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← ExitStobaeus, Volume II

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Book II Chapter 9

Eusebius continued

“Souls of human beings, whose nature is to be mortal as well as immortal, who encounter death in what is called life on earth and receive life again in what seems death there:⁹³⁵ when the time appointed for you has run its course and you are again released from the body that received you in death there, the lives due to you, corresponding to your earthly life, will receive you again.⁹³⁶

Eusebius continued

And that is why I counsel you—I, Reason, prophet and counselor of the great god Hermes and of the other gods.⁹³⁷ For those who disobey I foretell mortal evils, while for those who obey there will be good things like those of the gods.⁹³⁸

Eusebius continued

You must therefore not choose great evils that endure for all time for the sake of some pleasure that is extremely brief, counterfeit, and easily dissipated, nor damage the longest life that follows by means of the shortest life.⁹³⁹ Nor, from fear of a little toil, must you throw away great goods that endure for all time and the happiness of the longest life that follows.”⁹⁴⁰

Hierocles, from How One Should Deal with the Gods

Understanding the following also seems to me to contribute greatly to dealing well with the gods: a god never becomes the cause of any evil; these evils arise from vice alone.⁹⁴¹ The gods, so far as depends on them, cause good and useful things, while we are the ones who refuse their benefactions and surround ourselves with evils of our own choosing.⁹⁴²

Hierocles continued

That poetic saying seems timely to me at this point: “mortals” blame the “gods,” as though their evils were sent by them,

but they themselves too through their own recklessness have pains beyond their allotted fate.⁹⁴³

For one ⟨might⟩ understand from many considerations that the god is in no way whatsoever the cause of evils; for the present, however, that argument of Plato’s might perhaps suffice. “For cooling,” he says, “does not belong to what is hot, but the opposite; nor does warming belong to what is cold, but the opposite. Accordingly, doing harm does not belong to a doer of good either, but the opposite.”⁹⁴⁴

Hierocles continued

Moreover, the god is good, filled from the very beginning with all the virtues. Accordingly, the god could not produce evil or be the cause of any evils; on the contrary, he offers every good thing to all who are willing to receive it. Along with good things, he also grants some of the intermediate things: those that accord with nature for us and produce what accords with nature.⁹⁴⁵ There is one sole cause of evils: ⟨vice⟩.⁹⁴⁶

Hierocles continued

These distinctions must be understood: the gods are the causes of good things, and vice of bad things. What, then, causes us to fare badly? Since some intermediate things are contrary to nature and difficult to use—or, by Zeus, produce things of that kind—it is worth applying the present distinction to them too: I mean illness, physical impairment, death, poverty, reputation, and the like.⁹⁴⁷ Vice too, then, is naturally capable of producing many of these, and ⟨indeed⟩ many illnesses and many impairments result from lack of self-control and lust. Because of injustice many have had their hands cut off and suffered other such mutilations, while many have even died outright.⁹⁴⁸

Hierocles continued

Vice also frequently frustrates the humane art of medicine, contrary to its own purpose. For the aids provided by the art become ineffectual through patients’ disobedience, lack of self-control, and avoidance of exertion.⁹⁴⁹ Moreover, wastefulness and extravagance have made many people poor and destitute; shameful profit-seeking and meanness have made many disreputable. After vice, however, matter is a second cause of such things.⁹⁵⁰

Hierocles continued

For things aloft and above us proceed evenly, as things that have come to be from the purest substance, with everything in them being accomplished according to nature’s rational principles.⁹⁵¹ But earthly things, having as their substance, as it were, the sediment and mud of the whole… [text missing]⁹⁵²

Musonius

All of us, he said, have a natural constitution that enables us to live without wrongdoing and nobly; it is not that one of us can and another cannot.⁹⁵³ Strong evidence for this is that lawmakers prescribe what everyone must do and prohibit what they must not do, equally for all. They exempt none of those who disobey or do wrong from punishment: neither young nor old, strong nor weak, nor anyone whatsoever.⁹⁵⁴

Musonius continued

Yet if virtue were something brought in wholly from outside, with no share in it belonging to us by nature, the following ought to hold: just as no one is expected to be free from error in the work of the other arts without having learned the art, so no one who had not learned virtue ought to be expected to be free from wrongdoing in the conduct of life.⁹⁵⁵ For virtue alone makes one avoid wrongdoing in life.⁹⁵⁶

935.The address belongs to Reason’s speech. Its contrast reverses ordinary descriptions of life and death: earthly life is called an encounter with death, while what seems death there returns life to the soul. The body’s receiving the souls in death belongs to that same contrast.

936.Βίοι οἱ ὀφειλόμενοι are the lives due or owed to the souls. Their correspondence with the earthly life is expressed by τρόπον τῆς ἐπὶ γῆς ζωῆς. The address does not promise an identical fate to every soul; the next unit distinguishes the consequences of obedience and disobedience.

