From the book
Stobaeus, Volume II
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe verb is identified as a vocal indication applied to actions. The passage contrasts it with names and tests what their combination contributes to a statement.
- In StobaeusThe Sophist shows that an uninterrupted list of action words still fails to make a statement, preparing the later example where a name and verb fit together.
- In this editionVerb follows the source’s local category without imposing an exhaustive modern grammar. Preserve its distinction from the agent’s name and from a complete meaningful statement.
- A place to readChapter 4 · Excerpt 17 · Passage 2 Read the clarification after the interlocutor’s misunderstanding, where a list of verbs illustrates why verbal sequence alone does not yet supply an assertion.
- English renderings
- verb; expression indicating an action
Meaning
Rhēma can mean an utterance or saying more broadly. In the Sophist selection it specifically denotes the member of a statement that indicates action, contrasted with the name of the agent.
Use in the book
The interlocutors define the action-indication as rhēma, then test whether verbs alone make a statement. Walks, runs and sleeps, even when all said in succession, do not. A sequence of names fails in the corresponding way. Combining the two types appropriately produces the smallest statement exemplified by a human being learns. The contrast makes the verb’s role relational: it contributes to saying something about a subject, rather than carrying a complete assertion simply by being an action-word.
The interlocutor’s failure to understand prompts a more concrete example. Naming several actions in succession does not yet tell the hearer what performs them. The problem is not a lack of verbal quantity: adding all the other action words would still fail in the same way. The subsequent combination with a name supplies a different relation among the elements. This makes the verb’s role intelligible through the work of a statement, rather than treating the category as an isolated grammatical label whose significance is already obvious.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
Verb is needed in this explicit grammatical contrast. Utterance remains useful elsewhere, but would obscure why a sequence of rhēmata here still falls short of a logos.
ῥῆμά
Attested. Chapter 4 · Excerpt 17 · Passage 2; Wachsmuth II, printed pp. 31-32.
Τὸ μὲν ἐπὶ ταῖς πράξεσιν ὂν δήλωμα, ῥῆμά που λεγόμενον.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume II, printed pp. 31–32. This contextual article distinguishes the grammatical use from the broader rhēma family already indexed as Speech and utterance. It does not treat the two English renderings as two unrelated Greek words.