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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

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Book I Chapter 5

17 From Iamblichus’s letter to Macedonius (1)

All beings have their being through the One; for even the first being itself is brought forth from the One at the outset. In a far more eminent way, the universal causes receive through the One their capacity to act, are held together in a single interweaving, and are referred back together to the principle of the many, in which they preexist.²⁰⁰

Accordingly, the causes concerned with nature, though of many kinds, divided into very many parts, and dependent on several principles, depend in their multiplicity on one universal cause. Through one connection all are interwoven with one another, and the bond of the many causes reaches back to the single, all-encompassing authority of the cause.

17 From Iamblichus’s letter to Macedonius (2)

This single chain, then, is ⟨not⟩ assembled from the multiplicity. It does not produce a unity that arises subsequently from interweaving, nor is it dispersed among particulars. Rather, in accordance with the single interweaving of the causes themselves that precedes and stands before them, it brings everything to completion, binds everything together within itself, and refers everything back to itself in a single form.

Fate, therefore, must be defined as one order that embraces all orders together within itself.²⁰¹

18 From Iamblichus’s letter to Sopater

The whole substance of fate is in nature. By nature I mean the inseparable cause of the cosmos, which inseparably contains the universal causes of coming-to-be: all that the higher substances and ordered structures have embraced separately within themselves.²⁰²

Thus life in bodily form and the rational principle that produces coming-to-be; forms in matter and matter itself; the coming-to-be compounded from these; movement that changes everything and nature that governs events in order; the principles of nature, its ends, and its productive activities; their connections with one another from the beginning and the processes by which the end is reached: all these together constitute fate.

19 Plutarch, from Whether Foreknowledge of the Future Is Beneficial

For what is fated is unalterable and cannot be transgressed: “And whatever he merely nods with his brows, for that strong necessity has been spun”; and so has destiny. For this reason they also call fate Adrasteia, because it imposes a necessary outcome upon causes, being inescapable and impossible to flee.²⁰³

20 Hermes, from the writings to Ammon

Everything happens by nature and fate, and no place is devoid of providence. Providence is the self-complete rational principle of the heavenly God. Necessity and fate are two powers native to him. Fate serves providence and necessity, and the stars serve fate. No one can escape fate or protect himself from the formidable power of the stars. For the stars are fate’s instrument: in accordance with it, they bring everything to fulfillment in nature and for human beings.²⁰⁴

21 Plato, Republic

When all the souls had chosen their lives, they approached Lachesis in the order in which they had drawn lots. She sent with each the divine spirit it had chosen, to guard its life and bring its choices to fulfillment.²⁰⁵ This spirit first led the soul to Clotho, beneath her hand and the turning whirl of the spindle, confirming the lot the soul had chosen when its turn came. After contact with Clotho, the spirit led the soul on to ⟨the⟩ spinning of Atropos, making what had been spun irreversible. From there the soul went without turning back beneath the throne of Necessity. When it had passed through and the others had also passed through, all the souls traveled to the plain of Forgetfulness.²⁰⁶

22 From Aristotle’s letter to Alexander (1)

I think that necessity too names nothing other than this: as though it were “unconquerable.” It is called fate because things are linked together and proceed unhindered; destiny because everything has been bounded and nothing among existing things is unbounded; moira because things have been apportioned; nemesis from the distribution to each; adrasteia because it is by nature an inescapable cause; and aisa because it always exists.²⁰⁷

22 From Aristotle’s letter to Alexander (2)

The account of the Fates and the spindle also points in some way to these same things. The three Fates are allotted to the divisions of time. Of the spindle’s thread, some is already finished, some is still to come, and some is being turned. One of the Fates, Atropos, is assigned to what has happened, because everything past is unalterable. Lachesis is assigned to the future, because the natural allotment awaits all things. Clotho is assigned to the present, completing and spinning for each what belongs to it. This is what the myth too hints at.²⁰⁸

All these are nothing other than God, as the noble Plato also says: “God, as the ancient saying has it, holding the beginning, the end, and the middle of existing things, accomplishes his course straight, moving around according to nature.”²⁰⁹

200.“The One” names the principle on which even the first being depends. The passage begins from that prior unity and uses it to explain how the many causes of natural events can form one order. “Universal causes” renders ta hola aitia, causes considered as wholes.

201.Wachsmuth supplies the crucial “not,” crediting Usener. The argument makes unity prior to the many causes; it is not an aggregate created after they have been brought together. Eirmos, “chain,” suggests their connected sequence.

202.“Inseparable” describes nature as a cause present within the cosmos, in contrast to the higher causes considered separately from it. The long enumeration gives fate the whole connected process of natural generation, change, and completion. “Ends” means goals or completions, not merely points at which activity stops.

203.The apparatus identifies an embedded lyric quotation; its divine subject is unnamed here. Keklōstai is passive: necessity “has been spun,” rather than acting as the spinner. Adrasteia is explained as what cannot be escaped. The vertical stroke in the Greek marks the verse division.

204.“Self-complete” renders autotelēs, complete in itself. “Native to him” takes toutou to refer to the heavenly God, though the rational principle is also grammatically possible. Hoplon, “instrument,” can also mean weapon; the following sentence specifies the stars’ work as executing fate.

205.Republic 10.620d-621a, from the closing narrative about the souls’ choice of lives. The order is significant: the souls choose, and the divine spirits then accompany them to confirm and fulfill those choices.

206.Masculine forms in the Greek can refer to the person whose soul is described, as well as to the guiding daimōn. The closing journey to Forgetfulness is assigned here to the soul. Spinning makes the chosen life irreversible. Lēthē means “Forgetfulness.”

207.The heading attributes this to Aristotle’s letter to Alexander; the source identifies the passage as On the Cosmos, chapter 7, beginning at 401b8. The explanation plays on similarities between Greek words: anankē/anikētos, heimarmenē/eiresthai, peprōmenē/peperatōsthai, moira/memeristhai, nemesis/dianemēsis, adrasteia/anapodrastos, and aisa/aei ousa. These are the author’s explanatory wordplays, not equivalent derivations of the English terms. “This” continues a discussion of God outside the excerpt.

208.This explanation distributes the three Fates across past, future, and present. Compare the different sequence of their activities in the preceding excerpt from Plato. Here a mythical image is read as a description of temporal order.

209.Laws 4.715e, quoted also at the beginning of I.3.55a. The wording here is translated as it stands in this excerpt, including the tension between proceeding straight and moving around. The identification of all the named powers with God is the conclusion of the present author’s argument.