937.The first-person speaker now names himself as λόγος, Reason, resuming the figure introduced by the narrator. Hermes is explicitly named as the great god, alongside the other gods. Προφήτης can mean a prophet or spokesman; these are Reason’s roles within the imagined proclamation.

938.The printed θνητά, mortal, is retained despite the following warning about enduring harms. The apparatus proposes replacements meaning unending or immortal; those are not used in the translation. The Ionic ὁμοιεύμενα describes the promised goods as like those of the gods.

939.Κίβδηλος is counterfeit or spurious, and εὐδιασκέδαστος easily dissipated. The speech contrasts the shortest earthly life and its passing pleasures with the longest life afterward. Both evils and goods are described as remaining for all time, τὸν πάντα χρόνον; the English preserves that full duration.

940.The Ionic εὐδαιμονίη is happiness, here the promised good condition of the ensuing life. The conclusion urges the souls to endure limited toil rather than relinquish those lasting goods. This closes Reason’s continuous speech and the Eusebius excerpt; the following Hierocles attribution begins a new excerpt.

941.The attribution supplies both Hierocles’s name and the title of his work. Χρῆσθαι θεοῖς concerns how one deals with the gods. The opening distinguishes κακία, moral vice, from the evils it causes; the excerpt later considers the different status of illness, poverty, and other external hardships.

942.Τὸ ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῖς qualifies the gods’ agency: so far as depends on them, or for their part. Αὐθαίρετος means chosen by oneself. The clause emphasizes human refusal of divine benefactions rather than attributing moral evil to the gods.

943.Homer, Odyssey 1.32–34: Zeus complains that mortals blame the gods while bringing additional suffering upon themselves through recklessness. Hierocles paraphrases the opening and quotes the end of line 33 and line 34. Ὑπὲρ μόρον is beyond one’s allotted fate; the context is Aegisthus’s disregard of a divine warning.

944.Compare Plato, Republic 335D, where Socrates argues that the good cannot harm. Hierocles adapts the comparison: Plato pairs heat and cooling with dryness and moistening, whereas this excerpt pairs heat and cooling with cold and warming. The local wording is retained. Supplied ⟨ἄν⟩ in the preceding sentence is represented by ⟨might⟩.

945.Τὰ μέσα, intermediate things, are the things classed as morally indifferent, distinct from virtue and vice. Here the partitive τῶν μέσων refers to those that accord with nature and produce what accords with nature, rather than to all indifferents. Rejected [τὰ], the article before ποιητικά, remains in Greek but is omitted from English.

946.The subject ⟨ἡ κακία⟩ is supplied in the source edition and remains marked as ⟨vice⟩. The claim concerns moral evils; the next part asks separately about external hardships, distinguishing their causes from the gods’ goodness.

947.Τὰ μέσα, intermediate things, are neither virtue nor vice in themselves, even when contrary to nature. The printed δόξης means reputation; it is retained despite sitting awkwardly among these examples. The later ἀδόξους explicitly describes people without a good reputation.

948.Supplied ⟨δή⟩ is rendered ⟨indeed⟩. The excerpt attributes many such outcomes to vice, without saying that every illness or death has that cause. Its examples connect mutilation and death with injustice; matter is subsequently introduced as another cause.

949.Φιλάνθρωπος, humane or benevolent toward human beings, characterizes the purpose of medicine. In this ancient ethical account, the patients’ conduct can frustrate the art’s attempted remedies; the examples continue the argument about vice as a cause of external misfortune.

950.Πρόφασις introduces a further cause or occasion of external hardship. The following lines explain ὕλη, matter, through a contrast between the heavenly and earthly realms. This material cause is distinguished from κακία, moral vice.

951.Μετέωρα refers to things aloft, here contrasted with earthly things, and λόγοι to nature’s rational principles. The description belongs to the excerpt’s account of heavenly regularity and earthly material limitations.

952.Ὑποστάθμη is sediment or dregs, and ἰλύς mud or silt. The metaphor makes the earthly realm the material residue of the whole. The printed gap follows οὐσίαν, substance, leaving this final contrast grammatically unfinished.

953.The heading names Musonius; Hense’s 1905 collection numbers this discourse 2, whereas the anthology locator here remains II.9.8. The reporting verb ἔφη, he said, preserves the form of a recorded teaching. The opening asserts a shared natural capacity to live well; it does not say that everyone already possesses fully developed virtue.

954.Ἀναμαρτήτως means without error or wrongdoing. The reference to laws emphasizes wrongdoing here; the following comparisons extend the language of error to practical skills. The lawmakers’ universal demands are offered as evidence for the capacity asserted in the opening.

955.Ἐπείσακτος means introduced or brought in from outside. This is a conditional argument: if virtue were entirely acquired without any natural basis, an untrained person should be excused as in other arts. It is not a denial that virtue requires learning and practice.

956.Τέχνη denotes an art or trained skill. The passage moves between errors in skilled work and wrongdoing in life, using the same family of words, ἁμαρτάνω and ἀναμάρτητος. Virtue is presented as what enables right conduct, while the question concerns its natural basis.