From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordAutotelēs describes something whose completeness belongs to itself.
- In StobaeusThe Hermetic account calls soul a self-complete substance before describing its chosen life and the attachment of spirit and desire.
- In this edition“Complete in itself” makes the compound intelligible without implying that soul has no relations or activities directed beyond itself.
- A place to beginSoul’s self-completeness precedes the account of its relation to lower impulses.
- English renderings
- complete in itself; self-complete
Meaning
Autotelēs describes something whose completeness belongs to itself. It is stronger than saying that an external operation has happened to finish.
Use in the book
The Hermetic account calls soul a self-complete substance before describing its chosen life and the attachment of spirit and desire. Those additions need not be treated as ingredients required to make soul exist in the first place. The later ethical ordering of impulses concerns its embodied life, a distinct issue from its initial characterization.
Places to read
- I.49.4.1Soul’s self-completeness precedes the account of its relation to lower impulses.
Translation in this edition
“Complete in itself” makes the compound intelligible without implying that soul has no relations or activities directed beyond itself.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 321–322. The same sentence joins choice with fate without explaining their reconciliation; self-completeness should not be used to resolve that tension by assumption.