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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The denial of providence

On those who think that there is no providence, nor divine powers attendant upon it in the government of the universe.¹⁰¹

Sophocles, Oedipus: proposed reconstruction

There is no ⟨certain⟩ foreknowledge of anything; it is best to live at random, as one can.¹⁰²

101.The entire chapter is lost in the manuscripts described by Wachsmuth. He restores its title from Photius and discusses evidence for its former contents on pp. 51–52. The quotation below is his proposed reconstruction of one possible excerpt; it is not a surviving passage of this chapter. The Latin discussion is outside this translation’s scope.

102.Oedipus Tyrannus 978–979. Wachsmuth proposes that Stobaeus probably quoted these lines here, drawing on the parallel discussion in Theophilus, To Autolycus II.8; he supplies saphēs from Sophocles. Pronoia can mean foresight or providence. “Foreknowledge” suits the dramatic saying; its placement under a heading denying providence would give it a further argumentative use. The characters’ words should not be treated as a declaration of Sophocles’s own doctrine.