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Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

John Stobaeus

Stobaeus, Volume II

Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.

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Stobaeus, Volume IIBook II Chapter 9 · II.9.7.2

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Book II Chapter 9 · II.9.7.2

Ancient Greek

p. 672

Ἱεροκλέους — συνέχεια

II.9.7.2

Ἤδη καιρὸν ἔχειν μοι τὸ ποιητικὸν ἐκεῖνο δοκεῖ κατὰ τὸν τόπον τοῦτον, ὡς δὴ οἱ ‘βροτοὶ’ τοὺς ‘θεοὺς’ αἰτιῶνται ὡς ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐπιπεμπομένων τῶν κακῶν,

οἱ δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ σφῇσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὑπὲρ μόρον ἄλγε’ ἔχουσιν.

ἐπείτοιγε ὡς ὁ θεὸς οὐδαμῇ οὐδαμῶς κακῶν αἴτιός ἐστιν, ἐκ πολλῶν ⟨ἂν⟩ νοήσειέ τις, πρὸς δὲ τὸ παρὸν ἀποχρήσειεν ἂν ἴσως ὁ Πλάτωνος ἐκεῖνος λόγος. Οὐ γὰρ θερμοῦ φησι τὸ ψύχειν ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον, οὐδὲ ψυχροῦ τὸ θερμαίνειν ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον· οὕτως οὖν οὐδὲ ἀγαθοποιοῦ τὸ κακοποιεῖν, ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον.

672

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 9

p. 673

Hierocles continued

II.9.7.2

That poetic saying seems timely to me at this point: “mortals” blame the “gods,” as though their evils were sent by them,

but they themselves too through their own recklessness have pains beyond their allotted fate.943

For one ⟨might⟩ understand from many considerations that the god is in no way whatsoever the cause of evils; for the present, however, that argument of Plato’s might perhaps suffice. “For cooling,” he says, “does not belong to what is hot, but the opposite; nor does warming belong to what is cold, but the opposite. Accordingly, doing harm does not belong to a doer of good either, but the opposite.”944

673

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.