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← ExitStobaeus, Volume II

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Book II Chapter 7

Law the Law-Abiding and the Interpreter of Law

They say that law is excellent, being right reason that commands what is to be done and prohibits what is not to be done.⁴⁰¹ Since law is morally excellent, the law-abiding person too would ⟨be⟩ morally excellent. For a law-abiding man is one who follows law and performs what it commands; a person versed in law is one capable of explaining law. No base person is either law-abiding or versed in law.⁴⁰²

Correct Actions and Errors

Again, they say that some activities are correct actions, some errors, and some neither. Correct actions include thinking wisely, exercising temperance, acting justly, rejoicing, doing good, feeling glad, walking wisely—everything done in accordance with right reason.⁴⁰³ Errors include acting foolishly, acting intemperately, acting unjustly, feeling distress, feeling fear, stealing, and in general everything done contrary to right reason.⁴⁰⁴

Activities of Neither Kind

Activities such as speaking, asking questions, answering, walking, traveling abroad, and similar things are neither correct actions nor errors.⁴⁰⁵

Names Applied to Correct Actions

All correct actions are just actions, lawful actions, orderly actions, good pursuits, successful actions, acts of living happily, timely actions, and seemly actions.⁴⁰⁶ They are not, however, all acts of practical wisdom: only those proceeding from practical wisdom are such. The same applies to the other virtues, even if they have not been named—for example acts of temperance proceed from temperance, and acts of justice from justice. Errors, by the opposite descriptions, are unjust actions, unlawful actions, and disorderly actions.⁴⁰⁷

Choice Desire Wish and Acceptance

They say that, just as what is choiceworthy differs from what is to be chosen, so what is worthy of desire differs from what is to be desired, what is worthy of wish from what is to be wished for, and what is worthy of acceptance from what is to be accepted.⁴⁰⁸ For ⟨goods⟩ are choiceworthy, worthy of wish and desire ⟨and acceptance; benefits, however, are to be chosen, wished for, and desired⟩ and accepted, being predicates associated with goods.⁴⁰⁹

Having and Predicates

For we choose what is to be chosen, wish for what is to be wished for, and desire what is to be desired. Choices, desires, and wishes concern predicates, just as impulses do.⁴¹⁰ We do, however, choose, wish, and likewise desire to have goods; hence goods are choiceworthy, worthy of wish, and worthy of desire. For we choose to have practical wisdom and temperance—not, by Zeus, to have “thinking wisely” and “exercising temperance,” which are incorporeal and predicates.⁴¹¹

Enduring Holding To and Their Opposites

Similarly, they say that all goods are worthy of being endured and held to, and the analogy applies to the other virtues, even if they have not been named. All benefits are to be endured and held to, and the like.⁴¹² They likewise understand a difference between what is worthy of caution and what is to be guarded against, and between what is unworthy of being endured and what is not to be endured. The same account applies to the other cases concerning the vices.⁴¹³

Completeness and Divine Happiness

They say that every noble and good man is complete, because he falls short of no virtue; the base person, on the contrary, is incomplete, because he participates in no virtue.⁴¹⁴ Hence good people are always happy in every respect, while base people are unhappy. And ⟨their⟩ happiness does not differ from divine happiness. Chrysippus says that even happiness lasting a single day does not differ from the happiness of Zeus, ⟨and⟩ that Zeus’s happiness is in no respect more choiceworthy, nobler, or more august than that of wise men.⁴¹⁵

Two Kinds of Human Beings

For Zeno and the Stoic philosophers who follow him hold that there are two kinds of human beings, the virtuous and the base. Throughout life the virtuous employ the virtues, and the base the vices. Hence the former always act correctly in everything they undertake, while the latter err.⁴¹⁶ The virtuous person, employing his experience in the affairs of life, does everything well in his actions—that is, wisely, temperately, and in accordance with the other virtues; the base person, on the contrary, does things badly.⁴¹⁷

Greatness Height and Strength

The virtuous person is great, fully grown, lofty, and strong. Great, because he can reach the things that accord with his choice and lie before him; fully grown, because he has grown in every direction; lofty, because he possesses the height befitting a noble and wise man; and strong, because he has acquired the strength befitting him, being undefeated and unconquerable.⁴¹⁸

401.The opening defines νόμος by right reason, not simply by the existence of an enacted rule. Its commands and prohibitions concern what is and is not to be done. The printed προστακτικόν, “commanding,” is retained.

402.Νόμιμος concerns following law and acting on its commands, whereas νομικός concerns explaining it. The source’s distinction has not been reduced to two interchangeable labels for a professional lawyer. The supplied εἴη is expressed by ⟨be⟩. The preceding ἄν supplies the potential force “would.”

