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 21 · I.21.heading–I.21.1.2

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Book I Chapter 21 · I.21.heading–I.21.1.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 492

Κεφάλαιον ΚΑʹ

I.21.heading

Περὶ κόσμου καὶ εἰ ἔμψυχος καὶ προνοίᾳ διοικούμενος καὶ ποῦ ἔχει τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν καὶ πόθεν τρέφεται.

1 Πλάτωνος · 1

I.21.1.1

Πλάτων τὸν κόσμον ἔφησε ζῷον ἔμψυχον ἔννουν τε, ὅτι τε ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ τρέφεται, τὸ δὲ ἡγεμονικὸν τοῦ κόσμου ἐν οὐρανῷ τίθεται. Λέγει γοῦν οὕτως ἐν τῷ Τιμαίῳ·

1 Πλάτωνος · 2

I.21.1.2

Βουληθεὶς γὰρ ὁ θεὸς ἀγαθὰ μὲν πάντα, φλαῦρον δὲ μηδὲν εἶναι κατὰ δύναμιν, οὕτω δὴ πᾶν ὅσον ἦν ὁρατὸν παραλαβὼν οὐχ ἡσυχίαν ἄγον, ἀλλὰ κινούμενον πλημμελῶς τε καὶ ἀτάκτως αὐτὸ ἤγαγεν ἐκ τῆς ἀταξίας, ἡγησάμενος ἐκεῖνο τούτου πάντως ἄμεινον· θέμις δὲ οὔτε ἦν οὔτε ἐστὶ τῷ ἀρίστῳ δρᾶν ἄλλο, πλὴν τὸ κάλλιστον.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 21

p. 493

Chapter 21: The World and Its Governance

I.21.heading

On the world: whether it has a soul and is governed by providence, where its ruling part is, and whence it is nourished.⁶¹⁷

1 Plato: The world as a living being

I.21.1.1

Plato said that the world is a living being endowed with soul and intelligence, and that it is nourished from itself; he places the world’s ruling part in heaven. Thus he speaks as follows in the Timaeus:⁶¹⁸

1 Plato: From disorder to order

I.21.1.2

For God wished everything to be good and nothing bad, so far as possible. He therefore took over all that was visible, which was not at rest but moving discordantly and without order, and brought it out of disorder, judging the former condition altogether better than the latter. For it neither was nor is right for the best to do anything but what is most beautiful.⁶¹⁹

617.The heading asks several connected questions about the world as a living and ordered whole. Hēgemonikon, “ruling part,” is the directing center of such a whole; the following authors locate it differently. Kosmos is usually “world” here, while to pan is “the all” or “the universe” where the distinction matters.

618.The introductory report belongs to the compiler’s presentation. The quotation that follows is Timaeus 30a-b, where the speaker Timaeus explains why divine craftsmanship places intelligence within soul and soul within body. The statement about nourishment is illustrated separately in excerpt 2.

619.“The former condition” is order, understood as the goal. Wachsmuth’s Stobaean text has “out of disorder” without the explicit “into order” familiar from the continuous text of Plato. The translation preserves that shorter wording rather than silently adding the missing expression.

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.