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.8.34–II.8.35

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Facing Pages · Branch 296 of 516

Book II Chapter 8 · II.8.34–II.8.35

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Ancient Greek

p. 588

⟨Τοῦ αὐτοῦ⟩

II.8.34

Αἱ δόξαι αἱ ἀληθεῖς, ὅσον μὲν ἂν χρόνον παραμένωσι, καλὸν τὸ χρῆμα καὶ πάντα τἀγαθὰ ἀπεργάζονται· πολὺν δὲ χρόνον οὐκ ἐθέλουσι παραμένειν, ἀλλὰ δραπετεύουσιν ἐκ τῆς ψυχῆς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου· ὥστε οὐ πολλοῦ ἄξιαί εἰσιν, ἕως ἄν τις αὐτὰς δήσῃ αἰτίας λογισμῷ. Ἐπειδὰν δὲ δεθῶσι, πρῶτον μὲν ἐπιστῆμαι γίγνονται, ἔπειτα μόνιμοι. Καὶ διὰ ταῦτα δὴ τιμιώτερον ἐπιστήμη ὀρθῆς δόξης ἐστὶ καὶ διαφέρει δεσμῷ.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ

II.8.35

Τί δέ; οὐκ ᾔσθησαι τὰς ἄνευ ἐπιστήμης δόξας ὡς ἅπασαι αἰσχραί, ὧν αἱ βέλτισται τυφλαί; Ἢ δοκοῦσί τι τυφλῶν διαφέρειν ὁδὸν ὀρθῶς πορευομένων οἱ ἄνευ νοῦ ἀληθές τι δοξάζοντες;

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 8

p. 589

⟨The same author⟩

II.8.34

True opinions, for as long as they remain, are a fine thing and produce every good thing. But they are unwilling to remain for long and run away from the human soul. So they are not worth much until someone binds them by reasoning about the cause.⁸³⁰ Once bound, they first become knowledge, and then stable. This is why knowledge is more valuable than right opinion and differs from it by the bond.⁸³¹

The same author

II.8.35

What then? Have you not noticed how opinions without knowledge are all ugly, with the best of them blind? Or do those who believe something true without understanding seem to differ at all from blind men traveling correctly along a road?⁸³²

830.Meno 97E–98A. Wachsmuth supplies the heading the same author, separating this passage from the preceding excerpt; it remains bracketed. In the dialogue the comparison has just been made with Daedalus’s statues, which are said to run away unless tied down. The anthology begins with the true opinions rather than including that illustration.

831.Αἰτίας λογισμῷ is reasoning about the cause or reason why. The bond makes the opinions stable and thus accounts for the superior value assigned to knowledge. Plato’s intervening remark identifying this binding with recollection is absent from the anthology and is not supplied in the translation. The plural ἐπιστῆμαι is rendered by the English mass noun knowledge.

832.Republic VI.506C. Socrates compares true opinion unsupported by understanding with a blind person who nevertheless travels the correct road. The comparison grants the correctness of the result while questioning its basis. The best opinions are called blind, not false. Αἰσχραί, ugly or shameful, retains the negative assessment of opinions held without knowledge.

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.