In some previous articles I’ve occasionally mentioned the Sodales Chaldaici, a somewhat mysterious and little-known traditional and initiatic society that dates back to the Roman Empire.
This seems to be as good a time as any to expound on this secret society at greater length, since it has a fascinating history, and also a connection to a number of still-surviving occult societies, including the College of Seth, as well as more Traditionalist organizations, such as the Order of Janus and the Ordo Solis Atri.
The Sodales Chaldaici may be loosely translated as the “Chaldean Fellows,” and their society or collegium goes by many names—the Sodalicium Chaldaicum or Sodalitas Chaldaea (Gk. ἡ Ἑταιρεία Χαλδαϊκὴ) being the most common, which can be rendered as the “Chaldean Fellowship” or “Chaldean Society.”
The historians of the College of Seth agree that the origins of the Sodales can be traced back to the Second Century AD, when the Brotherhood’s shadowy collegium was founded by Julian the Theurge—the same who was credited with the so-called “Miracle of the Rain” during the Marcomannic Wars of Marcus Aurelius, which was said to have saved the Roman army during its hour of need. The famous Chaldean Oracles were also attributed to his authorship—whence, of course, the name chosen for the secret society.1
At any rate, this Julian enjoyed tremendous popularity as a result of his miracle-working in Germania, as well as the patronage of the emperor himself; this newfound success encouraged him in his ambition to found a secret society of theurgists, magicians, theosophers, and occultists of every stripe, which he did in the imperial capital itself.
In the beginning, the Sodales consisted of various sorcerers, mathematici, and arcanists in the eclectic Antonine milieu of late second-century Rome, but in after centuries the society attracted a much more variegated membership—including Neoplatonic philosophers, learned pagans, Hermetic alchemists, and even high-ranking members of the equestrian and senatorial orders.2 The number of the Sodales was restricted to ten, and women, slaves, and freedmen were strictly prohibited from joining; there was a mystagogue among the ten, who was charged with guiding new members through the rites and mysteries of initiation, as well as an antistes, who performed the sacrifices and religious ceremonial connected with the society.
The Chaldean Fellowship was created for several very specific purposes: the cultivation and preservation of the prehistoric, circum-Mediterranean occult and pagan Tradition;3 the instruction and practice of its members in the arts of magic, theurgy, and goetia, along with many other traditional sciences on the brink of being lost forever;4 and the collection and transmission of such knowledge and traditions to future generations. There was what might be termed a “patriotic” purpose to the Sodales as well—the protection of the empire against its enemies, natural and supernatural, human and ab-human, and its eternal continuance.
The society enjoyed its greatest period of power and influence during the early Third Century, under the reigns of Septimius Severus and Caracalla. The Sodales were headed at this time by Aulus Ceionius Synistor,5 a wealthy slave trader whose fortune was undoubtedly swelled by the massive influx of slaves pouring into the empire in the wake of Severus’ martial campaigns in Parthia and Scotland.
It was Synistor who caused a proper schola to be built in Rome as a meeting place for the collegium; whereas before they had merely foregathered in the homes of members, now they had a building of their own. It was called the Schola Sodalium Chaldaicorum, but it was much more commonly known as the Aedes Hecates (“House” or “Shrine of Hecate”). The Aedes Hecates was located in the Forum Romanum, near the Statue of Marsyas, and it acquired something of a poor reputation over the centuries among the superstitious, on account of the strange and frightful sounds and even apparitions that were said to issue from the building on nights when the moon was full.
The schola was dedicated to the Sodales’ tutelary divinity, the goddess Hecate, who was mistress of magic, darkness, and all things supernatural; she was also frequently mentioned in the Chaldean Oracles, and was often petitioned in the rites of the theurgists. There was a chryselephantine statua triformis of the goddess in the schola, which represented the triform Hecate Trivia in her aspect as goddess of crossroads; this statue was very prominent in the magical rites and rituals performed by the Sodales. Some historians in the College of Seth also assert that there was a small library containing the society’s archives attached to the schola, as well as a kind of “museum” or collection of curious magical and occult artifacts and objets d’art, allegedly acquired by Synistor and later members.6
The Sodales flourished throughout the Third Century, which was a difficult time for Rome, and it was especially active during the great crisis later in the century, when barbarian incursions, Persian assaults, recurring mutinies, disease epidemics, and tumultuous imperial usurpers threatened to fracture the empire beyond repair. The members of the occult collegium continued to investigate supernatural and magical mysteries, invoke the gods, and receive and record oracles and forecasts of the future from the statue of Hecate.
