Polytropy

Words of Martin Luther King are on my mind:

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

My mother was there, at the March on Washington. She must then have heard a particular singer, whom my wife and I heard in concert, fifty-two years later. I wrote about this in “Joan Baez in Istanbul.”

Tom Holland writes of connections to the past in Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (2019). Irenaeus of Smyrna was at the third degree of influence from Jesus of Nazareth:

As a young man, he had sat at the feet of the local bishop, ‘a steadfast witness of truth’¹ by the name of Polycarp – and who, so Irenaeus reported, had in his turn known the gospel-writer John. ‘And I remember how he spoke of his conversations with John and with others who had seen the Lord, how he would recite their words from memory, and recall what he had heard from them concerning the Lord, his mighty works, and his teaching.’² Arriving in the Rhône valley, Irenaeus had brought with him something incalculably precious to the infant churches there: reminiscences, derived from a celebrated witness, of the generation of the apostles.

1 Irenaeus. Against Heresies 3.3.4.
2 Irenaeus, quoted by Eusebius. History of the Church 5.20.

In a 2016 essay, Holland attributes to Christianity the teaching “that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering.” I wondered in 2020 why he didn’t trace the teaching to Socrates, who drank hemlock in prison four centuries before baby Jesus was laid in a manger. Socrates showed that suffering is less bad than doing, when what is being suffered or done is injustice.

What we are talking about, when we use words like “justice” and “injustice”? I want to try out different words.

Below is the text of the last part, chapters ix–xi, of Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. The subject of

• the whole book is usually called “justice”;
• chapter x, “equity” or “decency.”

However, the Greek words for these subjects are respectively

• δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosynê),
• ἐπιείκεια (epieikeia).

I propose to translate the former as “righteousness,” in part because of what MLK says. In the quoted passage, he is sampling the Hebrew Bible, and in the Greek version of this, it is the word for righteousness that is dikaiosynê, while King’s “justice” corresponds to κρίμα (krima). The latter word can also be translated as “judgment” and even (in the 1535 Coverdale Bible) “equity.”

When writing his New Statesman essay, Tom Holland must have been working on Dominion. I searched the book itself for Socrates’s teaching on justice, or righteousness, or rather its opposite; but I didn’t find it, as I reported in “Plato and Christianity.”

I should have searched for the Stoics. I see that now, when I am actually reading Holland’s six-hundred-page book – with pleasure, I can add. I am only a fifth of the way through, but may already have seen the gist of what the book has to say about the Greek contribution to Christianity. This is on pages 27 and 77 of the 2020 paperback Abacus edition:

Nature, the Stoics argued, was itself divine. Animating the entire universe, God was active reason: the Logos. ‘He is mixed with matter, pervading all of it and so shaping it, structuring it, and making it into the world.’⁴⁷ To live in accordance with nature, therefore, was to live in accordance with God. Male or female, Greek or barbarian, free or slave, all were equally endowed with the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Syneidesis, the Stoics termed this spark of the divine within every mortal: ‘conscience’. ‘Alone of all creatures alive and treading the earth, it is we who bear a likeness to a god.’⁴⁸

47 Alexander. On Mixture 225.1–2.
48 Cleanthes. Hymn to Zeus 1.537 [sic, but since the Hymn is only 39 lines long, I don’t know what Holland’s numbers refer to; his translation may be of part of lines 4 and 5: 〈ἑνὸς〉 μίμημα λαχόντες / μοῦνον, ὅσα ζώει τε καὶ ἕρπει θνήτ᾽ ἐπὶ γαῖαν; the first part of line 4, ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ γένος ἐσμέν, “For we Thine offspring are,” is similar to τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος ἐσμέν, “For we are also his offspring,” quoted by Paul when speaking to Athenians on the Areopagus, according to Acts 17:28].

The concept of natural law had no place in Torah. Yet Paul – as he struggled to define the law that he believed, in the wake of the crucifixion and the resurrection, to be written on the heart of all who acknowledged Christ as Lord – did not hesitate to adapt the teachings of the Greeks. The word he used for it – syneidesis – clearly signalled which philosophers in particular he had in mind. Paul, at the heart of his gospel, was enshrining the Stoic concept of conscience.

I have written many blog posts about Homer, Plato, and now Aristotle, but I know little of Stoic philosophy as such, unless it be found in the Enchiridion of Epictetus. I attended no lectures on this philosophy, and I never had to repeat anything about it. From being in college in the mid-1980s, I do remember a visit to our campus in Santa Fe by Andrea von Ramm, who sang songs of troubadours, trouvères, and minnesängers; her encore was a German version of Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” After the concert, my friend was able to give me a cassette recording of it, and thus I could listen again, as I did many times. Perhaps we were juniors, but Ms von Ramm had visited too in the previous year. She met with us then, because sophomores had a music tutorial in place of the laboratory of the other three years. She expected us to know about the flaying of Marsyas. We didn’t know about Marsyas, or at least I didn’t, because we were at St John’s College not to learn of the classical world as such, but to read and discuss its greatest books – and not to be quizzed on them. Alcibiades does liken Socrates to Marsyas in Plato’s Symposium, which we read as freshmen, but nobody then lectured us about who Marsyas was, and we must have found plenty else to talk about (not that I remember it) in a two-hour seminar on the whole dialogue.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we also read most of the Nicomachean Ethics, in two-and-a-half weeks of our freshman year. A Catherine Project reading group started the Ethics five months ago, and we are halfway through. For four weeks we have talked about justice, because that is how dikaiosynê is translated, in every English version that anybody is using.

