Stobaeus, Volume I

Name: Stobaeus, Volume I
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek with an independent English translation.

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Stobaeus, Volume IBook I Chapter 49 · I.49.5.2–I.49.5.3

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English Page · Branch 498 of 879

Book I Chapter 49 · I.49.5.2–I.49.5.3

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Ancient Greek

p. 992

5.2

I.49.5.2

Ὅσων μὲν οὖν τῇ γενέσει φθορὰ ἐπακολουθεῖ, τούτοις δύο κινήσεις παρακολουθεῖν ἀνάγκη, τήν τε ⟨τῆς⟩ ψυχῆς ὑφ᾽ ἧς κινεῖται καὶ τὴν τοῦ σώματος ὑφ᾽ ἧς αὔξεται καὶ φθίνει, ἔτι δὲ καὶ ἀναλυθέντος ἀναλύεται. Ταύτην ὁρίζομαι τὴν κίνησιν τῶν φθαρτῶν σωμάτων. Ἡ δὲ ψυχὴ ἀεικίνητος, ὅτι ἀεὶ ἐν αὐτῇ κινεῖται καὶ ἄλλοις κίνησιν ἐνεργεῖ. Κατὰ τοῦτον οὖν τὸν λόγον ἐστὶ ψυχὴ πᾶσα ἀθάνατος καὶ ἀεικίνητος, ἔχουσα κίνησιν τὴν αὑτῆς ἐνέργειαν.

5.3

I.49.5.3

Ἰδέαι δὲ ψυχῶν· θεία, ἀνθρωπίνη, ἄλογος. Ἡ μὲν οὖν θεία τοῦ θείου σώματος ⟨δι᾽⟩ αὑτῆς ἐνέργεια. Ἐν μὲν γὰρ αὐτῇ κινεῖται καὶ αὐτὸ κινεῖ. Ἐπὰν γὰρ θνητῶν ζῴων ἀπαλλαγῇ, χωρισθεῖσα τῶν ἀλόγων ἑαυτῆς μερῶν, ἐξελθοῦσα εἰς τὸ θεῖον σῶμα ὡς ἀεικίνητος ἐν ἑαυτῇ κινεῖται, συμπεριφερομένη τῷ παντί.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 49

p. 993

5.2 · Two motions in mortal creatures

I.49.5.2

In things whose coming into being is followed by destruction, two motions must accompany them: that ⟨of⟩ soul, by which each is moved, and that of body, by which it grows and declines; moreover, when the body is dissolved, it too is dissolved. This I define as the motion of perishable bodies.¹²⁶⁸ Soul, however, is always in motion, because it always moves within itself and brings about motion in other things. On this account every soul is immortal and always in motion, having its own activity as its motion.¹²⁶⁹

5.3 · The divine soul

I.49.5.3

The forms of soul are divine, human, and irrational. The divine soul, then, is the activity of the divine body, acting ⟨through⟩ itself. For it moves within itself and moves that body. When it is freed from mortal living creatures, separated from its own irrational parts, and has gone out into the divine body, it moves within itself as something always in motion, revolving together with the universe.¹²⁷⁰

1268.The Greek moves from plural “things” to singular verbs and leaves the subject of “is dissolved” implicit. The English takes it as the mortal living thing, with “the body” supplied as the subject of the preceding participle. The reference is compressed; it is not rendered as the destruction of soul, which the next sentences expressly deny.

1269.The supplied Greek article tēs marks the soul’s possession of its motion; English requires “of.” Soul’s activity is treated as intrinsic, in contrast to the bodily process of growth and decline. “Within itself” follows the printed en autēi, Wachsmuth’s correction.

1270.The supplemented di’ makes the activity operate “through itself”; the clause remains highly compressed. The “divine body” is associated here with cosmic revolution, but the excerpt does not give a fuller identification. The pronouns distinguish the soul moving within itself from the body it moves.

About This Reading Edition

Stobaeus gathered Greek philosophy and poetry for his son Septimius. Volume I presents the dedication testimony, On Arithmetic, Book I through chapter 60, and the ancient contents of all four books. This complete bilingual edition includes an introduction and 2,117 explanatory notes.

Historical Text and Translation

The Greek follows Curt Wachsmuth’s 1884 Volume I, checked against the supplied scan. Gaps, lost-chapter headings, and uncertain attributions remain visible. Chapter 2 includes a labeled proposed reconstruction. The appendix outlines Books I–IV; the full texts of Books II–IV are outside this volume. Reader pages preserve the companion PDF’s numbering.

About Diotimos Editions

Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation directly from the Greek. Prose and verse retain their distinct forms, with mixed passages preserving their quoted verse. Every passage is paired with its Greek and identified by the edition’s reference number. All 2,117 notes remain linked to their passages, with continuous numbering across the introduction and text.

Rights

Stobaeus’s ancient Greek work and Wachsmuth’s 1884 printing are in the public domain. The independent English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. The complete supplied edition is available as PDF, EPUB, Word, and Markdown. The PDF retains the fixed page locations used by the companion lexicon.