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.49.44.21–I.49.44.22

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 631 of 879

Book I Chapter 49 · I.49.44.21–I.49.44.22

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Ancient Greek

p. 1258

44.21

I.49.44.21

Τοσαῦτα εἰπὼν ὁ θεός, ὁ κἀμοῦ κύριος, τὰ λοιπὰ τῶν στοιχείων συγγενῆ μίξας, ὕδωρ καὶ γῆν, καί τινας ὁμοίως κρυπτοὺς ἐπειπὼν λόγους, δυνατοὺς μέν, οὐ τοῖς πρώτοις δ᾽ ὁμοίους, εὖ τε κινήσας καὶ ζωοποιὸν ἐνθουσιάσας τῷ κράματι ἐπιπλέοντα ὁμοίως ἐπίπαγον εὐβαφῆ τε καὶ εὐπαγῆ γενόμενον ἔλαβε καὶ ἐκ τούτου τὰ ἀνθρωποειδῆ τῶν ζῴων διέπλασε. Τὸ δὲ τοῦ μίγματος λείψανον ταῖς ἤδη προκοψάσαις ψυχαῖς ἔδωκε.

44.22

I.49.44.22

Ψυχαῖς δὲ ταύταις ταῖς εἰς χωρία θεῶν καὶ τοὺς ἐγγὺς ἄστρων τόπους καὶ ἱεροὺς δαίμονας μετακεκλημέναις “πλάσσετε”, λέγων, “ὦ τέκνα, τῆς ἐμῆς φύσεως γεννήματα, δέχεσθε τῆς ἐμῆς τέχνης τὰ λείψανα καὶ ἑκάστη τῇ ἑαυτῆς φύσει πλασσέτω τι παραπλήσιον· παραθήσομαι δ᾽ ἔτι καὶ ταῦθ᾽ ὑμῖν παραδείγματα”,

Stobaeus, Volume I: Book I Chapter 49

p. 1259

44.21 · The creator shapes humanlike forms

I.49.44.21

Having said this, the god, who is my lord as well, mixed the remaining kindred elements, water and earth, and pronounced further words, likewise secret: powerful, certainly, but unlike the first. He stirred the mixture well and breathed life-giving inspiration into it. He then took a film that likewise floated upon it, well imbued and firmly set, and from this fashioned the humanlike forms among living creatures. He gave the remainder of the mixture to the souls that had already advanced.¹⁵³²

44.22 · The souls receive a task

I.49.44.22

To these souls, summoned into the regions of gods, the places near the stars, and among sacred divine spirits, he said: “Shape things, my children, offspring of my nature. Receive the remnants of my art, and let each of you fashion something resembling her own nature. I shall also set these before you as models.”¹⁵³³

1532.Isis continues her account. The Greek leaves the object of “life-giving” unstated; “inspiration” expresses the action of enthousiasas rather than inserting pneuma into the transcription. Epipagos is the congealed surface film already encountered in the making of souls. Eubaphēs, rendered “well imbued,” concerns its saturation or taking of a dye; it is not silently replaced with “well formed.” These humanlike forms precede the later construction of human bodies in the narrative.

1533.The construction places “sacred divine spirits” beside regions and places as a destination; “among” makes the sense possible in English without adopting the apparatus’s proposed genitive. The printed command plassete, “shape,” is retained even though Wachsmuth questions it and considers “take” or deletion. The feminine “her” follows the grammatical gender of each soul; it does not establish a biological sex.

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.