From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordIdiotēs is the feature proper to a thing and characteristic of it.
- In StobaeusThe Hermetic list assigns enclosure to place, interval and number to time, motion to nature, friendship to harmony, and change to body.
- In this edition“Distinctive property” makes the explanatory role clearer than “peculiarity,” which can sound like an exception or oddity.
- A place to beginA series of distinctive properties differentiates place, time, nature, harmony, body, and soul.
- English renderings
- distinctive property; peculiarity
Meaning
Idiotēs is the feature proper to a thing and characteristic of it. It need not mean an accidental or merely unusual trait.
Use in the book
The Hermetic list assigns enclosure to place, interval and number to time, motion to nature, friendship to harmony, and change to body. Thinking according to essence distinguishes soul. The repeated formula organizes the account by characteristic functions and conditions rather than by a single definition imposed on all subjects.
Places to read
- I.41.4.4A series of distinctive properties differentiates place, time, nature, harmony, body, and soul.
Translation in this edition
“Distinctive property” makes the explanatory role clearer than “peculiarity,” which can sound like an exception or oddity.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 282. “Enclosure” follows the reading adopted by Wachsmuth; the rendering of harmony’s property as friendship preserves the text’s analogy.