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 48 · I.48.heading–I.48.2

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Book I Chapter 48 · I.48.heading–I.48.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 948

Κεφάλαιον ΜΗʹ

I.48.heading

Περὶ νοῦ.

1 · Πλάτωνος

I.48.1

Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Φιλήβου.

Ἔγωγε ἡγεῖσθαι οἶμαι ξύμπαντας, ὅσοις νοῦ καὶ σμικρὸν προσήρτηται, μακρῷ ἀληθεστάτην εἶναι γνῶσιν.

2 · Πλάτωνος

I.48.2

Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Φαίδωνος.

Φέρε δή, πρὸς Διός· λέγεται ψυχὴ ἡ μὲν νοῦν τε ἔχειν καὶ ἀρετὴν καὶ εἶναι ἀγαθή, ἡ δὲ ἄνοιάν τε καὶ μοχθηρίαν καὶ εἶναι κακή; Καὶ ταῦτα ἀληθῶς λέγεται;

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 48

p. 949

Chapter 48: On intellect

I.48.heading

On intellect.¹²¹⁶

1 · Plato: the truest knowledge

I.48.1

From Plato, from the Philebus.

For my part, I think that everyone endowed with even a little intellect considers it by far the truest knowledge.¹²¹⁷

2 · Plato: intellect and excellence in the soul

I.48.2

From Plato, from the Phaedo.

Come now, by Zeus: is one soul said to possess intellect and excellence and to be good, while another possesses folly and wickedness and is bad? And are these things truly said?¹²¹⁸

1216.Nous is rendered “intellect” throughout this chapter; logos is normally “reason.” The eight excerpts address different questions about its nature, objects, and relation to soul and body. Decimal subdivisions of longer excerpts are editorial aids for comparing the facing languages. Wachsmuth records that the chapter heading is absent from manuscripts F and P.

1217.Philebus 58a. The excerpt omits the earlier words specifying knowledge of being, reality, and what always remains the same. “It” preserves that dependence on an absent antecedent; the English does not insert the omitted subject into Stobaeus’s Greek. The claim concerns a kind of knowledge, rather than identifying intellect itself as that knowledge.

1218.Phaedo 93b. Socrates is questioning the proposal that soul is a harmony. The contrast between a good and a bad soul forms part of that argument; this excerpt preserves the questions without the answer. Aretē, “excellence,” here has an ethical force alongside goodness and its opposite, wickedness.

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.