From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordMeiōsis is decrease in amount, size, or extent.
- In StobaeusThe Hermetic account links generation to growth, growth to diminution, and diminution to destruction, contrasting bodily dependence with incorporeal soul.
- In this edition“Diminution” preserves the technical noun; “decrease” is often clearer in explanatory prose.
- A place to beginBodily diminution belongs to a sequence leading toward destruction.
- English renderings
- diminution; decrease
Meaning
Meiōsis is decrease in amount, size, or extent. It is distinguished from destruction even when an argument connects the two in a sequence.
Use in the book
The Hermetic account links generation to growth, growth to diminution, and diminution to destruction, contrasting bodily dependence with incorporeal soul. The Aristotelian classification places diminution under quantity. The process can therefore be identified independently of the further claim that it culminates in a thing’s destruction.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
“Diminution” preserves the technical noun; “decrease” is often clearer in explanatory prose.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 162–163, 320–321. In I.49.3.1, the body is the subject of the concluding claim about receiving life through soul.