Dikaiosynê is also translated as justice in every English version of Plato’s Republic that I know of, except for the 1993 Oxford World’s Classics edition by Waterfield, who uses “doing good” and “morality.” However, now that I am investigating, I find that Jowett uses “unrighteous” in connection with unholiness (as in οὔτε ὅσιον οὔτε δίκαιον) and “unrighteousness” as well as “injustice” for adikia (ἀδικία), and “the wicked” for οἱ ἄδικοι, as for example in 461a and 609b–c and 610c–d:

Any one above or below the prescribed ages who takes part in the public hymeneals shall be said to have done an unholy and unrighteous thing.

οὐκοῦν ἐάντε πρεσβύτερος τούτων ἐάντε νεώτερος τῶν εἰς τὸ κοινὸν γεννήσεων ἅψηται, οὔτε ὅσιον οὔτε δίκαιον φήσομεν τὸ ἁμάρτημα.

Yes, he said, there are all the evils which we were just now passing in review: unrighteousness, intemperance, cowardice, ignorance.

καὶ μάλα, ἔφη: ἃ νυνδὴ διῇμεν πάντα, ἀδικία τε καὶ ἀκολασία καὶ δειλία καὶ ἀμαθία.

But if some one who would rather not admit the immortality of the soul boldly denies this, and says that the dying do really become more evil and unrighteous, then, if the speaker is right, I suppose that injustice, like disease, must be assumed to be fatal to the unjust, and that those who take this disorder die by the natural inherent power of destruction which evil has, and which kills them sooner or later, but in quite another way from that in which, at present, the wicked receive death at the hands of others as the penalty of their deeds?

ἐὰν δέ γέ τις, ἔφην ἐγώ, ὁμόσε τῷ λόγῳ τολμᾷ ἰέναι καὶ λέγειν ὡς πονηρότερος καὶ ἀδικώτερος γίγνεται ὁ ἀποθνῄσκων, ἵνα δὴ μὴ ἀναγκάζηται ἀθανάτους τὰς ψυχὰς ὁμολογεῖν, ἀξιώσομέν που, εἰ ἀληθῆ λέγει ὁ ταῦτα λέγων, τὴν ἀδικίαν εἶναι θανάσιμον τῷ ἔχοντι ὥσπερ νόσον, καὶ ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, τοῦ ἀποκτεινύντος τῇ ἑαυτοῦ φύσει, ἀποθνῄσκειν τοὺς λαμβάνοντας αὐτό, τοὺς μὲν μάλιστα θᾶττον, τοὺς δ᾽ ἧττον σχολαίτερον, ἀλλὰ μὴ ὥσπερ νῦν διὰ τοῦτο ὑπ᾽ ἄλλων δίκην ἐπιτιθέντων ἀποθνῄσκουσιν οἱ ἄδικοι.

According to one Aristotle translator, Joe Sachs, in the Preface to his Ethics,

The general run of English translations of Aristotle’s theoretical works … is infected by a long Latin tradition that has obscured and distorted much that it has transmitted … The translator who wants to connect the English reader as directly as possible with what is written must bypass the accumulated baggage of a tradition …

English gets “justice” and related words from Latin, and yet Sachs still uses them, when “righteousness” is a native English word, seemingly invented to translate dikaiosynê.

The adjective “righteous” used to be “rightwise” (or a precursor such as rihtwis). Wikipedia traces the spelling change to Tyndale. The Oxford English Dictionary corroborates this, if only in the sense that its earliest quotation with the new spelling is of part of the Tindale [sic] Bible’s version of Matthew 23, verse 35. The sentence begins with verse 34:

[34] Wherfore beholde I sende vnto you prophetes wyse men and scribes and of the ye shall kyll and crucifie: and of the ye shall scourge in youre synagoges and persecute from cyte to cyte [35] that vpon you maye come all the righteous bloude that was sheed vpon the erth fro the bloud of righteous Abell vnto ye bloud of zacharias the sonne of Barachias who ye slewe betwene the teple and ye altre.

I record here that, when I looked up the Tyndale Bible’s Matthew on Wikisource, there was no Chapter 23 in the table of contents. The verses were on the page, but they had been mislabelled behind the scenes as still belonging to Chapter 22. As anybody who noticed the problem could have done, I made the appropriate change, which was the first to the page since 2010.

Tyndale is indeed using “righteous” for the adjective from which δικαιοσύνη is derived; for here is the original Greek of the verse in question:

ὅπως ἔλθῃ ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς πᾶν αἷμα δίκαιον ἐκχυννόμενον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος Ἅβελ τοῦ δικαίου ἕως τοῦ αἵματος Ζαχαρίου υἱοῦ Βαραχίου, ὃν ἐφονεύσατε μεταξὺ τοῦ ναοῦ καὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου.

