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.8.42.18–II.8.42.19

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Book II Chapter 8 · II.8.42.18–II.8.42.19

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Ancient Greek

p. 636

Πορφυρίου — συνέχεια

II.8.42.18

οἷον δὴ νυ θεοὺς βροτοὶ αἰτιόωνται. ἐξ ἡμέων γάρ φασι κακ’ ἔμμεναι· οἱ δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ σφῇσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὑπὲρ μόρον ἄλγε’ ἔχουσι.

Πορφυρίου — συνέχεια

II.8.42.19

Διὰ τί οὖν „οἱ δὲ καὶ αὐτοί“; Δηλοῖ γὰρ ὅτι καὶ ἀπὸ θεῶν τι ἔρχεται εἰς αὐτούς, εἰ καὶ τὸ πλέον δι’ αὐτούς· ἢ ὅτι τὰ παραδείγματα τῶν βίων παρὰ θεῶν, οὐδὲ αὐτοὺς ἔξω τῆς αἰτίας τοῦ εἰς κακὰ ἐμπίπτειν; ἀλλ’ ἀπολύεται αὐτούς, τῷ αὐτεξουσίους ποιῆσαι τὰς ψυχὰς καὶ αὐταῖς ἐπιτρέψαι ἑλέσθαι βίους, οἱ δὲ ἐξ ἐπιδρομῆς καὶ ἀμαθίας „σφῇσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὑπὲρ μόρον ἄλγε’ ἔχουσιν“.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 8

p. 637

Porphyry continued

II.8.42.18

Ah, how mortals blame the gods! For they say that evils come from us; but they themselves too, through their own recklessness, bear pains beyond their allotted fate.⁸⁹¹

Porphyry continued

II.8.42.19

Why, then, “but they themselves too”? For this indicates that something also comes to them from the gods, even if the greater part is due to themselves. Or, because the patterns of lives come from the gods, does this mean that even the gods themselves are not free from responsibility for people’s falling into evils?⁸⁹² But he acquits them on the ground that they made the souls self-governing and allowed them to choose lives; whereas people, through haste and ignorance, “through their own recklessness, bear pains beyond their allotted fate.”⁸⁹³

891.Odyssey I.32–34, Zeus addressing the gods with Aegisthus’s actions in mind. Themselves too retains καὶ αὐτοί, because Porphyry’s next question depends on those words. Ὑπὲρ μόρον means beyond the allotted portion or fate. Only these three lines are quoted here; the wider story supplies context, rather than additional anthology text.

892.The question raises the difficulty that the gods supply the patterns from which lives are chosen. Αἰτία can mean cause or responsibility; free from responsibility makes the force of outside the cause clear in this argument. Porphyry does not simply omit the possible objection to divine responsibility: he states it before giving his answer.

893.The acquittal rests on the souls’ self-government and permission to choose. The subsequent masculine plural refers to the people whose haste and ignorance lead to the quoted sufferings. The repeated final verse has ἔχουσιν here, while the preceding quotation has ἔχουσι; both local forms are retained. This closes excerpt 42; the following excerpt has a new attribution to Iamblichus.

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.