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.49.37.16–I.49.37.17

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Book I Chapter 49 · I.49.37.16–I.49.37.17

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Ancient Greek

p. 1196

37.16

I.49.37.16

τῶν δ᾽ αὖ διισταμένων πρὸς τούτους καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἔξωθεν προσφυομένων προστιθέντων ὁπωσοῦν τῇ ψυχῇ τὸ κακόν, ἀπὸ μὲν τῆς ὕλης Νουμηνίου καὶ Κρονίου πολλάκις, ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν σωμάτων αὐτῶν τούτων ἔστιν ὅτε καὶ Ἁρποκρατίωνος, ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς φύσεως καὶ τῆς ἀλόγου ζωῆς Πλωτίνου καὶ Πορφυρίου ὡς τὰ πολλά.

37.17

I.49.37.17

Κατὰ δὲ Ἀριστοτέλην εἴδεσι ζωῆς καὶ ἄλλοις ὅροις ταῦτα χωρὶς ἐπὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων διακέκριται. Κατὰ δ᾽ αὖ τοὺς Στωικοὺς ἀτελέστερα ἀεὶ ἀπομερίζεται τὰ τοιαῦτα τῆς ζωῆς ἐνεργήματα καὶ ὅσῳ ἂν ᾖ προϊόντα προσωτέρω τῆς ἀλογίας, τοσῷδε μᾶλλον ἐπὶ τὸ ἀτελέστερον ἀποφέρεται τὰ καταδεέστερα τῶν πρεσβυτέρων.

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 49

p. 1197

37.16 · Evil arising from external attachments

I.49.37.16

Others, in turn, disagree with these accounts and attach evil to soul in one way or another through things that adhere to it from outside: Numenius and Cronius often derive it from matter; these same thinkers, and Harpocration, sometimes derive it from bodies; Plotinus and Porphyry usually derive it from nature and irrational life.¹⁴⁷⁰

37.17 · Human activities and degrees of imperfection

I.49.37.17

According to Aristotle, these things are distinguished separately in the human sphere by forms of life and other defining criteria. According to the Stoics, such operations of life are apportioned in ever less complete forms; and the further they proceed into irrationality, the more the inferior operations are carried toward incompleteness in comparison with the prior ones.¹⁴⁷¹

1470.The unfinished genitive construction is made into an independent English sentence. Its contrast is with the preceding causes of downward activity. The qualifications “often,” “sometimes,” and “usually” are all retained: the author does not assign each thinker one invariable explanation. Matter, bodies, nature, and irrational life remain distinct proposed sources rather than interchangeable terms.

1471.The Aristotle sentence is compressed: “these things” resumes the activities and distinctions under discussion, without supplying a specific list. The Stoic comparison is also difficult. “Further into irrationality” gives the contextual sense of prosōterō tēs alogias provisionally; the genitive construction could otherwise suggest “beyond irrationality.” The repeated contrast between greater and lesser completeness guides the translation, while the Greek is left unchanged.

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.