Not only bipartisan. The whole thing sounds more eastern (Persian), with Ahura Mazda and Ahriman ? battles between light and darkness, good and evil. It even sounds more Old Testament to me rather than Greek, but that may be due to my own deficient knowledge regarding the Hellenistic Greeks.

yuzuru wrote:Hi, Curtis

If you would be so kind, I always have a doubt about Schmidt?s interpretation of sect.

He always seem to be comparing sect with a bipartisan system. Although this may seem very logic to americans, it is not so common in other countries.

So my question would be if Schmidt is making a metaphor to help his american audiences to understand the concept, or is really some deep "bipartisan" meaning on the Hellenistic texts?

After all. Greek democracy was very different from the current system. I dont know how the concept of "party in power" would be understood in a time where there were no parties and power could be taken by an Strategos without former elections... and I imagine how many systems would exist in all the City-States.

Thanks

In the end, you have to vote either yes or no and all power struggles when they reach a polarity in the end have to side on one side or another in the world of duality. That doesn't mean that there aren't shades of gray and these other conditions that were lumped in with sect in the early days certainly modify a planet's behavior and where it stands politically. There are more than 2 parties in the USA as well, in fact several, but the height of power tends to boil it down to 2 and this is the basic division (day and night), but twilight also exists.

I would say that Schmidt has been faithful to the texts as best as is possible (and as far as I can tell). He is a conservative Capricorn and not given to extreme speculation as I've heard him depicted inaccurately. Where I doubted him (such as was the case on the rules of evidence) when I said that if you followed his rules all the testimony got thrown out of court - he knew there was a problem, even though the epistemology fit. They only way we're going to know is to work this stuff out, not just by observation, but does it fit philosophically in terms of the world view and the practice of the examples we have. There are of course many different views during the Hellenistic era and before, so Schmidt's ideas may not reflect accurately what was on Paul's mind, or Valens in the complete sense (but Schmidt has said where the variances are in his writing between practice and theory), but I think there may have been some who thought of the ideas that were in Antiochus from the middle Platonic school and may have written under assumed names to protect themselves from scrutiny. There is nothing new under the Sun as they say. It is incredibly difficult to come up with original thought and chances are if you thought it, someone before you did as well.

yuzuru wrote:
After all. Greek democracy was very different from the current system. I dont know how the concept of "party in power" would be understood in a time where there were no parties and power could be taken by an Strategos without former elections... and I imagine how many systems would exist in all the City-States.

I forgot to mention this... The language was Greek but most of the people practicing astrology during the Hellenistic era were from the middle east and most were not ethnic Greeks.