1 These descriptive passages may be found assembled in Bidez, Joseph and Cumont, Franz, Les mages hellénisés (Paris, 1938), 11, 7–92 Google Scholar, and in Williams Jackson, A. V., Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran (New York, 1899), pp. 226–273 Google Scholar.

2 The Zend-Avesta, for which Zoroaster is known today, was not brought to Europe until the eighteenth century.

3 For a detailed discussion of this relationship, see Anastos, Milton V., ‘Pletho's Calendar and Liturgy’, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, No. 4 (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), 283–289 Google Scholar. Bidez, , Eos ou Platon et l'Orient (Brussels, 1945)Google Scholar.

4 Jaeger, Werner, Aristotle, Fundamentals of the History of his Development (Oxford, 1934), pp. 132–133 Google Scholar; Shorey, Paul, What Plato Said (Chicago, 1933), pp. 417–654 Google Scholar.

5 Pliny, , Naturalis historia, 30, 1, 3Google Scholar; Plutarch, , Adversus Coloten, 14 (1115A)Google Scholar; Bidez-Cumont, Mages, 1, 12-15, 80-84, 113; II, 2, 9, 25, 66, 68.

6 Jaeger, , op. cit., pp. 133–134 Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., p. 132, n. 1.

8 Cf. the sources, one of whom is Olympiodorus, in Bidez-Cumont, Mages, II, 41.

9 Porphyry, , De abstinentia, 4, 16Google Scholar, says, ‘Among the Persians, those who understood the divine and serve it are called the Magi, for that is what “Magus” means in their language'; see Bidez-Cumont, Mages, I, II, 94, n, I, 144-145; II, 67-68.

10 On the Oracula Chaldaica, see Kroll, W., De Oraculis Chaldaicis (Breslauer philologische Abhandlungen VII, I, Breslau, 1894)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Die chaldäischen Orakel', Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, N. F. L (1895), 636-639; Theiler, Willy, ‘Die Chaldäischen Orakel und die Hymnen des Synesius', Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, XVIII (1942), 1–41 Google Scholar; Bidez-Cumont, , Mages, 1, 159–163; II, 251-263Google Scholar. On Julianus, see Kroll, W., ‘lulianos', in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie, X, 15–17 Google Scholar.

11 Marinus, Vita Procli, ed. Victor Cousin, in Procli philosophi Platonici opera inedita (Paris, 1864), sec. XXXVIII; Rosán, Laurence J., The Philosophy of Proclus (New York, 1949), P. 35.Google Scholar

12 Marinus, Vita Procli, sec. XXVI; on the extant fragments, see Jahn, Albert, Eclogae e Proclo de philosophia Chaldaica sive de doctrina Oraculorum Chaldaicorum (Halle, 1891)Google Scholar.

13 Dodds, E. R., Proclus, the Elements of Theology (Oxford, 1933), xivGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Theurgy and its Relationship to Neoplatonism’ .Journal of Roman Studies, XXXVII (1947), 55-56.

14 Zervos, Chr., Un philosophe néoplatonicien du XI^e siède, Michel Psellos (Paris, 1920), PP. 36–37. 162-165Google Scholar; Migne, J. P., Patrologia Graeca, 122, 1123–1154 Google Scholar; Westerink, L. G., ‘Proclus, Procopius, Psellus', Mnemosyne, 3d ser. X (1941-42), 275–280 Google Scholar; Bidez, J., Catalogue des mss alchimiques grecs, VI (Brussels, 1928), 83–86 Google Scholar.

15 Triumphi del Petrarcha (Venice, 1488), Capitulo Terzo, M. fol. 109.

16 Nicolas of Damascus had already in the first century A. D. mentioned the ‘Oracles of Zoroaster': Jacoby, Felix, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin, 1926), 2A, 372.32; 2c, 252Google Scholar; Bidez-Cumont, , Mages, II, 81–82 Google Scholar. Because Zoroaster was often cited in the ancient texts as a Chaldean, and since the followers of Zoroaster, the magi, were associated with the area of Persia-Chaldea, the natural inference was that Zoroaster must be the original author of the Oracula Chaldaica; cf. the discussion of this in Anastos, op. cit., pp. 287-288.

17 In the preface to Ficino's translation of Plotinus (1492); Opera omnia (Basel, 1561), II, 1537.

18 Trapezuntius, Georgius, Comparationes phyhsophorum Aristotelis et Platonis (Venice, 1523)Google Scholar, penultimate chapter. Pletho, unlike Psellus, wished to use the doctrines of the oracles to establish his own philosophy, which was not only different from Christianity but contrary to it.

