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.49.32.3–I.49.32.4

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Book I Chapter 49 · I.49.32.3–I.49.32.4

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Ancient Greek

p. 1148

32.3

I.49.32.3

Τινὲς εἰς τὰς τῶν τεσσάρων στοιχείων ἀρχὰς τὴν οὐσίαν τῆς ψυχῆς ἐπαναφέρουσιν. Εἶναι μὲν γὰρ τὰ πρῶτα σώματα ἄτομα, πρὸ τῶν τεσσάρων στοιχείων στοιχειωδέστερα· εἰλικρινῆ δ᾽ ὄντα καὶ πεπληρωμένα πάντῃ καθαρᾶς πρώτης οὐσίας μὴ δέχεσθαι μηδ᾽ ὁποσονοῦν εἰς αὐτὰ διαίρεσιν. Ταῦτα τοίνυν ἄπειρα ἔχειν σχήματα, ἓν δὲ αὐτῶν εἶναι τὸ σφαιροειδές, ἀπὸ δὴ τῶν σφαιροειδῶν ἀτόμων εἶναι τὴν ψυχήν.

32.4

I.49.32.4

Ὡς δὲ τῶν Ἀριστοτελικῶν τινες ὑφηγοῦνται, εἶδός ἐστι τὸ περὶ τοῖς σώμασιν, ἢ ποιότης ἁπλῆ ἀσώματος ἢ ποιότης οὐσιώδης τελεία· ᾗ παράκειται δόξῃ οὐ παραδοθεῖσα μέν, δυναμένη δὲ πιθανῶς λέγεσθαι αἵρεσις, ἡ τὴν συνδρομὴν τῶν ὅλων ποιοτήτων καὶ τὸ ἐν αὐτῶν κεφάλαιον, εἴτε τὸ ἐπιγιγνόμενον ἢ τὸ προϋπάρχον, τιθεμένη τὴν ψυχήν.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 49

p. 1149

32.3 · Soul composed of spherical atoms

I.49.32.3

Some refer the substance of soul to the principles underlying the four elements. The primary bodies, they say, are indivisible, prior to the four elements and more elementary than they. Being unmixed and entirely filled with pure primary substance, they admit no division into themselves, however small. These bodies have infinitely many shapes, of which the spherical is one; and soul is composed of the spherical atoms.¹⁴¹⁶

32.4 · Form, quality, and their totality

I.49.32.4

As some Aristotelians explain it, soul is the form associated with bodies, or a simple incorporeal quality, or a complete essential quality. Beside this opinion stands a position that has not been handed down but could plausibly be proposed: it makes soul the concurrence of all the qualities and the totality constituted from them, whether that which arises subsequently or that which exists beforehand.¹⁴¹⁷

1416.The apparatus associates this account with Leucippus and Democritus and compares Aristotle, On the Soul I.2. Atoma means indivisible bodies, hence “atoms.” The report distinguishes these primary bodies from the four elements whose principles they are; it does not make soul a mixture of those four elements.

1417.The first alternatives are reported as Aristotelian explanations. The following position is explicitly a possible proposal, not an attested teaching assigned to a named philosopher. Kephalaion here is a total or summation. The contrast between what arises subsequently and what preexists is retained rather than resolved in favor of either alternative. The unusual printed peri tois sōmasin is kept in Greek. The phrase en autōn is also irregular: “totality constituted from them” gives the contextual sense provisionally, without changing the printed preposition.

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.