), Oráculos caldeos, with Numenius of Apamea, Fragmentos y testimonios (Madrid: Gredos, 1991; Biblioteca Clásica Gredos 153), BNE record.
- Iliana Klutstein, Marsilio Ficino et la théologie ancienne: Oracles chaldaïques, Hymnes orphiques, Hymnes de Proclus (Florence: Olschki, 1987), with Ficino’s Magica dicta magorum ex Zoroastre; Brian P. Copenhaver, “Iamblichus, Synesius and the Chaldaean Oracles in Marsilio Ficino’s De vita libri tres: Hermetic Magic or Neoplatonic Magic”, in James Hankins et al. (eds), Supplementum Festivum (Binghamton: MRTS, 1987), pp. 441-455.