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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 20

7 Posidonius: Substance and qualified things

Of these, change by alteration occurs in substance, while the other three occur in what are called qualified things, which come to be in substance. Corresponding processes of generation also take place. For substance neither increases nor decreases by addition or subtraction, but is only altered, as happens with numbers and measures.⁶⁰⁰

7 Posidonius: Individual persistence

⟨But⟩ individually qualified things, such as Dion and Theon, undergo both increase and decrease. Thus each one’s quality persists from its coming into being until its destruction, ⟨as⟩ in animals, plants, and similar things that admit of destruction.⁶⁰¹

7 Posidonius: Two constituents

In individually qualified things, he says, there are two receptive constituents: one in respect of the subsistence of substance, the other ⟨one⟩ in respect of the subsistence of the qualified thing. For this latter, as we have often said, admits increase and decrease.⁶⁰²

7 Posidonius: Nonidentity and difference

The individually qualified thing is not identical with the substance of which it consists; yet neither is it a different thing, but only not identical, because it is part of substance and occupies the same place. Things said to be different from others must also be spatially separate and must not be regarded as parts of them.⁶⁰³

7 Mnesarchus: The modeled figure

Mnesarchus says that the nonidentity of a thing considered as individually qualified and a thing considered as substance is evident; for identical things must have the same attributes.⁶⁰⁴ If someone, for example, modeled a horse, crushed it, and then made a dog, we could reasonably say on seeing it, “This did not exist before, but now it does.” Hence “this” said of the qualified thing differs from ⟨“this”⟩ said of the substance.⁶⁰⁵

7 Mnesarchus: Socrates and his substance

In general, it seems implausible to suppose that we are identical with our substances. For it often happens that the substance exists before the birth of, say, Socrates, while Socrates himself does not yet exist; and after Socrates’s destruction the substance persists, while he himself no longer exists.⁶⁰⁶

8 Plato, Timaeus: The cycle of elements

Plato, in the Timaeus.⁶⁰⁷

[That the elements change into one another.] How, then, and in what way, are we to discuss this very matter, and what might we reasonably say about them after examining the difficulties? First, we see what we have just called water, when it solidifies, becoming, as we suppose, stones and earth; and this same thing, when it melts and separates, becoming breath and air; air, when set alight, becoming fire; and, conversely, fire, when condensed and extinguished, passing back again into the form of air [fire].⁶⁰⁸

8 Plato: No stable “this”

And again we see air coming together and thickening into cloud and mist, and from these, as they are still more compressed, flowing water, and from water earth and stones once more; so, as it appears, they pass generation on to one another in a circle. Since each of these never presents itself as the same, which of them could anyone firmly insist is this particular thing and not something else without putting himself to shame? There is none.⁶⁰⁹

8 Plato: “This” and “such”

By far the safest course is to state the matter as follows: whatever we continually observe coming to be now in one way, now in another, as with fire, we should on each occasion call “such” fire, rather than “this”; and water likewise always “such,” rather than “this.” Nor should we ever speak of anything else of this kind as possessing stability, when we point to it with the words “this here” and “this,” thinking that we are indicating something. For it slips away, refusing to abide the expression “this here,” “this,” “to this,” or any expression that indicates these things as stable existences.⁶¹⁰

9a ⟨In the same work⟩: The world’s bond

He makes it clear that the universe is eternal, for he says this in the Timaeus:⁶¹¹

“From these constituents, of this kind and four in number, the body of the world came into being, brought into agreement by proportion. From them it acquired friendship, so that, united into the same whole with itself, it became indissoluble by anyone other than the one who bound it together.”⁶¹²

9b ⟨In the same work⟩: Time and eternity

Time, then, came into being together with heaven, so that, having been born together, they might also be dissolved together, if they should ever undergo dissolution; and it came into being after the model of the everlasting nature, so that it might resemble that model as closely as possible. For the model is in being for all eternity, while heaven, throughout the whole of ⟨time⟩, has come to be, is, and will be.⁶¹³

10 In the same work: The maker’s address

“Gods of gods, works whose maker and father I am: what comes into being through me cannot be dissolved while I will it so.⁶¹⁴ Everything that has been bound can indeed be loosened; yet to wish to dissolve what has been well fitted together and is in a good condition belongs to an evil being.”⁶¹⁵

10 Plato: A bond stronger than death

“Therefore, since you too have come into being, you are not altogether immortal or indissoluble. Nevertheless, you will certainly not be dissolved or meet with death as your lot, for you have received in my will a bond still greater and more sovereign than those with which you were bound together when you came into being.”⁶¹⁶

600.Ousia, “substance,” is distinguished from a poios, a thing with a certain quality. The latter may begin or cease to exist while underlying substance persists. The comparison with numbers and measures is compressed and unexplained in the excerpt; the translation does not supply an example or a mathematical theory to resolve it.

