From the book
Stobaeus, Volume II
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe healing verbs describe a test of philosophical benefit through an analogy with medicine. The point concerns removing affliction or evil, rather than ornamental verbal performance.
- In StobaeusThe saying calls discourse empty when it heals no human affliction, comparing philosophy’s benefit with medicine’s ability to drive diseases from the body.
- In this editionKeep the comparison’s ethical object and its conditional force. It does not provide a medical treatment, a diagnosis or evidence that every philosophical statement succeeds in healing.
- A place to readChapter 2 · Excerpt 13 Read the two conditional comparisons together, noting that the discourse’s value is assessed by what it removes rather than by its impressive verbal form.
- English renderings
- treat; heal; cure
Meaning
Therapeuō can mean attending to or treating; iaomai concerns healing. The medical comparisons in these excerpts make improvement in the soul or in conduct a test of philosophical discourse.
Use in the book
The saying headed Pythagoras calls a philosopher’s account empty if it heals no human affliction. Bodily medicine provides the analogy, but the final object of philosophy is explicitly the evil of the soul. A saying attributed to Antisthenes applies the curative image to contradiction: answering a contentious person in kind resembles trying to cure madness by becoming mad oneself. Teaching, rather than repetition of the opposing behavior, is the proposed response. The practical direction of both sayings differs from treating discussion as successful merely when it defeats another speaker.
The medical comparison measures a practice through its work. Medicine without the removal of disease lacks its stated benefit; philosophy is tested in the same way with respect to evil in the soul. The saying therefore joins criticism of empty discourse to an expectation of practical change. It does not describe the steps of that change or name one universal remedy. Its force is a demand that philosophical speech answer to a human need, not simply that any discourse using therapeutic language counts as beneficial.
Places to read
- Chapter 2 · Excerpt 132A medical comparison tests philosophy by its treatment of the soul’s evil.
- Chapter 2 · Excerpt 152Teaching is contrasted with reproducing contentious behavior.
Translation in this edition
Heal or treat follows the medical image; cure suits the Antisthenes comparison. Do not turn every pathos in the surrounding anthology into a modern diagnostic category.
θεραπεύεται
Attested. Chapter 2 · Excerpt 13; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 22.
ὑφ’ οὗ μηδὲν ἀνθρώπου πάθος θεραπεύεται
ἰᾶται
Attested. Chapter 2 · Excerpt 15; Wachsmuth II, printed p. 23.
οὐδὲ γὰρ τὸν μαινόμενον ἀντιμαινόμενός τις ἰᾶται.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume II, printed pp. 22–23. The printed attribution Pythagoras is retained even though the edition records a related parallel elsewhere. The article does not silently reassign the saying or identify an historical treatment practice.