The author known as the Chaldean Oracular Poet is an anonymous figure from the Roman Empire in the 2nd or 3rd century CE. The name "Chaldean" does not refer to a specific person or ethnicity but was a term used for practitioners of esoteric wisdom and ritual magic, evoking the prestige of ancient Babylonian astrology. The work attributed to this figure is not by a single historical individual but is a collection of texts from a specific philosophical community. Later tradition attributed the oracles to legendary figures named Julian the Chaldean and his son Julian the Theurgist, who were said to have served Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Modern scholars, however, view these figures as fictional, created to give authority to the texts.

The anonymous author or authors were part of circles influenced by Middle Platonism, Stoicism, and Eastern religious ideas, operating in the competitive spiritual landscape of the Roman Empire. Their work represents a pagan theological system that developed alongside early Christianity and Gnostic movements.

The sole known work is the Chaldean Oracles, a collection of revealed teachings in poetic verse. The original text is lost and survives only in fragments, quoted by later Neoplatonic philosophers like Proclus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus.

The Chaldean Oracles are historically significant as the central sacred text for later pagan Neoplatonists, especially those practicing theurgy—rituals for spiritual ascent. From the 3rd century CE onward, philosophers treated the oracles with authority nearly equal to Plato's writings. According to modern scholars, its complex cosmology, featuring a triadic supreme divinity and a hierarchy of spiritual beings, deeply shaped the metaphysics of major Neoplatonist thinkers. The text is a key artifact showing how Platonic philosophy evolved into a ritual-based religious system in late antiquity.