Some sources say that the Sodales also played an important role in reuniting the empire, continuing the patriotic tradition of their founding member, Julian the Theurge. These sources claim that members of the Chaldean Fellowship formed magical chains and performed theurgical operations to fell the empire’s enemies, or to succor its champions and defenders. Others say that even some emperors were members, naming Claudius II Gothicus and especially Probus (r. AD 276-82)—though the source here is unreliable,7 and the claim is unprovable.
The history of the Sodales Chaldaici after the Third Century is somewhat sketchy; they were still active in the reign of Diocletian, but were probably forced to go underground after Constantine’s conversion to Christianity. There is some evidence to suggest they were operative in Constantinople after AD 330, but their meetings would almost certainly have been secretive and illegal, and were restricted to private residences. The Aedes Hecates was most likely seized by the government, and was probably purified and converted into a small church around this time.
Several scholars at the College of Seth have argued that the society experienced a brief renascence during the reign of the emperor Julian, surnamed “the Apostate;” certain documents in the College’s collections indicate that this was indeed the case, and suggest that Julian himself may have reconstituted or refounded the organization. It’s more likely, however, that Julian’s praetorian prefect, Salutius Secundus, was responsible for any revival of the Sodales; the group also had the backing of certain prominent aristocratic and pagan families, including the Symmachi and the Flaviani. There’s also evidence that the Sodales may have briefly flourished about a decade later, under the Western usurper Eugenius (AD 392-4), although both of these revivals were fleeting and short lived.
By the reign of Theodosius I, when Christianity was made the official religion of the empire, the Sodales were well and truly forced into a furtive and subterranean existence; as with the Order of Janus, the Sodales Chaldaici survived as something of a familial affair, most notably descending through a lineage of well-known fifth-century magicians. This was the family of Nestorius, a famous theurgist in the eastern empire, whose son Plutarchus and granddaughter Asclepigeneia were also celebrated for their theurgic skill; the latter, in fact, was noted as the instructress of the famed Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus, teaching him the arts of theurgy and the esoteric arcana of the Chaldean Oracles.
The descendants of Asclepigeneia, easily distinguishable by the curious matronymic “Asklepiodotes,” passed down the precepts and wisdom of the Sodales throughout succeeding centuries in the Byzantine Empire, many rising to positions of great power and influence in the government; one of these, a Nikephoros Asklepiodotes, even secured the patronage of the emperor Leo VI “the Wise,” and founded a secret society that was in many ways a continuation of the Sodales Chaldaici (though with a Christian orientation, naturally).8 Eventually, conditions in the Eastern Roman Empire grew less favorable to the flourishing of occult societies that flirted with heretical doctrines, and the Asklepiodotai were forced to flee to Western Europe, to France in particular, and were involved in the heresy of the Cathars, or Albigenses.
The family survived the horrors of the Albigensian Crusade, and eventually changed its name to “Desjardins.”9 The subsequent history of the family—and therefore of what remains of the ancient initiatic order of the Sodales Chaldaici—is even more fascinating, and is tied to the birth of more recent organizations, including the College of Seth and the Ordo Solis Atri.
But that story will have to wait until a future post…
The Chaldeans—or the “Chaldees” of the Bible—were far famed, long after the extinction of their civilization, as a race of magicians and astrologers who were foremost in the practice of traditional arts and sciences that our “civilization” (for want of a better term) has long since forgotten (see note 4 below).
Apuleius, the famed African “wizard,” itinerant philosopher, and author of the Metamorphoses (better known as The Golden Ass) and the De Rebus Occultis, is believed to have been a member of the Sodales Chaldaici—in fact, its most famous member. But it is impossible to definitively confirm this, especially as it was not likely that he would admit belonging to that organization, given the accusations of sorcery leveled against him and which he very publicly refuted in his celebrated Apologia.