19 Pletho, Traité des Lois (Nomoi), ed. by C. Alexandre (Paris, 1858), p. 20; Schultze, Fritz, Georgios Gemistos Plethon und seine reformatorischen Bestrebungen (Geschkhte der Philosophic der Renaissance 1, Jena, 1874), 135 Google Scholar.

20 Nomoi, pp. 30-31.

21 Ibid., p. 252.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., pp. 252-253.

24 Ibid., pp. 30-31, 254-255.

25 Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, 46 (369E); Bidez-Cumont, , Mages, II, 70–79 Google Scholar. This triadic division is not in the oracles of Pletho's recension but was probably derived from Plato as interpreted by Proclus ( Anastos, , op. cit., pp. 293–295 Google Scholar). Ficino also made use of this trinity (Opera, pp. 130, 1325).

26 Nomoi, pp. 279-281; Bidez-Cumont, , Mages, II, 253 Google Scholar. The quotation from Plato is from the pseudonymous Second Epistle, 312E.

27 In his reply to George Scholarius’ criticism of Plato: Nomoi, p. 297; Bidez-Cumont, Mages, II, 259; J. P. Migne, P. G., 160, 984A. The translation is that of Anastos, op. cit., pp. 280-281.

28 Migne, P. G., 160, 639B; Nomoi, p. 423. This is in a letter to the exarchon Joseph which M. Jugie, ‘La polémique de Georges Scholarios contre Plethon', Byzantion x (1935), 524, dates at the end of 1456 or in 1457. Nowhere in his writings does Pletho actually quote from the oracles.

29 Nomoi, p. 423. On Elisaeus (Eliseus) see the Jewish Encyclopedia v, 136.

30 Nomoi, pp. 262-269; Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca XIV, 137-144; J. P. Migne, P. G., 160, 973-974; Brucker, Jacob, Historia critia phihsophiae, 1 (Leipzig, 1742), 185 Google Scholar. Manuscripts are located in a number of places; e.g., Parisin, gr. 462, 1603 1739, 2376. The Expositio can be found in Greek and in Latin in the editions of Opsopoeus and Gallaeus; cf. Appendix B.

31 Nomoi, pp. lix-lx.

32 The recension of the oracles was not published until 1538; cf. Appendix B. They are readily available in J. P. Migne, P. G., 122, 1116-1122, where they are placed under the name of Michael Psellus. A Latin translation of the commentary can be found in the editions of Opsopoeus and Gallaeus. Excerpts are given in Nomoi, pp. 274-281, and in Bidez-Cumont, , Mages, II, 251–254 Google Scholar. Manuscripts: Vaticanus gr. 1011; Parisin. gr. 2832 and Suppl. 66; Marcianus 519; Monacensis 419; Neapolitans III, AA7; Scorial. II T I. The absence of the surname Pletho in the manuscripts leads some to believe that the work was one of the first which George Gemistus wrote; cf. Bidez-Cumont, , Mages, 1, 160 Google Scholar; II, 252. Note that in the title the doctrines are not attributed to Zoroaster but to the ‘Magi of Zoroaster’.

33 In his Theologia Platonica, written in eighteen books between 1469 and 1474 (Opera, 1,156,386).

34 Ibid., I, 871; II, 1537. In the preface to his translation of the Corpus Hermeticum (Opera, II, 1836), Ficino does not include Zoroaster in the series of ancient theologians. Here the lead is taken by Hermes Trismegistus, and Philolaus is included in the six. Prof. P. O. Kristeller suggests this may indicate that Ficino became acquainted with the oracles only after 1463.

35 Theologia Platonica, IV, ii; Opera, 1, 131.

36 Ficino possessed a Greek manuscript copy of the oracles with the commentaries of Pletho and Psellus, Cod. Riccard. No. 76; cf. Vitelli, G., ‘Indice de’ Codici Greci Riccardiani, Magliabechiani e Marucelliani’, Studi italiani de filologia classica II (1894), 523–524 Google Scholar.

