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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 1

23 ⟨Orpheus⟩ (1)

Zeus came first; Zeus is last, the lord of thunder. Zeus is the head, Zeus the middle; from Zeus all is fashioned. Zeus became male; Zeus was an immortal bride. Zeus is the foundation of earth and starry heaven. Zeus is king; Zeus himself is the first begetter of all. One power, one divinity arose, the great ruler of all: ⟨and⟩ one royal body in which all these things revolve, fire and water and earth and aether, night and day, and Metis, first progenitor, and Eros of many delights; for all these lie within the mighty body of Zeus.⁴⁸

23 ⟨Orpheus⟩ (2)

His head and his fair countenance, to behold, are the radiant sky, around which golden locks of glittering stars float in surpassing beauty. His two golden bull’s horns on either side are sunrise and sunset, the paths of the heavenly gods. His eyes are the sun and the moon that faces it; his unerring royal ear is the imperishable aether, through which he hears and perceives everything.⁴⁹ No voice, no shout, no crash, no utterance escapes the ears of mighty Zeus, the son of Cronus. Such are his immortal head and his intelligence.

23 ⟨Orpheus⟩ (3)

His body, shining all around, boundless, unshakable, unquivering, strong-limbed, surpassing in might, is formed thus: the god’s shoulders and chest and broad back are the wide-powered air; wings have grown upon him, on which he flies over all. His sacred belly is earth, the mother of all, and the steep peaks of mountains. His belt about the middle is the surge of the deep-roaring sea and ocean; his lowest foundation is the roots within the ground, moldy Tartarus, and the earth’s furthest limits. Having hidden everything away, he was to bring it forth again from his heart into joyful light, working wonders anew. …⁵⁰

24 ⟨An unidentified philosopher⟩

What, then, is God? Mind. And what is mind? Understanding. Take Zeus to be that from which we always have our life.⁵¹

25 Porphyry, from On Images

Zeus, then, is the whole cosmos, a living being made up of living beings and a god made up of gods. ⟨The god⟩ too is Zeus insofar as he is mind, from which everything is brought forth, because he creates by his thoughts.⁵²

26 Chrysippus

Zeus, then, appears to have received his name from giving life to all. They call him Dia because he is the cause of everything and all things are through him.⁵³

27 Plato, from Cratylus

Some call him Zēna, others Dia. Put together as one, the names reveal the nature of the god—precisely what we say a name ought to be capable of doing. For to us and to everything else there is no greater cause of life than the ruler and king of all.⁵⁴

28 ⟨An unidentified Platonist⟩ (1)

I maintain that the name “god” is applied to both the maker and the cosmos. I think I should first, in keeping with my own principles, call Plato as a witness to this view.⁵⁵ For Plato himself calls the maker of all things Zeus, and also calls this cosmos a god.

He speaks of the maker in this way. When discussing the movement of the universe in the Phaedrus, he says this of great Zeus: “Zeus, the great leader in heaven, drives a winged chariot and goes first, ordering and caring for everything; ⟨an army of gods and divine spirits follows him⟩.”⁵⁶

28 ⟨An unidentified Platonist⟩ (2)

I think it is clear that in these words he has spoken of the maker of everything. For he assigned to him a following of gods concerned with the cosmos: he said that the gods who serve as soldiers follow on his journey. He called the gods of this realm soldiers because they command the warfare of coming-to-be here.⁵⁷

Similarly, Onatas the Pythagorean mentioned both the maker and the gods who follow him, saying: “The other gods stand in relation to the first and intelligible god as members of a chorus to their leader, or soldiers to their general.”⁵⁸

28 ⟨An unidentified Platonist⟩ (3)

In the same way Plato mentioned both in the letter to Hermias and Coriscus. He called the maker the leader of all the gods, both those who exist and those who are to come. By gods “to come” we understand those who are always subject to generation—that is, those who at some time are joined to bodies.⁵⁹

In the Timaeus, separating the gods from multiplicity, he named them all in the singular through their dwelling-place, the cosmos. For he said: “This was the reasoning of the god who always exists concerning the god who was to exist at some time.” It is clear that the god who reasons is the maker, while the one who is to exist and is always coming-to-be is what is called the cosmos.⁶⁰

28 ⟨An unidentified Platonist⟩ (4)

Homer speaks similarly:

“Zeus went to Ocean, to the blameless Ethiopians, yesterday for a feast; all the gods followed with him. On the twelfth day he will return to Olympus.”⁶¹

These words concern Zeus within the cosmos, for all the gods followed together. The multitude of gods is a work of the maker, brought into being together with the cosmos. But when they reach Olympus, they also show the distinction: another Zeus is spoken of, the one who is separate from the gods.⁶²

28 ⟨An unidentified Platonist⟩ (5)

Thetis accordingly came to Olympus—for the poem had to carry the story through—

“and found the far-seeing son of Cronus seated apart from the others on the highest summit of many-ridged Olympus.”⁶³

The “twelfth day,” however, must be understood of the gods’ return, when they have passed beyond the twelve signs of the zodiac and come to be on the outer surface of heaven; standing there, they are carried around by its revolution. For the same account applies to souls and to gods.⁶⁴

29a

Asked, “What is the oldest of all things?” Thales replied, “God, for he is unbegotten.”

