Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
Stobaeus, Volume II
Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.
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Facing Pages · Branch 198 of 516
Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.13.7–II.7.13.8
Ancient Greek
p. 392Φίλα καὶ ἡ ἄπταιστος ἐκλογή
Φίλον γὰρ εἶναι ἡμῖν τὸ σῶμα, φίλην δὲ τὴν ψυχήν, φίλα δὲ τὰ τούτων μέρη καὶ τὰς δυνάμεις καὶ τὰς ἐνεργείας, ⟨δι’⟩ ὧν κατὰ τὴν πρόνοιαν τῆς σωτηρίας τὴν ἀρχὴν γίνεσθαι τῆς ὁρμῆς καὶ τοῦ καθήκοντος καὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς. Εἰ μὲν γὰρ περὶ τὰς τῶν εἰρημένων αἱρέσεις καὶ φυγὰς μηδεμία συνέβαινε πλάνη καθάπαξ, ἀλλὰ τῶν μὲν ἀγαθῶν ἐπήβολοι, τῶν δὲ κακῶν ἄμοιροι διετέλουμεν ὄντες, οὐδέποτ’ ἂν τὴν ὀρθὴν καὶ ἄπταιστον ἐν τούτοις ἐπεζήτησαμεν ἐκλογήν.
Ἐπίκρισις καὶ ἀρετή
Ἐπεὶ δὲ πολλάκις δι’ ἄγνοιαν περὶ τὰς αἱρέσεις καὶ φυγὰς ἠπατώμεθα καὶ τὰ μὲν ἀγαθὰ παρεπέμπομεν, τοῖς κακοῖς δ’ ὡς ἀγαθοῖς ἐνετυγχάνομεν, ἀναγκαίως τὴν τῆς ἐπικρίσεως βέβαιον εἴδησιν ἐπεζήτησαμεν, ἣν καὶ συνῳδὸν εὑρόμενοι τῇ φύσει διὰ τὸ τῆς ἐνεργείας μεγαλοπρεπὲς ἀρετὴν προσηγορεύσαμεν καὶ δαιμονίως θαυμάσαντες ἐτιμήσαμεν πρὸ τῶν ἄλλων ἁπάντων.
Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7
p. 393What Is Dear and Unerring Selection
Our body is dear to us, and so is our soul; their parts, capacities, and activities are dear as well. ⟨Through⟩ these, in our concern for preservation, arise the beginnings of impulse, appropriate action, and virtue. For if no error whatever occurred in choosing and avoiding the things just mentioned, and we continually possessed the goods and were free of the bad things, we would never have sought correct and unerring selection among them.525
Judgment and Virtue
But since ignorance often deceived us in choosing and avoiding, and we passed over good things while encountering bad things as though they were good, we necessarily sought secure knowledge for making judgments. Finding this knowledge consonant with nature, we called it virtue because of the grandeur of its activity; and, marveling at it exceedingly, we honored it above everything else.526
Socrates
Reading Stobaeus, Volume II · Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.13.7–II.7.13.8
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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.