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Writer's pictureRenee Olson

Chaldean Oracles - 219


The Chaldean Oracles are a group of fragmented texts from the 2nd Century AD and are attributed to Babylonia (Chaldea). The text refers to Hecate as the female power or Mother of all with two Fathers. Setting Hecate as the Cosmic World Soul. I thought it might be a great project to look at the translated snippets of the references to Hecate in the Oracles to see how they relate to one another, to Hecate in general, and our thoughts on Hecate today. For this, I decided to use the translation by Charles Stein. Mr. Stein is an author and poet and has completed several translations as well as studies on Eleusinian subjects. His original translation of the Chaldean Oracles can be found at the link below.

Understand that not everyone follows this particular belief in Hecate’s origins. Some follow the more modern view of Hecate as the Crone aspect of the triple goddess construct. I invite those with that perspective to follow this line of thought for a moment to see where it leads. Translated by Charles Stein



Says Hekate:


After dawn burst splendor

infinite, full of stars,

I left the unpolluted house of god

and stepped

on life-fost'ring earth

according to your request

persuaded by those ineffable words

by which a mortal person

delights in delighting


the mind of the immortals… [219]


This passage, to me, seems to show Hecate's decision to leave the house of the Gods and move into the mortal realm. She moves to the earth and takes her place as a keeper of the crossroads or, in a more figurative reference - the transitional spaces for mortals. It also seems to me that the earth is where life actually is. Even though the Gods are thought to be the source of life, they do not live. More so, they live only through the mortals.


Thoughts?


Originally published on Blogger - 12/30/14 9:00 AM

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