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 7 · II.7.5b12.3–II.7.5b13

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Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.5b12.3–II.7.5b13

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Ancient Greek

p. 214

Ὁσιότης καὶ ἑορτή

II.7.5b12.3

Ὁμοίως δὲ μηδ’ ὁσίους εἶναί φασι τοὺς φαύλους. Τὴν γὰρ ὁσιότητα ὑπογράφεσθαι δικαιοσύνην πρὸς θεούς· τοὺς δὲ φαύλους παρεκβαίνειν πολλὰ τῶν πρὸς θεοὺς δικαίων, παρ’ ὃ καὶ ἀνοσίους εἶναι καὶ ἀκαθάρους καὶ ἀνάγνους καὶ μιαροὺς καὶ ἀνεορτάστους.

Τὸ γὰρ ἑορτάζειν ἀστείου φασὶν εἶναι, τῆς ἑορτῆς οὔσης χρόνου τινὸς ἐν ᾧ χρὴ περὶ τὸ θεῖον γίγνεσθαι τιμῆς χάριν καὶ καθηκούσης ἐπισημασίας, ὅθεν καὶ τὸν ἑορτάζοντα συγκαθεικέναι δεῖ μετ’ εὐσεβείας εἰς τὴν τοιαύτην τάξιν.

Ἄγνοια καὶ μανία

II.7.5b13

Ἔτι δὲ λέγουσι πάντα φαῦλον μαίνεσθαι, ἄγνοιαν ἔχοντα αὑτοῦ καὶ τῶν καθ’ αὑτόν, ὅπερ ἐστὶ μανία. Τὴν δ’ ἄγνοιαν εἶναι ἐναντίαν κακίαν τῇ φρονήσει· ταύτην δὲ πρός τί πως ἔχουσαν ἀκαταστάτους καὶ πτοιώδεις παρεχομένην τὰς ὁρμὰς μανίαν εἶναι· διὸ καὶ ὑπογράφουσι τὴν μανίαν οὕτως· ἄγνοιαν πτοιώδη.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 215

Holiness and the Festival

II.7.5b12.3

Similarly, they say that the base are not holy. For they describe holiness as justice toward the gods. The base transgress many obligations of justice toward the gods, and are therefore unholy, unclean, impure, polluted, and without true festival observance.²⁴⁹

For they say that celebrating a festival belongs to the virtuous person, a festival being a time in which one should attend to the divine for the sake of honor and fitting commemoration. Hence the celebrant must join piously in such an observance.²⁵⁰

Ignorance and Madness

II.7.5b13

They further say that every base person is mad, being ignorant of himself and of what concerns him, which is madness. Ignorance is the vice opposed to practical wisdom; when it stands in a certain relation to something and makes the impulses unsettled and fluttering, it is madness.²⁵¹ They therefore describe madness in this way: fluttering ignorance.²⁵²

249.Ὁσιότης is holiness or justice toward the gods, distinguished in wording from the preceding εὐσέβεια, piety. The accumulation of negative descriptions is retained; “without true festival observance” renders ἀνεορτάστους in light of the following ethical definition of celebrating. The report does not merely list who is physically present at public festivities.

250.Ἀστεῖος means the virtuous or morally excellent person here, not simply someone from a city or someone witty. Ἐπισημασία is a marking or commemoration, qualified as fitting. The concluding συγκαθεικέναι is difficult, and Wachsmuth records conjectures; “join ... in such an observance” conveys participation in the prescribed order without silently altering the printed Greek.

251.This is the report’s ethical use of μανία, madness, within the opposition between wisdom and vice; it is not a retrospective clinical diagnosis of individuals. Αὑτοῦ and καθ’ αὑτόν refer to oneself and what concerns oneself. The compressed πρός τί πως ἔχουσαν leaves the particular relation unspecified, and the translation does not invent a more precise cause.

252.“Fluttering” preserves πτοιώδης, connected with πτοία, the fluttering of the soul in the earlier definition of passion at II.7.1.4. Here the word describes unstable impulses and then qualifies ignorance itself. Compare Diogenes Laertius VII.124 for the related claim about folly and madness. The next source passage, II.7.5c, returns to divisions of goods and evils.

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.