Oracles in Transit: Byzantine Mediations and Renaissance Re-imaginings of the Chaldean Tradition between East and West

Considered the “Bible of the Neoplatonists” (Cumont) and systematized by Michael Psellus, the fragmentary collection of the Chaldean Oracles was later rediscovered in Renaissance Europe and, through its pseudepigraphic attribution to Zoroaster, came to stand alongside other esoteric traditions of classical and late antique origin. The present analysis, building on several studies, especially those of Helmut Seng on the Latin versions of the work, highlights how Renaissance re-elaborations (in Ficino or Patrizi) do not represent a mere revival of antiquity, but rather a second translatio of culture, in which wisdom believed to be of Eastern origin acquires a new philosophical and symbolic status within the humanistic discourse of Europe. The study also aims to address and discuss issues of textual transmission and the criteria of selection by which the various oracles were assembled. Through the notion of transit—understood as a material, linguistic, and interpretive movement—the project reconstructs the processes through which the Chaldean tradition became a laboratory of mediations between East and West, theology, magic, and philosophy.