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.7.25.1–II.7.25.2

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Facing Pages · Branch 258 of 516

Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.25.1–II.7.25.2

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Ancient Greek

p. 512

Ἠθικὴ ἀρετὴ καὶ τὸ καλόν

II.7.25.1

Τεθεωρημένων δὲ τούτων καὶ ταῦτα διαλάβωμεν· εἶναι μὲν γὰρ τὴν ἠθικὴν ἀρετὴν κοινῶς ἕξιν προαιρετικὴν τῶν μέσων ἡδονῶν τε καὶ λυπῶν, στοχαστικὴν τοῦ καλοῦ ᾗ καλόν, τὴν δὲ κακίαν ὑπεναντίαν εἶναι ταύτῃ·

Ἕξεις θεωρητικαὶ καὶ πρακτικαί

II.7.25.2

κοινὴν δὲ δοξαστικῆς καὶ ἠθικῆς ἕξιν θεωρητικὴν καὶ προαιρετικὴν καὶ πρακτικὴν τῶν ἐν ταῖς πράξεσι καλῶν· τὴν δὲ διανοητικὴν καὶ τοῦ ἐπιστημονικοῦ * * κοινὴν ἀκρότητα λογικῆς κατασκευῆς εἶναι θεωρητικὴν καὶ πρακτικήν·

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 513

Ethical Virtue and the Noble

II.7.25.1

Having considered these matters, let us also distinguish the following. Ethical virtue, in general, is a state involving the choice of intermediate pleasures and pains,⁶⁹⁷ aiming at the noble as noble; vice is contrary to it.⁶⁹⁸

Contemplative and Practical States

II.7.25.2

Common to the opinion-forming and the ethical is a state that contemplates, chooses, and performs the noble things found in actions.⁶⁹⁹ Intellectual virtue, and of the scientific [text missing], is a common excellence of rational constitution, contemplative and practical.⁷⁰⁰

697.The first-person invitation belongs to the exposition. Ἕξις προαιρετική is a state involving choice, as in II.7.20.12. The Greek specifies τῶν μέσων ἡδονῶν τε καὶ λυπῶν, intermediate pleasures and pains: the pleasures and pains are at the mean, rather than being classified here as morally indifferent. Section 25 has no separate summary heading. The final numbered subdivisions and their descriptive labels serve layout only.

698.Στοχαστική means aiming at a target. The qualification ᾗ καλόν, as noble, makes the noble itself the ground of the aim. The printed feminine ὑπεναντίαν refers to vice as contrary to ethical virtue; the Greek is not replaced with the wording of a parallel Aristotelian definition.

699.The construction is compressed: the feminine genitives δοξαστικῆς and ἠθικῆς, opinion-forming and ethical, have no expressed noun. The translation leaves that relation open rather than deciding silently between virtues and faculties. Wachsmuth queries the corresponding neuter forms, with a comparison to Nicomachean Ethics VI.13, 1144b14–15; those proposed forms are not substituted for the printed Greek. All three activities, contemplation, choice, and performance, remain.

700.This clause is damaged. Τοῦ ἐπιστημονικοῦ means of the scientific or knowing part, but its grammatical connection is incomplete. The English deliberately retains a broken phrase at that point. The two asterisks mark a textual gap, not necessarily two missing words. Wachsmuth suggests adding and of the deliberative part, but does not print that reconstruction. Ἀκρότης is excellence or a highest development, and λογικὴ κατασκευή a rational constitution; both contemplative and practical remain in the surviving conclusion.

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.