37 Plotini vita, ed. Creuzer, F., in Plotini opera omnia, 1 (Oxford, 1835), lxvi (sec. XVI)Google Scholar.

38 Migne, J. P., Patrologia latina, 175, 49cGoogle Scholar; ibid., 198, 1090A; both in Bidez-Cumont, , Mages, 11, 49 Google Scholar. Cf. also in Ficino, Opera, 1, 29, where the reference is to the commentary on Genesis by Didymus (fourth century). Cf. also Bk. III of the forgery of Annius of Viterbo (ca. 1432-1502) entitled Berosi Babylonii antiquitates. This spurious work first appeared in Annius Antiquitatum volumina XVII. cum commentariis (Rome, 1498).

39 De Christiana reiigione, XXII; Opera, 1, 25. The translation is that of Shorey, Paul, Platonism, Ancient and Modern (Berkeley, Calif., 1938), p. 124 Google Scholar.

40 Like the work of Pletho, the title does not attribute the oracles to Zoroaster but to his followers. This translation was not published until 1936. The MS. is located in Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, lat. Plut. XXXVI, cod. 35; cf. Bandini, A. M., Catalogus codicum latinorum Biblio. Med. Laurentianae (Florence, 1775), II, 240 Google Scholar. Although the MS. is not signed, Bandini, for good reasons, assigns it to Ficino and the research of Bohdan Kieszkowski supports this. Cf. the latter's Studi sul Platonismo del Rinascimento in Italia (Florence, 1936), pp. 155-156. The translation, ibid., pp. 159-161, begins: Quere tu anime riuum, unde quoue ordine, Corpori cum seruiueris, ad ordinem a quo defluxisti Rursus erigas, sacro cum sermone opus uniens. Professor Paul O. Kristeller has called to my attention the existence of a second manuscript: Biblioteca Vaticana, Vat. Ottob. lat. 2966.

41 The index to the Venice, 1525, edition lists twenty-five ‘opinio Zoroastri’ and seven ‘opinio Mercurii', one being a combined expression.

42 Opera, I, 301, 88, 305,236, 88, 303.

43 E.g., Opera, 1, 50 (resurrection of the body).

44 E.g., Opera, 1, 460 (justice of god, grace, and redemption).

45 Mirandola, Pico della, Opera (Basel, 1572), 1, 367 Google Scholar; Fabricius, B. G., 1, 36, 10. Cf. also Kieszkowski, , op. cit., p. 124 Google Scholar, where it is pointed out that probably only the text of the oracles was in Aramaic, the rest being in Greek. Pico succeeded in learning Aramaic; cf. his letter to Andreas Corneus of Urbino, 15 October 1486 (Opera, 1, 377-378). After Pico's death, Ficino found these works, but they were illegible; cf. Fabricius, B. G., 1, 313.

46 Opera, I, 79-80, 103-104.

47 Kieszkowski, , op. tit., p. 124 Google Scholar.

48 Ibid.; cf. also Pico, Opera, I, 330.

49 Zervos, , op. tit., p. 247 Google Scholar; Pico, Apologia. Cf. also Disputatio habita inter Hieronymus Savonarolam et Picum Mirandulanum, de philosophia vetemtn cum Christiana Academia. Et quid item vetustissimi de ipso Deo senserint, idest Moses, Mercurius, Zoroastres et Pythagoras, in Petrus Crinitus, De honesta disciplina (Lyons, 1554), III, 2, and in Mirandola, Pico della, De hominis dignitate, Heptaplus, De ente et uno, ed. Garin, Eugenio (Florence, 1942), pp. 79–81 Google Scholar.

50 In the Conclusiones and the Apologia; cf. Kieszkowski, , op. cit., p. 125 Google Scholar.

51 Opera, I, 320, 321. The translations are those of Forbes, E. L., De hominis dignitate (Lexington, Kentucky, 1953)Google Scholar. The oracle here attributed to Zoroaster is not in the original hexameters of Pletho.

52 Opera, I, 323.

53 Opera, I, 324.

54 Opera, I, 325.

55 Opere di Girolamo Beniuieni (Florence, 1519), fol. 4; A Platonick Discourse upon Love by Pico della Mirandola, ed. Gardner, E. G. (Humanist's Library VII, Boston, 1914), 6.Google Scholar.

56 Opere, fol. 21.

57 Chapter x; Basel, 1556, p. 214.

58 Steuchus, Augustinus, Opera (Paris, 1578), III, Deperenniphilosophia, 136 Google Scholar.

59 Ibid., III, 24. Book I especially shows the influence of the Zoroastrian oracles.

60 Lectionum antiquarum libri (Frankfort, 1599), cols. 11, 75, 95, 418, 423, 646, 747, 785, 849, 850, 1069.

61 The work was first printed in sixteen books at Venice in 1516 and reprinted many times. In 1550 his nephew got out fourteen more books after Rhodiginus’ death. Rabelais made much use of the Lectionum antiquarum libri; cf. Smith, W. F., Rabelais in his Writings (Cambridge, 1918), pp. 108, 150, 165Google Scholar.

