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 translation 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 just 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?
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