Stobaeus, Volume II

Name: Stobaeus, Volume II
Author: John Stobaeus

Greek and English with an introduction and explanatory footnotes.

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Book II Chapter 7 · II.7.heading–II.7.1.1

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Ancient Greek

p. 114

Κεφάλαιον Ζʹ

II.7.heading

Περὶ τοῦ ἠθικοῦ εἴδους τῆς φιλοσοφίας.

⟨Ἐκ τῆς Διδύμου ἐπιτομῆς⟩

II.7.1.1

Ἠθική ἐστι δύναμις ψυχῆς, δι’ ἧς ἀσκηθείσης καλῶς ἡ πρακτικὴ κατασκευάζεται ἀρετή, ἢ λόγος καθ’ ὃν χρησόμεθα ἐθιστῇ ἀρετῇ.

Ἦθος δέ ἐστι ποιότης τοῦ ἀλόγου μέρους τῆς ψυχῆς ὑποτακτικῶς ἔχειν ἐθιζομένου τῷ λόγῳ.

Ἄλλως· Ἄλογον μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς εἰθισμένον ὑπακούειν τῷ λόγῳ· ἢ πάθος ἢ παθητικὸν μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς εἰθισμένον ὑπακούειν τῷ λογικῷ.

Ἄλλως· Πάθος ἢ τὸ ὀρεκτικὸν μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς εἰθισμένον ὑπακούειν τοῦ λογικοῦ.

Stobaeus, Volume II: Book II Chapter 7

p. 115

Chapter 7

II.7.heading

On the Ethical Branch of Philosophy.¹³⁴

⟨From the Epitome of Didymus⟩ · 1

II.7.1.1

Ethics is a capacity of the soul through whose proper exercise virtue in action is formed; or an account according to which we shall employ virtue acquired by habituation.¹³⁵

Character is a quality of the nonrational part of the soul as it is habituated to be subject to reason.

Alternatively: a nonrational part of the soul habituated to obey reason; or an affection, or the affective part of the soul, habituated to obey the rational part.

Alternatively: an affection, or the desiring part of the soul, habituated to obey the rational part.¹³⁶

134.Wachsmuth restores this heading from Photius and a Florilegium witness, although he prints it without angle brackets. The ethical branch concerns character and conduct. The introductory material compares definitions and divisions from different philosophical schools; it should not be read as a single doctrine shared by all of them.

135.Wachsmuth supplies the attribution to Didymus’s Epitome, drawing on a parallel Florilegium attribution and earlier scholarship. The name is commonly associated with Arius Didymus, but the extent and authorship of this ethical compilation are debated. “Introductory definitions” corresponds to Wachsmuth’s Latin section label Prolegomena. Ἠθική can name ethics as a discipline or the capacity cultivated by it; ἐθιστῇ connects the virtue with habituation.

136.Ἦθος is character, while ἐθίζειν means to habituate. “Nonrational” distinguishes a part lacking reason in itself from the rational part it can obey. Πάθος is rendered “affection” in these broad definitions: it need not yet mean the specifically excessive emotion defined below. The repeated alternatives are retained rather than combined into one definition.

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.