601.Idiōs poion is something characterized by an individual quality: Dion or Theon, rather than merely a quantity of material. The claim allows growth and loss of material without the immediate loss of individual identity. Both connective supplements are printed in the base edition.

602.The phrase dektika moria, “receptive constituents,” is left close to the Greek. It distinguishes the substantial constitution from the qualified individual; it does not necessarily divide an organism into two spatial compartments. “This latter” takes touto to refer to the qualified thing, as the preceding contrast requires. Hypostasis is rendered “subsistence.”

603.The passage uses “different,” heteron, in a restricted sense requiring spatial separation and exclusion of a part-whole relation. Accordingly it denies identity without affirming that stronger kind of difference. The rejected masculine article ho has no coherent English equivalent; it remains bracketed on the Greek page.

604.Mnesarchus is introduced within the same excerpt, following the discussion of Posidonius. The argument tests identity by whether the same predicates hold of each subject: the material existed earlier, but the newly modeled dog did not.

605.The material used for modeling is not named in the Greek, so “clay” has not been inserted. The contrast concerns the referents of the demonstrative “this.” The supplied Greek article before “of the substance” is represented by the repeated English “this.”

606.The example extends the modeled figure’s distinction to a human individual. “Destruction” translates anairesis, the removal or cessation of the individual. The argument here concerns the different histories of a person and the substance constituting him; it is not expanded into a separate account of the soul.

607.Timaeus 49b-c. The opening bracketed statement is a summary that Wachsmuth rejects as a reader’s marginal annotation, not part of Plato’s sentence. The language “as we suppose” is retained: this is the preliminary account of observable transformations within the discussion of the receptacle.

608.Wachsmuth rejects the second occurrence of “fire,” which interrupts the account of fire returning to air. Pneuma, paired with air, is rendered “breath.” The account is not silently harmonized with the later geometrical restriction on earth’s conversion into the other elements (compare I.17.1.4).

609.Timaeus 49c-d. The question moves from the observed cycle to the difficulty of assigning an enduring identity to any one changing appearance. The repeated qualification “as it appears” belongs to the Greek.

610.Timaeus 49d-e. The contrast is between a demonstrative claiming a stable particular and a description of a recurring character. The excerpt stops here; in the fuller dialogue the discussion continues with what receives the changing appearances. The Greek varies the case of the demonstrative, hence the unusual English “to this.”

611.The introduction is the compiler’s interpretation; the quotation is Timaeus 32c. Wachsmuth supplies the heading “in the same work” and the Greek article before the dialogue’s title. The translation does not turn the compiler’s claim of eternity into a claim that Plato here denies generation.

612.The four constituents are fire, air, water, and earth. Proportion explains their unity, while the final exception reserves to the maker the power to undo the bond. The Greek describes a world that came into being but cannot be dissolved by another agent.

613.Timaeus 38b-c. The condition “if ... ever” is preserved: dissolution is not predicted. The final contrast opposes the model’s abiding being to heaven’s existence across time. Wachsmuth supplies “time” from Plato. The antecedent of the earlier masculine “it” can be read in relation to time or heaven; the final masculine subject is understood here as heaven.

614.Timaeus 41a-b: the maker addresses the generated gods. The compressed opening “gods of gods” is retained; it is often understood as “gods, offspring of gods.” The relation of “works” to the preceding relative clause is difficult. The English gives the general sense without inserting an unmarked genealogy.

615.The statement distinguishes a composite thing’s capacity to be dissolved from the goodness of the maker who preserves it. The qualification “while I will it so” follows Stobaeus’s wording; the gods’ continued existence depends upon that will.

616.“Not altogether” qualifies the gods’ intrinsic immunity from death: as things that have come into being, they are capable of dissolution. Their actual preservation is guaranteed by the maker’s will. This assurance, rather than a denial of their generation, concludes the chapter.