62 Bruno, G., Opera latine conscripta, ed. Fiorentino, F. and others, I, i (Naples, 1879), 16, 193 Google Scholar. Cf. alsoi.ii (Florence, 1879), 334; n, ii (Florence, 1890), 185, 191; III (Florence, 1891), 397, 485, 487 (oracle).

63 Dedicated to Pope Gregory XIV with a secondary dedication to Gaetani, Cardinal Enrico, the oracles appeared in his Nova de universis philosophia (Ferrara, 1591; Venice, 1593)Google Scholar and in his Magia philosophica (Hamburg, 1593), with later editions in London, 1611 and 1628. Cf. Appendix B. Cf. also Fabricius, G. B., I, 312-313; Jahn, A., ‘Glossarium sive vocabularium ad Oracula Chaldaica a Clerico post Patricium et Stanleium sub falso nomine Oracularum Zoroastris mendose edita, nunc vero fontium ope correcta’, Revue de Philologie de Littérature et d'Histoire anciennes, XXIII (1899), 193–225 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Specimen commentarii critici et exegetici ex fontibus hausti ad Oracula Chaldaica’, ibid., XXIV (1900), 169-192. On Patrizi and his philosophy see Brickman, Benjamin, An Introduction to Francisco Patrizi's Nova de Universis Philosophia (New York, 1941)Google Scholar.

64 Nova de universis philosophia (Venice, 1593), Panurgia, VII, fols. 16-19.

65 Ibid., Panarchia, IX, fol. 19; XII, fol. 25.

66 Ibid., Panarchia, XIX, fols. 42-47.

67 Ibid., Panarchia, IX, fol. 18.

68 Ibid., Pancosmia, fols. 75, 76, 109.

69 Ibid., Panarchia, IX, fol. 20.

70 Ibid., in the dedicatory letter to Pope Gregory XIV.

71 Ibid., fol. 5a.

72 Schlosser, Julius von, ‘Giusto's Fresken in Padua und die Vorläufer der Stanza della Segnatura’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, XVII (1896), 13–100 Google Scholar; Venturi, Adolfo, ‘II libro di Giusto per la Cappella degli Eremitani in Pavlova’, Legallerie italiane, IV (1899), 345–376 Google Scholar; idem, ‘II libro dei disegni di Giusto', ibid., V (1902), 391 ff. Miniatures of the frescos are preserved in the Ambraser Codex, 14th century, in the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum, Sammlung der Kunstindustriellen Gegenstände, Saal XXIII, Vitrine I, No. 10, and in Florence, Magliabecchiana, c I. VII, cod. 17. In 1466 Hartmann Schedel wrote a description of the frescos (Munich, Cod. lat., 418). Cf. also La Canzone delle virtu e delle scienze di Bartolomeo di Bartoli da Bologna, ed. Leon Dorez (Bergamo, 1904),pp. 38, 82-83, for a miniature ofZoroaster seated at the feet of Dialectic.

73 The original drawings are in the British Museum and are reproduced in Sidney Colvin, A Florentine Picture Gallery (London, 1898).

74 Muntz, E., Raphael (London, 1888), pp. 263–270 Google Scholar.

75 This Hermes group is dated 1488 and was supposedly done by Giovanni di Maestro Stefano ( Cust, R. H. H., The Pavement Masters of Sienna, London, 1901, p. 20 Google Scholar; Scott, W., Hermetica, I, Oxford, 1924, frontispiece and p. 32)Google Scholar.

76 Lyons, 1533, p. 12; the medal is only I3/8 inches in diameter. A Latin edition appeared the same year, also at Lyons.

77 Yates, Frances A., The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1947), p. 146 Google Scholar, plate IIa.

78 Mönch, Walter, Die italienische Platon-renaissance und ihre Bedeutung für Frankreichs Literatur-und Geistesgeschichte (1450-1550) (Romanische Studien XL, Berlin, 1936), p. 184 Google Scholar.

