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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 49

44.7 · The hidden symbols near Osiris

but when my rising came, and with all-seeing eyes I contemplated the unseen things of the rising and examined them, precise knowledge came to me, slowly indeed, but nevertheless: ⟨Hermes⟩ had deposited the sacred symbols of the cosmic elements near the hidden things of Osiris. [After pronouncing a prayer over them and speaking these words, he departed into heaven.]¹⁵¹⁸

44.8 · Hermes addresses the sacred books

But it is not fitting, my child, for me to leave this promise unfulfilled. I must tell what Hermes said as he deposited the books. He spoke as follows: ‘O sacred books, fashioned by my immortal hands, which I hold in my power after anointing them with the drug of incorruptibility: remain free from decay for all eternity and imperishable through time, unseen and undiscovered by everyone who is to traverse the plains of this earth, until aged heaven fashions beings worthy of you, those whom the creator called souls.’¹⁵¹⁹

44.9 · The books are set apart

After saying this [and] pronouncing a blessing upon his own works, he sets the books apart in a sacred enclosure with bands of his own.¹⁵²⁰

44.10 · The gods ask for an ordered world

A considerable interval of time lay idle, ⟨and⟩ the books remained hidden. Nature, my child, was barren, until the very ⟨gods⟩ already commanded to patrol heaven approached the god who is king of all and reported the stillness of existing things: everything needed to be ordered, and this was the work of no one else but him. ‘We beg you,’ they said, ‘consider what now exists and what ⟨the things⟩ to come will need.’¹⁵²¹

44.11 · Nature comes forth from the divine voice

When they had said this, the god smiled and said that Nature should exist. A wholly beautiful female being came forth from his voice, and the gods were struck with wonder when they beheld her. The god, the forefather, honored her with the name Nature and commanded her to be generative. Then, gazing into the encompassing expanse, he also proclaimed: ‘Let heaven, air, and ether be filled with all things.’ The god spoke, and it was so.¹⁵²²

44.12 · Nature, Labor, and Discovery

Nature spoke to herself and understood that she must not disobey her father’s command. Uniting with Labor, she produced a beautiful daughter, whom she called Discovery. To her the god granted ⟨the gift of⟩ being; having granted it, he differentiated the things already created and filled them with mysteries. To Discovery [of these things] he granted authority over them.¹⁵²³

44.13 · Breath, intellectual fire, and hidden materials

He himself no longer wished the world above to be idle, but resolved to fill it with spirits, so that its particular parts should not remain motionless and idle. Thus he began this work, using sacred arts for the production of his own creation. Taking a sufficient quantity of his own breath, he mixed it with intellectual fire and blended it with certain other, unknown materials;¹⁵²⁴

44.14 · A subtler substance appears

and, uniting each with the other amid certain secret invocations, he stirred the entire compound thoroughly, until a substance smiled forth upon the mixture, subtler, purer, and more transparent than the materials from which it arose. This substance was translucent, and the craftsman alone could see it.¹⁵²⁵

44.15 · The compound receives the name psychōsis

Since it neither melted as though burning from fire nor brought coolness as though perfected from breath, but had a constitution of the mixture peculiar to itself and its own, with its own form and composition, ⟨hence⟩ the god named its constitution psychōsis, both from the more auspicious name and from its corresponding activity.¹⁵²⁶

44.16 · The fashioning of many souls

From this congealed substance he brought into being many myriads of souls, shaping what flowered forth from the compound itself toward what he wished, in order and due proportion, with experience and the fitting measure, so that it was necessary for them not to differ at all from one another;¹⁵²⁷

44.17 · Sixty degrees and a common immortality

since the bloom rising as vapor through the god’s stirring was not uniform: the first was greater and fuller than the second and altogether purer, while the second was decidedly [the] second in rank to the first, but far [the] greater than the third. In this way the total number was completed down to sixty degrees, except that he decreed and ordained them all to be everlasting, as coming from one substance, whose forms he alone brings to perfection.¹⁵²⁸

44.18 · The souls’ appointed regions

He also assigned them divisions and chambers in the lofty region of the nature above [of heaven], so that they might keep the cylinder revolving in a certain order and with fitting administration, and give delight to their father.¹⁵²⁹

44.19 · The creator addresses his children

Then, in the surpassingly beautiful station of ether, having summoned also the natures of things already in being, he said: ‘O souls, beautiful children of my breath and my care, whom I have brought to birth with my own hands and now consecrate to my cosmos: heed these words of mine as laws, and touch no other place than the one assigned to you by my judgment.¹⁵³⁰

44.20 · The promise and the threatened bond

If you remain steadfast, heaven will continue for you just as before, together with your appointed constellation and thrones filled with excellence. But if you undertake some innovation contrary to my plans, I swear to you by the sacred breath, by this compound from which I begot you, and by these soul-making hands of mine, that before long I shall fashion a bond and punishments for you.’¹⁵³¹

1518.This passage is textually difficult. Anatolē is rendered “rising” in both places without deciding on a particular astral or initiatory event. The masculine participles remain in the Greek although Isis is the narrative speaker; English first-person wording does not resolve that discrepancy. “Hidden things” keeps kryphia broad. Wachsmuth supplies Hermes and rejects the entire bracketed sentence as a reader’s anticipatory summary. Both editorial decisions are visible.

