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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

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Book I Chapter 4

Chapter 4: On Necessity

On ⟨divine⟩ necessity, through which what accords with God’s will comes to pass inexorably.¹⁶¹

1 Moschion, Telephus

O Fate, who alone rule gods and mortals, untouched by the prayers of wretched human beings, all-daring Necessity, who press upon our necks the hateful yoke of this servitude.¹⁶²

2a Chaeremon

Need has settled not far from Necessity.¹⁶³

2b Euripides, Bellerophon

Against necessity, everything else is powerless.

2c ⟨Simonides⟩

Not even gods fight against necessity.¹⁶⁴

2d ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

Yet Necessity is a goddess most hostile to piety.¹⁶⁵

2e ⟨An unidentified tragic poet⟩

No law has greater strength than necessity.

3 ⟨Euripides⟩

Through the Muses I soared aloft, and, after touching upon countless teachings, I found nothing stronger than Necessity, nor any remedy.¹⁶⁶

4 Philetas, Hermes

For mighty Necessity holds sway over man; she fears not even the immortals, who on Olympus built their homes beyond the reach of grievous pains.¹⁶⁷

5 Sophocles, Thyestes

Not even Ares rises up against necessity.¹⁶⁸

6 Euripides, Licymnius

The yoke of necessity: there is no telling how great it is. …¹⁶⁹

7a Thales

Asked, “What is strongest?” Thales replied, “Necessity, for it rules everything.”

7b Hermes, from the writings to Ammon

Necessity is a firm decree and an unalterable power of providence.¹⁷⁰

7c ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩ (1)

Pythagoras said that necessity surrounds the cosmos.

Parmenides and Democritus: these hold that everything happens by necessity, and that necessity is also fate, justice, providence, and the maker of the cosmos.¹⁷¹

Leucippus holds that everything happens by necessity, and that this is also fate. For he says in On Mind: “Nothing happens without a reason; everything happens from a rational ground and under necessity.”¹⁷²

7c ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩ (2)

Plato identifies necessity sometimes with matter, sometimes with the relation of the maker to matter. He refers some things to providence and others to necessity. Thus he says in the Timaeus: “The coming-to-be of this cosmos was mixed: it arose from the combination of necessity and intellect, with intellect ruling necessity.”¹⁷³

Empedocles identifies it with the cause that makes use of the principles and the elements.¹⁷⁴

8 Hermes, to his son (1)

“You have explained everything rightly to me, father. But remind me once more: what things occur according to providence, what ⟨things⟩ according to necessity, and likewise according to fate?”

“I said, Tat, that there are three kinds of incorporeal things in us. One is intelligible: it is colorless, shapeless, bodiless, and derives from the first and intelligible substance itself.¹⁷⁵ There are also configurations in us opposed to this, ⟨by means of which⟩ it receives what comes to it. What is moved by intelligible substance toward a particular rational pattern and received is at once changed into another kind of movement; this is an image of the creator’s thought.¹⁷⁶

8 Hermes, to his son (2)

“A third kind of incorporeal things consists of what is incidental to bodies: place, time, movement, shape, surface, magnitude, and form. There are two distinctions within these: some are qualities in their own right, others belong to body. Qualities in their own right are shape, color, form, place, time, and movement. What belongs specifically to body is the shape that has been given shape and the color that has been imparted, as well as the form that has been formed, surface, and magnitude. These stand between those.¹⁷⁷

8 Hermes, to his son (3)

“Intelligible substance, then, when it has come to be with God, has authority over itself and the power to preserve another, while preserving itself, since that substance itself is not subject to necessity. But when left behind by God, it chooses bodily nature, and its choice takes place according to providence [and this of the cosmos].¹⁷⁸ Everything irrational moves toward some rational principle. The rational principle is according to providence; the irrational, according to necessity; and the properties incidental to body, according to fate. This is the account of what is according to providence, ⟨according to⟩ necessity, and according to fate.”¹⁷⁹

161.Wachsmuth supplies “divine” from Photius and the Laurentian table of contents. Anankē ranges from constraint or unavoidable circumstance to the personified power Necessity. The heading links it with God’s will; some of the poems instead picture it as a power that even gods cannot resist.

162.Fate (Moira) and Necessity are addressed as one power in these lines. “Untouched” renders atrōte, literally “unwounded”: prayers cannot pierce or move that power.

163.The image makes chreia, need or want, a near neighbor of anankē, compulsion. The source numbers this and the following four sayings as subdivisions of excerpt 2.

164.Wachsmuth supplies Simonides’s name by comparison with Plato, Protagoras 345d. The wording of the facing Greek follows this edition.

165.“To piety” renders hosiai, the dative printed by Wachsmuth following Nauck. The apparatus records hosia, “sacred,” in the manuscripts. The supplied Latin heading “of an unknown tragic poet” is rendered in Greek and English here and in comparable headings.

166.Alcestis 962-966, as identified in the source. The speaker’s ascent through poetry and learning finds no cure for necessity. The excerpt breaks off before the original song’s further specification of remedies.

167.Hermes is the title of Philetas’s work in this heading; it is not an attribution to Hermes of the kind found later in the chapter.

168.Ares, the god of war, embodies the force that nevertheless cannot resist necessity.

169.The Greek is syntactically difficult. “There is no telling” gives the apparent force of ou legein without adopting one of the repairs recorded in the apparatus. The dots preserve the discontinuity printed after the line.

170.Here necessity executes providence rather than standing above it. Krisis, “decree,” can also mean judgment or decision. The attribution belongs to the Hermetic writings transmitted under the name Hermes.

171.The supplied heading identifies a collection of reported philosophical opinions (Aëtius I.25-26 in Wachsmuth’s reference), not verbatim statements by all the named thinkers. The grouping of Parmenides with Democritus and the identification with providence are retained as transmitted.

172.Logos here is rendered “rational ground,” and matēn “without a reason,” to preserve the contrast between an event without an account and an event determined by a ground or cause. This does not by itself make Leucippus’s necessity a benevolent purpose.

173.Timaeus 48a. The reported interpretation and its quotation are distinct: the first tells us how the compiler classifies Plato, while the quoted sentence describes the mixed origin of the cosmos.

174.Chrēstikē means capable of using or employing. The compressed report does not explain how this cause operates; “it” continues the topic of necessity.

175.The son is addressed as Tat. “Intelligible” describes what is apprehended by intellect rather than by bodily sensation; “incorporeal” means without body. These terms should not be collapsed into “invisible.”

176.The sentence about configurations is strained. The base edition supplies hais, “by means of which”; the English supplies the unstated object “what comes to it.” The apparatus suggests “we receive” for “it receives” and questions whether the final clause about the creator’s thought is an inserted explanation. The printed wording is retained.

177.The repetition of shape, color, and form distinguishes qualities considered in themselves from their realization in a body. The final “these” and “those” are obscure, and the apparatus records divergent readings. The English retains their indeterminacy rather than assigning a new set of referents.

178.“Left behind” follows hypoleiphtheisa as printed. The bracketed words are grammatically incomplete: Wachsmuth regards them as a gloss attached to what follows. They are translated literally and kept in brackets, not silently incorporated into a repaired sentence.

179.The passage distributes the three powers across different levels: rational principle, the irrational, and bodily properties. This is the dialogue’s explanation, not a uniform doctrine shared by every excerpt in chapters 4 and 5.