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Stobaeus, Volume II
Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.
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Book II Chapter 1 · II.1.26
Ancient Greek
p. 24Ἑρμοῦ ἐκ τοῦ Πρὸς Τάτ
Θεὸν νοῆσαι μὲν χαλεπόν, φράσαι δὲ ἀδύνατον. Τὸ γὰρ ἀσώματον σώματι σημῆναι ἀδύνατον· καὶ τὸ τέλειον τῷ ἀτελεῖ καταλαβέσθαι οὐ δυνατόν· καὶ τὸ ἀίδιον τῷ ὀλιγοχρονίῳ συγγενέσθαι δύσκολον. Τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἀεί ἐστι, τὸ δὲ παρέρχεται· καὶ τὸ μὲν ἀληθείᾳ ἐστί, τὸ δὲ ὑπὸ φαντασίας σκιάζεται. Τὸ δὲ ἀσθενέστερον τοῦ ἰσχυροτέρου καὶ τὸ ἔλαττον τοῦ κρείττονος ⟨οὐ⟩ διέστηκε τοσοῦτον, ὅσον τὸ θνητὸν τοῦ θείου. Ἡ δὲ μέση τούτων διάστασις ἀμαυροῖ τὴν τοῦ καλοῦ θέαν. Ὀφθαλμοῖς μὲν γὰρ τὰ σώματα θεατά, γλώττῃ δὲ τὰ ὁρατὰ λεκτά· τὸ δὲ ἀσώματον καὶ ἀφανὲς καὶ ἀσχημάτιστον καὶ μηδὲ ἐξ ὕλης ὑποκείμενον ὑπὸ τῶν ἡμετέρων αἰσθήσεων καταληφθῆναι οὐ δύναται.
Ἐννοοῦμαι, ὦ Τάτ, ἐννοοῦμαι, ὃ ἐξειπεῖν ἀδύνατον, τοῦτό ἐστιν ὁ θεός.
Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 1
p. 25Hermes from To Tat
To conceive God is difficult; to express him is impossible. For it is impossible to signify the incorporeal through a body, and the incomplete cannot apprehend the complete; it is difficult for what lasts only a short time to come into fellowship with the everlasting. The one always is, while the other passes away; the one exists in truth, while the other is shadowed by appearance. The weaker is ⟨not⟩ so far removed from the stronger, nor the lesser from the better, as the mortal is from the divine.33 The distance between them dims the vision of the beautiful. Bodies can be seen by the eyes, and visible things can be spoken by the tongue; but what is incorporeal, unseen, without shape, and not constituted from matter cannot be apprehended by our senses.
I conceive, Tat, I conceive what it is impossible to utter: this is God.34
Socrates
Reading Stobaeus, Volume II · Book II Chapter 1 · II.1.26
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.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.