From the book
Stobaeus, Volume II
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordKindness, good fellowship and fair dealing describe distinct benefits and relations with others, presented as knowledge in the Stoic list and as states with specified purposes in the Peripatetic account.
- In StobaeusThe later definition makes voluntary benefit answer to the recipient’s own sake, while good fellowship concerns blameless association; the resulting emphasis includes motive and manner rather than the bare occurrence of exchange.
- In this editionPreserve the unnamed extremes and the tentative language about a neighboring opposite; do not fill gaps in the classification or make strict contractual justice synonymous with every form of fair dealing.
- A place to readChapter 7 · Excerpt 25 · Passage 11 Read benefiting people for their own sake beside blameless association, noting both the voluntary character of kindness and the unnamed states left at one end of each comparison.
- English renderings
- kindness; good fellowship; fair dealing
Meaning
These virtues under justice govern benefit, shared life and dealings. Their relation does not erase their separate definitions.
Use in the book
The Stoic definitions make kindness knowledge doing good, good fellowship knowledge of equality in community, and fair dealing knowledge of blameless dealings with neighbors. The Peripatetic account defines states instead: voluntary benefit for the recipient’s own sake, blameless association, and care to avoid injustice in contracts. Its last parenthesis tentatively identifies an unnamed opposite of fair dealing with strict justice. Motive and manner therefore matter, not merely whether an exchange occurs or a benefit changes hands.
The recipient’s own sake supplies a condition that the fact of receiving a benefit cannot establish by itself. A voluntary act may bring someone an advantage, but this definition also asks what the act is for. Good fellowship then concerns remaining blameless in association, rather than duplicating the same account of benefit. Both definitions leave one contrasting state unnamed. This incompleteness belongs to the report and should not be repaired by inventing a familiar opposite. The earlier knowledge definitions offer another explanatory setting for these related ways of dealing with others.
“voluntarily benefiting people for those people’s own sake” (Chapter 7 · Excerpt 25 · Passage 11).
Places to read
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 5b2 · Passage 62Three knowledge definitions.
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 25 · Passage 112Benefit for the recipient and good association.
- Chapter 7 · Excerpt 25 · Passage 122Contracts and an unusual opposite.
Translation in this edition
Retain the descriptive phrases rather than merging them into “goodness.”
χρηστότητα
Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 5b2 · Passage 6; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 62.
εὐσέβειαν δὲ ἐπιστήμην θεῶν θεραπείας· χρηστότητα δὲ ἐπιστήμην εὐποιητικήν· εὐκοινωνησίαν δὲ ἐπιστήμην ἰσότητος
εὐκοινωνησίαν
Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 5b2 · Passage 6; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 62.
θεραπείας· χρηστότητα δὲ ἐπιστήμην εὐποιητικήν· εὐκοινωνησίαν δὲ ἐπιστήμην ἰσότητος ἐν κοινωνίᾳ· εὐσυναλλαξίαν δὲ ἐπιστήμην
εὐσυναλλαξίαν
Attested. Chapter 7 · Excerpt 5b2 · Passage 6; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 62.
εὐκοινωνησίαν δὲ ἐπιστήμην ἰσότητος ἐν κοινωνίᾳ· εὐσυναλλαξίαν δὲ ἐπιστήμην τοῦ συναλλάττειν ἀμέμπτως τοῖς πλησίον.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume II, printed pp. 62, 147. Each term and each account retains its distinct definition.