The Chaldean Oracles, Vol. 1 (Echoes From the Gnosis, Volume VIII)

By G.R.S. Mead

The Chald?an Oracles (L?gia, Oracula, Responsa) are a product of Hellenistic (and more precisely Alexandrian) syncretism.The Alexandrian religio-philosophy proper was a blend of Orphic, Pythagor?an, Platonic, and Stoic elements, and constituted the theology of the learned in the great city which had gradually, from the third century B.C., made herself the centre of Hellenic culture.In her intimate contact with the Orient, the mind of Greece freely united with the mysterious and enthusiastic cults and wisdom-traditions of the other nations, and became very industrious in "philosophizing" their mythology, theosophy and gnosis, their oracular utterances, symbolic apocalypses and initiatory lore.The two nations that made the deepest impression on the Greek thinkers were Egypt and Chald?a; these they regarded as the possessors of the most ancient wisdom-traditions.How Hellenism philosophized the ancient wisdom of Egypt, we have already shown at great length in our volumes on Thrice-greatest Hermes. The Chald?an Oracles are a parallel endeavour, on a smaller scale, to philosophize the wisdom of Chald?a. In the Trismegistic writings, moreover, we had to deal with a series of prose treatises, whereas in our Oracles we are to treat of the fragments of a single mystery-poem, which may with advantage be compared with the cycle of Jewish and Christian pseudepigraphic poems known as the Sibylline Oracles.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1519517092
• ISBN13: 9781519517098
• Release Date: November 2015
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 52 Pages
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.1" x 6.0"