403.The list includes rejoicing and gladness, χαίρειν and εὐφραίνεσθαι; these are not replaced by ἡδονή, the passion of pleasure defined above. The qualification “wisely” belongs to walking in this first list and matters for the contrast with unqualified walking below.

404.Distress and fear are included as passions in the strict sense of the preceding account. The classification is the source’s, grounded in conformity or opposition to right reason. Wachsmuth’s apparatus records a proposed gap after “stealing,” but his printed Greek does not mark one or insert the suggested additional examples; none are added here.

405.These name activities without specifying their virtuous or vicious manner. “Walking” here differs from “walking wisely” in the preceding list. The classification does not make every instance of speech or travel morally beyond assessment, regardless of how it is performed.

406.The series gives several general names for every correct action. “Successful actions” renders εὐτυχήματα in this ethical series; it should not be read as a promise of material good fortune. Εὐδαιμονήματα concerns living happily. The terms name acts, rather than changing the earlier distinction between an activity and the virtue one possesses.

407.The source then restricts φρονιμεύματα to acts proceeding from practical wisdom and applies an analogous restriction to the other virtues. It thus distinguishes the general δικαιοπραγήματα, “just actions,” from δικαιώματα as acts proceeding from justice in this particular terminology. Both claims are retained, despite their apparent tension in ordinary English.

408.The verbal-adjective contrast, -τός / -τέος, extends the distinction at II.7.6f.1. “Worthy of” and “to be” keep it visible without merging the four kinds of orientation. Βούλησις remains “wish,” as in II.7.9a.2, rather than the passion “craving.”

409.Wachsmuth’s long supplement runs from καὶ ἀποδεκτά through ὀρεκτέα, including τἀγαθά, “goods.” English requires the subject earlier, so that supplied word is separately bracketed at its translated position; the rest of the supplied span follows. Benefits are called predicates associated with goods. They are not simply identified with the goods themselves.

410.Compare II.7.9b, where impulses are directed toward predicates and assents toward propositions. This paragraph explains why one chooses an activity associated with a good, while choosing to have the good itself.

411.The contrast concerns having. As Wachsmuth explains in the apparatus, ἔχειν, “to have,” is understood again with “thinking wisely” and “exercising temperance.” Those activities are predicates, whereas practical wisdom and temperance are the virtues one has. The sentence therefore does not prohibit choosing virtuous activity, which II.7.6f.1 explicitly presents as chosen. “By Zeus” retains the source’s emphatic μὰ Δία.

412.This closely repeats II.7.6f.2, with the same “worthy of being” / “to be” distinction. Wachsmuth again prints ἀρετῶν, “virtues,” although his apparatus records a reading concerning “choiceworthy things.” The reference to all goods is retained rather than restricted to hardships.

413.Εὐλαβητά / εὐλαβητέα extends the distinction to caution, and ἀνυπομενετά / ἀνυπομενετέα to what is not to be endured. The final reference to the vices is compressed; no further examples are invented. This closes II.7.11f. The next source subdivision, II.7.11g, turns to the completeness and happiness of the virtuous person.

414.“Complete” renders τέλειος: the reason given is lacking none of the virtues. Compare their mutual implication at II.7.5b5 and the account of happiness at II.7.6. The text makes an absolute contrast between virtue and vice; “always” and “in every respect” are explicit qualifications of the good person’s happiness.

415.Wachsmuth supplies ἐκείνων, “their,” and the connecting καί. He prints Madvig’s correction ἀμεραίαν, “of a single day,” in place of ἀμεριμνίαν, “freedom from care.” The English follows the printed correction. The comparison is between happinesses, including their choiceworthiness and nobility; it does not identify a human being with Zeus or claim equality in every power.

416.Κατορθοῦν and ἁμαρτάνειν resume correct action and error at II.7.11a. The distinction concerns the ethical character of action; it does not guarantee attainment of every external object one undertakes to pursue.

417.The explanation “wisely, temperately, and in accordance with the other virtues” specifies the sense of doing everything well. Compare the qualification of ordinary activities by virtue at II.7.11e. The English retains the reference to experience in the affairs of life, rather than reducing the claim to abstract knowledge alone.

418.The explanations give these descriptions an ethical sense rather than referring to bodily dimensions. Ἁδρός is “fully grown” or mature; the following ηὐξημένος sustains the growth image. Κατὰ προαίρεσιν retains the reference to choice, without importing a further technical definition of προαίρεσις from another author. “Befitting” renders the repeated ἐπιβάλλων.