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.7.16.1

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Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.16.1

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Ancient Greek

p. 430

Αἱρετὸν φευκτὸν καὶ ἀγαθόν

II.7.16.1

[Περὶ αἱρετῶν καὶ φευκτῶν.]

Αἱρετὸν δὲ λέγεσθαι, τὸ ὁρμὴν ἐφ’ ἑαυτὸ κινοῦν, φευκτὸν δὲ τὸ ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ, ὅταν ὁ λόγος σύμψηφος ᾖ. Καθάπερ γὰρ τὸ βουλητὸν κατὰ τὴν βούλησιν ἔχειν τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν ταύτην, οὕτως καὶ τὸ αἱρετὸν κατὰ τὴν αἵρεσιν. Τὸ δὲ αἱρετὸν καὶ ἀγαθὸν ταὐτὸν ἐδόκει τοῖς ἀρχαίοις εἶναι. Τὸ γοῦν ἀγαθὸν ὑπογράφοντες οὕτως ἀφωρίζοντο· ‘ἀγαθόν ἐστιν οὗ πάντ’ ἐφίεται’.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 431

Choice Avoidance and the Good

II.7.16.1

What moves impulse toward itself is called choiceworthy; what moves impulse away from itself is to be avoided, when reason concurs.⁵⁷⁰ For, just as the object of wish takes its name from wish, so the choiceworthy takes its name from choice.⁵⁷¹ The ancients held the choiceworthy and the good to be the same. In outlining the good, at any rate, they defined it thus: “The good is what all things desire.”⁵⁷²

570.The rejected heading reads “On things to be chosen and avoided.” It receives the same treatment as the heading of section 15. The second definition understands “moves impulse” from the first. Reason’s concurrence, σύμψηφος, is an explicit qualification; the definition does not merely equate any attraction or aversion with a sound choice.

571.The Greek pairs βουλητόν with βούλησις, the object of wish with wish, and αἱρετόν with αἵρεσις, the choiceworthy with choice. The English retains both pairs, although it cannot reproduce their grammatical forms exactly. Αἵρεσις here means choice, rather than the philosophical school named by the same word at II.7.14.4.

572.“The ancients” is the source’s attribution; no individual author is named here. Wachsmuth compares Nicomachean Ethics I.1, 1094a3, where this definition is already cited as traditional. Πάντα is retained as “all things”; it is not narrowed to rational beings. Compare the earlier definitions of good in II.7.3a.1.

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.