79 Gaguin, Robert, Epistole et orationes, ed. by Thuasne, Louis (Paris, 1903), II, 20 Google Scholar.

80 Champier, Symphorien, De quadruplici vita (Lyons, 1507)Google Scholar, Bk. II, vi and xi; Bk. IV, viii and xv. Cf. also his collection of miscellaneous works whose title begins Index librorum in hoc volumine contentorum (Lyons, 1506).

81 Bainton, Roland H., Hunted Heretic, The Life and Death of Michael Servetus (Boston, 1953)Google Scholar, chaps. 7 and 8.

82 Servetus, Michael, Christianismi restitutio (Lyons, 1553), p. 130 Google Scholar.

83 Ibid., p. 131.

84 Ibid., p. 137.

85 For example, in Bk. III (ed. Rouen, 1642, p. 844). Cf. also Busson, Henri, Les sources et le développment du rationalisme dans la littérature française de la Renaissance (Paris, 1922), p. 493.Google Scholar

86 Plessis-Mornay, Du, A Worke concerning the Trunesse of the Christian Religion, translated by Sidney, Philip and Golding, Arthur (London, 1604), p. 284 Google Scholar. The original French edition appeared in 1581.

87 Ibid., p. 277.

88 Ibid., p. 70.

89 Ibid., p. 315.

90 Cf. Mönch, op. cit.; and Lefranc, Abel, ‘Le Platonisme et la littérature en France à l'époque de la Renaissance’, in his Grand écrivains français de la Renaissance (Paris, 1914), pp. 63–137.Google Scholar

91 Reprinted in Migne, J. P., P. G., 122 Google Scholar, cols. 115-1122, where the oracles are placed under the name of Psellus, Michael. Thomas Stanley in his History of Philosophy (London, 1701), p. 802 Google Scholar, dates the first publication at 1563. This error is continued by Aude, S., The Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster (London, 1895), p. 6 Google Scholar, and by Jackson, A. V. W., op. cit., p. 259 Google Scholar.

92 This first published Latin translation was often reprinted; cf. Appendix B.

93 Hesiodi opera et dies et Zoroastri magica oraculagraeca (Paris, 1541).

94 Utilis docti Hesiodi Ascraei liber, opera et dies … cui operi addita sunt quaedam sapientiae dogmata Zoroastris logia ab eodem translata (Lyons, 1550).

95 Habert, F., Les diuins oracles de Zoroastres, auec un commentaire moral sur ledit Zoroastre, en poésie françoise et latine (Paris, 1556)Google Scholar.

96 This is in the second part of his Sibyllina oracula (Paris, 1589, 1599, 1607).

97 Magorum, qui a Zoroastre prodiere, oracula, graece (Paris, 1595) and Zoroastris, seu magorum qui a Zoroastre prodierunt, oracula heroica (Paris, 1597).

98 Reuchlin, J., De arte cabalistica libri tres (Hanau, 1517), Bk. II, fol. xliiiGoogle Scholar.

99 Agrippa, H. C., Opera omnia (Lyons, 1600), pp. 3 Google Scholar, 260, 267, 271, 358, 359, 370, 374, 392.

100 Gemma, C., De arte cyclogomica (Antwerp, 1569), pp. 51, 100, 155Google Scholar.

101 Jessenius, J., Zoroaster. Nova brevis veraque de universo phibsophia (Wittenberg, 1593)Google Scholar; cf. Thorndike, Lynn, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, VI (New York, 1941), 461 Google Scholar.

102 More, Henry, The Immortality of the Soul, Bk. II, 12, 10Google Scholar; A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More (London, 1712), p. 115. Cf. also Cassirer, Ernst, Die Platonische Renaissance in England (Leipzig, 1932), p. 6 Google Scholar.

103 Cudworth, R., The True Intellectual System of the Universe, ed. Birch, Thomas, II (London, 1820), chap, IV, sec. xvi, 55-73Google Scholar especially.

104 In his Città di vita, II, 32, 17 ( Robb, Nesca A., Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance, London, 1935, pp. 53, 148Google Scholar).

105 Stanley, Thomas, The History of Philosophy, 1701 ed., part XIX, p. 39 Google Scholar.

106 Brucker, J., op. cit., I, 155 Google Scholar.

107 Hyde, Thomas, Historia religionis veterum Persarum, eorumque Magorum (Oxford, 1700)Google Scholar, preface.

108 Brucker, J., op. cit., 1, 157 Google Scholar.

109 Ficino, , Opera, I, 854 Google Scholar.

110 Ibid.