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.7.11l.2–II.7.11l.3

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Facing Pages · Branch 176 of 516

Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.11l.2–II.7.11l.3

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Ancient Greek

p. 348

Ἡ εἰκὼν τοῦ ψεύδους

II.7.11l.2

Λάβοις δ’ ἂν εἰκόνα σαφῆ τοῦ δηλουμένου τῷδ’ ἐπιστήσας· πᾶν γὰρ τὸ ψεῦδος ἐπ’ ἴσης ψεῦδος συμβέβηκεν, οὐ γὰρ εἶναι ἕτερον ἑτέρου μᾶλλον διεψευσμένον· τὸ [τε] γὰρ νύκτ’ ⟨ἀεὶ⟩ εἶναι ψεῦδός ἐστι, καθάπερ τὸ ἱπποκένταυρον ζῆν· καὶ οὐ μᾶλλον εἰπεῖν ἔστι ψεῦδος εἶναι θάτερον θατέρου· ἀλλ’ οὐχὶ τὸ ψευδὲς ἐπίσης ψευδές ἐστιν, οὐχὶ δὲ καὶ οἱ διεψευσμένοι ἐπίσης εἰσὶ διεψευσμένοι.

Οὔτε μᾶλλον οὔτε ἧττον ἁμαρτάνειν

II.7.11l.3

Καὶ ἁμαρτάνειν δὲ μᾶλλον καὶ ἧττον οὐκ ἔστι, πᾶσαν γὰρ ἁμαρτίαν κατὰ διάψευσιν πράττεσθαι. Ἔτι οὐχὶ κατόρθωμα μὲν μεῖζον καὶ ἔλαττον οὐ γίνεσθαι, ἁμάρτημα δὲ μεῖζον καὶ ἔλαττον γίνεσθαι· πάντα γάρ ἐστι τέλεια, διόπερ οὔτ’ ἐλλείπειν οὔθ’ ὑπερέχειν δύναιτ’ ἂν ἀλλήλων. Ἴσα τοίνυν ἐστὶ πάντα τὰ ἁμαρτήματα.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 349

The Analogy of Falsehood

II.7.11l.2

You could obtain a clear illustration of the point by attending to this: every falsehood is equally a falsehood, for one is not more false than another. That it is ⟨always⟩ night is a falsehood, just as that a centaur is alive is a falsehood; neither can be said to be more a falsehood than the other.⁴⁶¹ But is not what is false equally false, and are not those who are mistaken equally mistaken?⁴⁶²

Neither More Nor Less in Error

II.7.11l.3

Nor is it possible to err more or less, for every error is committed through being mistaken. Further, it is not the case that a correct action cannot be greater or smaller while an error can. For all are complete, and hence could neither fall short of nor exceed one another. Therefore all errors are equal.⁴⁶³

461.Heeren supplies ἀεί, “always,” in the night example. The claim is therefore not that “it is night” is invariably false. Ἱπποκένταυρος is the horse-centaur. Wachsmuth brackets τε for deletion; it remains visible in the Greek and is omitted in English. The analogy concerns the status of a proposition as false, rather than degrees of resemblance between its subject and an existing thing.

462.The repeated οὐχί is read as introducing questions expecting affirmation; the English question marks make this interpretation explicit. Wachsmuth prints these words without question marks and records conjectures in the apparatus. Reading both as simple denials would conflict with the preceding assertion and the following inference. The Greek remains as printed, and the interpretive choice is not concealed.

463.The opening connects ethical error with διάψευσις, being mistaken. The next sentence denies an asymmetry between correct and erroneous acts: the absence of greater and lesser degree does not apply only to correct actions. Τέλεια is “complete” in this argument; when applied to an error it does not make it morally perfect. The conclusion repeats equality, while the preceding passage has already allowed differences in quality.

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.