This included the cults of Hecate (see below), the larvae and lemures in Rome, the worship of Demeter and Persephone (along with obscurer cults associated with Hades), the veneration of the “truer Sun” (ὁ ἀληθέστερος ἥλιος) of the theurgists, and even much more ancient and mysterious powers. Among these latter we can certainly include that terrifying deus nefandus alluded to by Lucanus in the sixth book of his unfinished epic poem De Bello Civili (Pharsalia), which was invoked as a threat against Hades himself by the witch Erichtho, and was said to dwell in a deeper hell to which Tartarus was as a heaven. Further illustrating the appallingly superlative evil of this numen innominandum, Lucanus wrote that it: “beholds the Gorgon unveiled, lashes the cringing Furies with their own scourges, and perjures the Stygian waves” (De Bell. Civ., Bk. VI: 746-50).
The historians of the College of Seth largely agree that these included astrology, Hermetic alchemy, the science of prophecy (manteia), the apprehension and classification of the subtle world and its inhabitants, theurgy proper (the “magical” invocation and compulsion of these inhabitants), and a host of powers that we would today attribute to telepathy, psychokinesis, and poltergeistic activity.
A Ceionius Synistor (“quidam homo dives peritissimusque in rebus occultis”) was listed among those philosophers and men of learning who were a part of the empress Julia Domna’s famous literary and philosophical “salon.”
The catalogue of these objects, reproduced in various sources, is of dubious authenticity, but forms a fascinating study in its own right, and would certainly be remarkable if true. This “museum” was said to contain, among other things: the strophalos or “magic wheel” used by Julian the Theurge to summon the rains in Germania; the pelt of a “gorgon” from the Temple of Tanit in Carthage; the skull of a Scythian gryphon and an Arimaspos, the gens monocula that warred with them; a vavato ligneus, or wooden doll or fetish of the monstrous Caledonian Pruni, said to be part of the loot brought back to Rome by the veterans of Severus’ Scottish War; the hide of the African Catoblepas brought to Rome by Marius; the skull of the κῆτος slain by Perseus at Joppa; the skin of an immense serpent slain by Regulus in North Africa; and many more wonders of the ancient world.
Flavius Vopiscus, in a rare and very obscure recension of the Historia Augusta. For those scholars who subscribe to the veracity of this claim, the theory is that certain counter-traditional and counter-initiatic forces at the time—which were working toward the destruction of the empire—were aware of Probus’ affiliation with the Sodales, and that the mutiny of his soldiers near Sirmium (supposedly in anger at being tasked with the lowly chore of draining marshes) was in reality an occult conspiracy meant to neutralize the emperor’s salutary efforts to restore the flagging fortunes of the Roman state.
The subsequent history of this secret society is largely unknown, though I would love to learn more about it. Apparently, it was especially active from the tenth to twelfth centuries, but was probably either wiped out or at least severely limited in its activities following the depredations of the Fourth Crusade in 1204. There is some evidence that the society, or a successor to it, was reconstituted during the reign of the emperor John VII Palaeologus; it is certain that this version was active in Mistra in the fifteenth century, experiencing a brief renascence under the patronage of the Despot Thomas Palaeologus. Among its members was the famous Byzantine scholar George Gemistos Plethon, and, perhaps inevitably, an otherwise unknown “antiquarian” named John Asklepiodotes.
The choice of this name is traditionally said to represent a loose translation from the Greek “ἐκ παράδεισου”—“out of the garden” or “out of Paradise”—which is a reference to Seth, the third child of Adam and Eve. Seth is regarded by the Gnostics, with whom the Asklepiodotai and Cathars were now affiliated, as their spiritual ancestor; he is the progenitor of “the great generation,” “the incorruptible race,” the elect of mankind (οἱ γνωστικοί) who are gifted with intellectual intuition, and whose lineage—unlike the skoteinoi, the “blind ones”—can be traced back to the Garden of Eden.