Asked, “What is God?” Socrates said, “That which is immortal and eternal.”

Asked, “What is God?” Hermes said, “The maker of the universe, supremely wise and eternal mind.”⁶⁵

29b ⟨Aëtius⟩ (1)

Thales identifies God as the mind of the cosmos, and the universe as both ensouled and full of divine spirits. A divine power that sets the elemental moisture in motion also pervades it.⁶⁶

Anaximander declared the boundless heavens to be gods.

Anaximenes identified God with air. In statements of this kind, one must understand the powers residing in the elements or bodies.

Archelaus identified God with air and mind, though not a mind that makes the cosmos.

Anaxagoras identified God with a mind that makes the cosmos.

Democritus identified God with mind in spherical fire.

48.The supplied attribution “Orpheus” identifies an Orphic poem; it does not establish a historical author. Wachsmuth compares quotations in On the Cosmos, Eusebius, and Proclus. Metis means intelligence or resourceful counsel; Eros is love or desire. Here they appear within a divine body embracing the cosmos and combining male and female powers.

49.The unusual ois is a form of ous, “ear,” not the relative pronoun “to whom.” The cosmic anatomy continues: stars are hair, the sun and moon eyes, and the aether an organ of hearing and awareness. The translation retains the poem’s concrete imagery.

50.The closing image moves from the world contained within Zeus to its renewed emergence from him. The dots reproduce the discontinuity printed after the excerpt; no further conclusion has been supplied. “Moldy” renders eurōenta, an epithet evoking the dank darkness of Tartarus.

51.The Greek makes a verbal association between Zēna, an inflected form of Zeus, and zēn, “to live.” The attribution is uncertain: Wachsmuth’s apparatus notes that the excerpt lacks a heading and that earlier editors differed over whether the speaker was a philosopher or a tragic poet. His printed question-and-answer punctuation is retained. The supplied article to turns “to live” into a noun phrase, rendered “our life.”

52.Agalmata are sacred images or representations. The excerpt distinguishes the cosmos as a comprehensive living god from the productive divine mind. The next two excerpts pursue verbal associations within the Greek names of Zeus; these should not be confused with a modern historical derivation of the name.

53.The wordplay joins Zeus with zēn, “to live,” and Dia with dia, “through.” Dia and Zēna in the following excerpt are alternative accusative forms of the same god’s name; English has no corresponding pair.

54.Cratylus 396a. Joined together, the name forms suggest “through whom there is life.” The translation follows the excerpt’s wording and preserves its account of what a name is supposed to reveal.

55.The author is unidentified. Wachsmuth’s apparatus records an attribution to Porphyry and a suggestion of Iamblichus, but his heading leaves the matter open. “Maker” translates dēmiourgos, also conventionally transliterated “demiurge.” The argument distinguishes the maker from the cosmos without denying the name “god” to either.

56.Phaedrus 246e. The final clause is supplied in Wachsmuth from Plato. “Divine spirits” renders daimones; it does not imply the evil spirits suggested by modern English “demons.”

57.“Coming-to-be” translates genesis, the realm or process of generation. The martial interpretation belongs to this commentator’s explanation of the Platonic quotation.

58.The quotation attributed to Onatas is in Doric Greek, whose forms are retained on the facing page. “Intelligible” means apprehensible by intellect. The comparison establishes an ordered relation between a first god and other gods.

59.The reference is to the Sixth Letter transmitted under Plato’s name, 323d. The explanation of gods “to come” is the commentator’s interpretation of the cited distinction.

60.Timaeus 34a. The preceding sentence is compressed and textually difficult; Wachsmuth prints oikētēriou, “dwelling-place,” as a correction. The English takes the cosmos as the collective designation for the gods dwelling in it. The ensuing quotation makes the main distinction explicit: the maker always exists, whereas the cosmos comes to be.

61.Iliad 1.423–425. In the ancient poem “Ethiopians” designates the distant people visited by the gods; it should not be mapped without qualification onto the boundaries of a modern country.

62.The two Zeuses belong to the commentator’s philosophical reading of the Homeric narrative. The quotation itself says that Zeus travels with the gods; the distinction between a cosmic Zeus and a separate Zeus is argued from this and the following passage.

63.Iliad 1.498–499. Thetis, the mother of Achilles, finds Zeus apart from the other gods. The parenthetical remark about completing the story belongs to the commentator.

64.The explanation combines Homer’s “twelfth day” with the zodiac and the heavenly journey described in Phaedrus 247c, a parallel noted by Wachsmuth. “Outer surface” translates nōton, literally “back.” This allegorical explanation is part of the excerpt, not an interpretation supplied by this translation.

65.These are sayings attributed to Thales, Socrates, and Hermes in the collection. Their compact question-and-answer form does not establish that they record historical conversations. “Unbegotten” means that God has no origin through generation.

66.Wachsmuth’s supplied heading assigns this survey to Aëtius, Opinions I.7.11–34. These are compressed doctrinal reports, not necessarily the philosophers’ own words. The explanatory sentence following Anaximenes belongs to the transmitted survey. “Divine spirits” translates daimones.