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 8 · II.8.31.3

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Book II Chapter 8 · II.8.31.3

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Ancient Greek

p. 582

Ἑρμοῦ — συνέχεια

II.8.31.3

Ἐπεὶ τοίνυν ἡ ἐν ἡμῖν ἀσώματος οὐσία αὐτεξούσιός ἐστιν ὥσπερ ὁ νοηματικὸς λόγος, αὕτη δ’ ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχει, διὰ τοῦτο εἱμαρμένη ταύτης οὐχ ἅπτεται, παραθεῖσα δὲ τὸν πρῶτον ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου θεοῦ διανοητικὸν λόγον, προΐησι καὶ ὅλον τὸν λόγον ὃν συνέταξε φύσις τοῖς γιγνομένοις· τούτοις ψυχὴ κοινωνήσασα κοινωνεῖται ταῖς τούτων εἱμαρμέναις, ἀμέτοχος οὖσα τῆς τῶν γινομένων φύσεως.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 8

p. 583

Hermes continued

II.8.31.3

Since, then, the incorporeal substance in us is self-governing, like conceptual reason, and always remains in the same and unchanging condition, fate does not touch it.⁸²³ But, having set before itself the primary discursive reason from the first God, it also lets go of the entire reason that nature assigned to things that come to be. A soul that has shared in these things shares in their fates, although it has no share in the nature of things that come to be.⁸²⁴

823.Αὐτεξούσιος is self-governing or possessed of authority over itself. Wachsmuth prints ἀσώματος, incorporeal, against a transmitted bodily reading. The distinction between the unchanging incorporeal substance and its involvement with generated things governs the contrast between freedom and fate. Διανοητικός, discursive, belongs to the vocabulary of διάνοια and is distinguished here from νοηματικός, conceptual.

824.The construction is difficult. The English takes παραθεῖσα as having set before itself and προΐησι as lets go; these verbs can carry other senses. Their objects and the clause division follow Wachsmuth’s punctuation. The final concession is explicit: the soul shares the fates of generated things despite not sharing their nature. This is the end of excerpt 31; the numbered subdivisions serve layout only.

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.