The Chaldean Oracles: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Studies in Greek and Roman Religion, 5)

by Ruth Majercik

English, Greek

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Spirituality, History

261 pages, Paperback

First published March 24, 2013

Reviews

[Mateusz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great resource to combine with Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride, Orphic Hymns, and Iamblichus writings. If read from a faithful angle, they provide a lot of substance for practice, and with deeper insight, proportional understanding. Transposing the text into phantastikon and the land of notions, we find that the worlds co-arise as a whole, and finding analogies in the the variegated topology of the world is indeed a form of high magic, then finding relations in-between the objective world and our Intellect, Feelings, Fire of the Spirit of Consciousness, between Truth, Reason and Beauty, we translate our wholeness -if given a chance - to a greater level of existence, in life and beyond.

[Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very happy to read this because I was curious about the context of what was being quoted by the philosophers.

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min]

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the contents of the oracular fragments were less "intellectual" than I had initially presupposed. The commentary was extraordinarily helpful in contextualizing the properly soteriological dimension of these fragments.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The difference between Thomas' and Majercik's interpretation of the neo-Platonic text is something I will need to digest. I read this as a way to understand a Hekate closer to Neolithic humans regard for the divine feminine.

In both texts I could see the precursor of the Gnostic text in the telling of creation.

In Thomas' translation I found Hekate to serve humanity as Jesus would hundreds of years later. In Majercik's translation Hekate marginalized. A critique of Majercik's work by Edward P Butler, PhD, New School, aligns Hekate with the creative force, but not as product thereof as does Thomas, but as the creator.

Somewhere along this continuum of understanding Hekate, is a pointer to the primoridial divine feminine.

[Christine]

not sure if this is the 'right' version

[Katelis Viglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must in Neoplatonic studies. But it is difficult to be found.
It is more recent than Des Places' Oracles chaldaïques.