Page:The hymn of Cleanthes; Greek text tr. into English (IA hymnofcleanthesg00clearich).pdf/19

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COMMENTARY
15

19. Cf. Heracl. frag. 61, τῷ μὲν θεῷ καλὸ πάντα καὶ ἀγαθὰ καὶ δίκαια, ἄνθρωποι δὲ ἃ μὲν ἄδικα ὑπειλήφασιν, ἃ δὲ δίκαια.

21. The everlastingness of the Logos: cf. Heracl. frag. 2. Similarly M. Antoninus. Cf. Butler, Sermon xv.

24. Cf. Heracl. frag. 101, quoted in n. on l. 2.

28. οὐδενὶ κόσμῳ = ἀτάκτως, recklessly.

29. ἀνεσιν = indulgence. Cf. Plat. Rep. 561ᵃ.

30. The text is very uncertain here, and I am not sure that I have grasped the sense. Perhaps = “bringing about the opposite of what they wish.”

31. πάνδωρε: epithet of Earth, Fate (Bacchyl. frag. 20). Cf. the (hexameter) line in Jas. i. 17, πᾶσα δόσες κ.τ.λ., with which we may quote the words in Plat. Euthyp. 18, οὐδὲν γὰρ ἡμῖν ἐστιν ἀγαθὸν ὅ τι ἂν μὴ ἐκεῖνοι (i.e. the gods) δῶσιν.

κελαινεφές: Homeric epithet. Cf. Ps. xcvii. 2-4.

32. ἀπειροσύνης = ἀγνοίας (the condition of the φαῦλοι).

33. σκέδασον: in the Platonic philosophy ignorance is the source of evil. With this and the next line cf. Heracl. frag. 19, ἐν τὸ σοφόν, ἐπίστασθαι γνώμην ἢ κυβερνῶται πάντα διὰ πάντων. Plutarch’s κυβερνήσις θεοῦ.

37, 38. Cf. the celebrated words with which Hooker concludes the first book of his Ecclesiastical Polity. The Stoics seem to have been the first to introduce into morals the concept of Law—“which is law for man because it is the law of the universe”: Acton, Hist. of Freedom in Antiquity, pp. 24, 25. In many respects the Stoic teaching is the nearest approach to Christianity. Warde Fowler, Social Life at Rome, p. 117; Gwatkin, Church Hist. i. pp. 22, 23. Similarly among the Jews the law (Torah) was the revelation in time of what is timeless and eternal.

The reader should carefully compare the lines in Soph. O.T. 863 sqq. (of the immutable order of law): cf. El. 1093 sq., Ajax, 1130 sqq., 1343 sqq. The whole argument of the