Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

John Stobaeus

Stobaeus, Volume II

Name: Stobaeus, Volume II
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.

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Stobaeus, Volume IIBook II Chapter 1 · II.1.13–II.1.16

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Book II Chapter 1 · II.1.13–II.1.16

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Ancient Greek

p. 16

Πλουτάρχου ἐκ τοῦ περὶ Ἴσιδος

II.1.13

Ἀνθρώπων δὲ ψυχαῖς ἐνταυθοῖ μὲν ὑπὸ σωμάτων καὶ παθῶν περιεχομέναις οὐκ ἔστι μετουσία θεοῦ, πλὴν ὅσον ὀνείρατος ἀμαυροῦ θιγεῖν νοήσει διὰ φιλοσοφίας.

Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Πολιτικοῦ

II.1.14

Χαλεπόν, ὦ δαιμόνιε, μὴ παραδείγμασι χρώμενον ἱκανῶς ἐνδείξασθαί τι τῶν μειζόνων. Κινδυνεύει γὰρ ἡμῶν ἕκαστος, οἷον ὄναρ εἰδὼς ἕκαστα, πάντα αὖ πάλιν ὥσπερ ὕπαρ ἀγνοεῖν.

Πλάτωνος ἐκ τοῦ Τιμαίου

II.1.15

Τὸν μὲν οὖν ποιητὴν καὶ πατέρα τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς εὑρεῖν τε ἔργον, καὶ εὑρόντα εἰς πάντας ἀδύνατον λέγειν.

Ἰαμβλίχου ἐκ τοῦ Περὶ ψυχῆς

II.1.16

Πόσῳ δὴ οὖν βέλτιον Ἡράκλειτος παίδων ἀθύρματα νενόμικεν εἶναι τὰ ἀνθρώπινα δοξάσματα.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 1

p. 17

Plutarch from On Isis

II.1.13

For human souls, enclosed here in bodies and passions, there is no participation in God beyond touching a dim dream in thought through philosophy.²⁰

Plato from the Statesman

II.1.14

It is difficult, my good friend, to explain any of the greater matters adequately without using examples. For each of us seems to know particular things as though in a dream, yet then to be ignorant of them all again as though awake.²¹

Plato from the Timaeus

II.1.15

To find the maker and father of this universe is a difficult task; and having found him, it is impossible to speak of him to everyone.²²

Iamblichus from On the Soul

II.1.16

How much better, then, Heraclitus judged human opinions to be children’s playthings.²³

20.On Isis and Osiris 79, 382F. The exception is essential: thought through philosophy affords a limited, dreamlike contact. Μετουσία is participation or a share in; the excerpt does not make it equivalent to ordinary sensory perception.

21.Statesman 277D. Παράδειγμα here is an explanatory example or model. The dream comparison exposes an unstable grasp of what one knows; it is not presented as evidence that dreams reliably disclose truth.

22.Timaeus 28C. The noun printed here is ποιητής, “maker,” not δημιουργός, “craftsman” or “demiurge,” although the passage concerns the same cosmological context. The qualification “to everyone” must not be omitted: this sentence does not simply say that nothing at all can be said.

23.This is Iamblichus’s report of Heraclitus, with Iamblichus’s approving comparison “how much better.” The report should not be presented as an unmediated quotation from a surviving book by Heraclitus.

About This Reading Edition

The complete surviving text of Stobaeus’s second book, through II.46.22, in Ancient Greek and English, with an introduction and 1,541 explanatory notes. All forty-six chapter headings remain, including the notices for chapters whose texts are missing.

Historical Text and Translation

Greek: Curt Wachsmuth, Ioannis Stobaei Anthologii libri duo priores, volumen II (Berlin: Weidmann, 1884), printed p. 1 and pp. 3–264. The supplied edition preserves consequential editorial signs, reconstructed joins, qualified attributions, and missing-text notices. English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes: Diotimos Editions, 2026.

About Diotimos Editions

This historical edition credits Diotimos Editions as its English translator.

Rights

Stobaeus’s ancient Greek work and Wachsmuth’s 1884 edition are in the public domain. The supplied English translation, introduction, and explanatory notes are published with the site owner’s authorization.