1519.Isis resumes after the rejected sentence and quotes Hermes’ address. Pharmakon is a drug or preparation; no recipe is supplied. “Beings” renders systēmata, organized formations. The Greek moves from that neuter noun to a feminine relative anticipating psychas, souls; English makes the referent explicit. The phrase about anointing follows Meineke’s correction printed in the text.

1520.The printed temenizetai suggests marking off a sacred precinct; zōnai are bands or girdles. The image is retained provisionally. The apparatus proposes alternative verbs for binding or encircling, which are not substituted here. English moves the rejected conjunction with the participial phrase while preserving its brackets. The books are the object of the main verb; his works are the recipients of the prayer.

1521.The three printed supplements are marked. The opening shifts from time as the subject of “lay idle” to an unexpressed subject of “remained hidden”; English understands the books from the preceding sentence. The text calls nature barren before narrating the appearance of personified Nature, and this sequence is preserved. The final supplied article substantivizes “later” as later things.

1522.The feminine personification is explicit, although chrēma, “being” or “thing,” is grammatically neuter. Physis is now her bestowed name. The text assigns her the capacity to generate and then commands the filling of heaven, air, and ether. The terse closing statement preserves the narrative’s correspondence between divine speech and actuality.

1523.Ponos and Heuresis are rendered as personified Labor and Discovery, preserving the relationship described in the story. The supplied Greek article before “being” is represented by the marked phrase “the gift of.” The rejected toutōn, “of these things,” remains bracketed; its rejection avoids a repetition before the following “over these things.” Authority translates hēgemonikon here, rather than importing a separate theory of a ruling faculty.

1524.Pneumata is rendered “spirits” in the first clause and pneuma as “breath” in the mixture, retaining the shared word’s role across the passage. “Intellectual fire” follows the printed noerōi. The apparatus questions the repeated explanation about inactivity and the wording about sacred arts, but the print does not bracket those clauses; they remain. The other materials are explicitly unknown, and no ingredients are invented.

1525.The personifying “smiled forth” preserves epegelase rather than replacing it with a technical description of separation. Hylē denotes the resulting substance as well as the preceding materials. Transparency and visibility only to the craftsman are both stated in the narrative; the translation does not explain away their conjunction.

1526.Psychōsis evokes both the making of soul, psychē, and the preceding verb psychein, to cool; the Greek name is retained so that the wordplay remains available. The active epsychen is rendered “brought coolness,” not made passive. Wachsmuth prints a partial-word restoration en⟨then⟩, “hence”; English marks the entire resulting word and records that difference here. The unusual comparison “more auspicious” is retained without supplying an unexpressed alternative name.

1527.Epipagos suggests a substance formed or set upon the mixture; “congealed substance” remains an interpretive rendering. The last clause is corrupt according to Wachsmuth: he suggests ēdē ti, “already in some respect,” for mēde ti, “not at all.” The English deliberately retains the printed negative, which conflicts with the differentiated products in the next sentence, rather than silently adopting that conjecture.

1528.The graded production is retained in explicit tension with the preceding negative clause. “Sixty” counts degrees or ranks, not individual souls. Both articles rejected by Heeren remain bracketed; their deliberately awkward English counterparts make the editorial treatment visible. In the final clause, eidē is read as “forms,” the object of the printed teleioi, “brings to perfection,” rather than confused with a verb meaning knows. All souls share the stated everlasting status despite their ranks.

1529.Tamieia are chambers or repositories. The rejected gloss “of heaven” remains bracketed. Kylindros is literally a cylinder or roller; the cosmic object is left in that form rather than replaced by a sphere. Oikonomia denotes orderly administration here. The passage assigns souls a celestial function as well as a location.

1530.The address begins a speech by the creator within Isis’ account. Maiōsamenos uses the language of assisting a birth; the hands are the creator’s own. The apparatus questions whether “souls” should be deleted, but it remains unbracketed in the printed text and is retained here. The command restricts their places, preparing the conditional threat that follows.

1531.“Innovation” renders ti neōteron, a departure from the appointed order in this context. The oath invokes the breath, compound, and hands already described in the making of souls. The printed singular desmon, “a bond,” is retained rather than the apparatus’s plural variant. This closes the creator’s speech, but Isis’ narrative and excerpt 44 continue on the next source page.