HELLENISTIC Astrology

Therefore, it is clear from Valens' texts that he derived his teachings from an even earlier textbook. Just how much earlier, we do not know. It is "guestimated" that Nechepso and Petosiris were writing somewhere between 300-200 B.C.E. and Abraham we have no other reference to [but see note [22] – ed.]. Another "mystical" figure from this same period is one called Hermes Trismegistus [25]. His writings are widely repeated among a large percent of the earliest Greek astrologers. It is a shame that we have not been able to retrieve any texts from this very important period. Nevertheless, some things are quite evident, the most important being that in the 5th century B.C.E. we have the most rudimentary of natal astrology. Then, by the time of the earliest recorded astrological authors ca. 100 B.C.E., we have a very complete natal astrology. Robert Schmidt best sums up these events for us:

"There is a statement by a Neo-Platonist philosopher named Iamblichus in a strange book called On The Mysteries. In this book, another neo-Platonist, Porphyry (of Porphyry house fame, for the astrologers here) is directing a number of questions about the Egyptian religion to an Egyptian priest. In the course of the answering of these questions, the priest says that the men who translated the Egyptian sacred writings into Greek – and these sacred writings included their magical, alchemical, and astrological writings, all generally attributed to one of their sages named Hermes – the men who translated these sacred writings into Greek were men who were trained in Greek philosophy, presumably the philosophies of the Athenian Greeks, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.

Now, this is a very astonishing statement and it made a great impression on me. If we take it seriously (it is several hundred years after the fact), it means that in Hellenistic astrology we may have an absolutely unique event, something that had probably never happened before and has not happened since. We may have a deliberate and unprecedented fusion of what we might call the straight Athenian philosophical tradition and the esoteric traditions of the Middle East."

The Hellenistic period is unique in the history of astrology. In less than 200 years, an astrology developed that changed the whole nature of its earlier Oracular history.