Here we have an historical basis for translating the adjective δίκαιος as “righteous,” and thus δικαιοσύνη as “righteousness,” even though, currently (December 5, 2023), this possibility is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article on that particular virtue; it is mentioned in the article on the four cardinal virtues together.

Some members of our Ethics reading group have found justice to sit uneasily with the ten virtues that we have already examined:

• Book III
  • Chapters vi–ix
    1. Ἀνδρεία, Courage
  • Chapters x–xii
    2. Σωφροσύνη, Moderation
• Book IV
  • Chapters i–ii
    3. Ἐλευθεριότης, Liberality
    4. Μεγαλοπρέπεια, Magnificence
  • Chapters iii–v
    5. Μεγαλοψυχία, Greatness of Soul
    6. Φιλοτιμία, Ambition
    7. Πραότης, Gentleness
  • Chapters vi–viii
    8. Φιλία, Friendliness
    9. Ἀλήθεια, Truthfulness
    10. Εὐτραπελία, Wittiness

The English names of the virtues here are from the summary that Bartlett and Collins include with their translation of the Ethics. I don’t know whether the list of virtues is better completed with Righteousness or Justice. The former does seem to me to apply, better than the latter does, to persons as distinct from, say, institutions or decisions.

Martin Luther King was alluding to Amos, speaking the words of God, here in the King James Version (chapter 5):

22 Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.
23 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

The Tyndale Bible hasn’t got Amos, but the Coverdale Bible (found at StudyLight.org) has:

22 And though ye offre me brentofferinges and meatofferinges, yet haue I no pleasure therin: As for youre fat thankofferynges, I wil not loke vpon them.
23 Awaye with that noyse of thy songes, I wil not heare thy playes of musick:
24 but se that equyte flowe as the water, and rightuousnesse as a mightie streame.

Unfortunately the Wikisource transcription of the Coverdale Bible has only begun, and I know practically nothing of Hebrew. For that last verse, the Septuagint has,

καὶ κυλισθήσεται ὡς ὕδωρ κρίμα καὶ δικαιοσύνη ὡς χειμάρρους ἄβατος.

For the Hebrew word translated as κρίμα then, some of the modern translations gathered at Bible Gateway use “judgment,” which seems to be the better choice; but others do use “justice,” as King does.

None uses “equity,” which however, as noted, is another subject of our current Ethics reading. Rather, ἐπιείκεια is a subject (and the adjective form ἐπιεικής was used eight times in the last three chapters of Book IV). According to the OED, the Latin aequitas

was somewhat influenced in meaning by being adopted as the ordinary rendering of Gr. ἐπιείκεια (see Epiky).

The quotations in the OED include:

• 1382 Wyclif, Mal. ii.6:

  Þe lawe of trewþe was in his mouþ, and wickidneſſe is not founden in his lippis; in pees and in equitee he walkide wiþ me, and many men he turnyde awey fro wickidneſſe.

• 1535 Coverdale, Job xxix:14:

  And why? I put vpon me rightuousnes, which couered me as a garmet, & equite was my crowne.

These are respectively,

• In the Septuagint and King James,

  νόμος ἀληθείας ἦν ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἀδικία οὐχ εὑρέθη ἐν χείλεσιν αὐτοῦ· ἐν εἰρήνῃ κατευθύνων ἐπορεύθη μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ καὶ πολλοὺς ἐπέστρεψεν ἀπὸ ἀδικίας.

  The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.

• In the Septuagint
  and King James,

  δικαιοσύνην δὲ ἐνδεδύκειν, ἠμφιασάμην δὲ κρίμα ἴσα διπλοΐδι.

  I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.

Aristotle does not seem to use a word for the opposite of δικαιοσύνη. He does for the related words

• ὁ δίκαιος, the righteous person;
• τὸ δίκαιον, the righteous thing, or instance of righteousness;
• δικαιόω, to set right (Aristotle seems to use this only in the passive voice; for an active verb, he uses δικαιοπραγέω).

The opposites of these are

• ὁ ἄδικος, the wrongdoer;
• τὸ ἄδικον, the wrong;
• ἀδικέω, to wrong or do wrong.

In “Doing and Suffering,” and then again in “Valor” (under § vi.4 of Book III of the Ethics), I recalled the words of Socrates in the Gorgias (522e), which I knew in the translation of Jowett:

For no man who is not an utter fool and coward is afraid of death itself, but he is afraid of doing wrong.

αὐτὸ μὲν γὰρ τὸ ἀποθνῄσκειν οὐδεὶς φοβεῖται, ὅστις μὴ παντάπασιν ἀλόγιστός τε καὶ ἄνανδρός ἐστιν, τὸ δὲ ἀδικεῖν φοβεῖται.

Here are more words from the speech of Martin Luther King; they inspired me when I was struggling under an unjust boss at a farm:

Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

There’s a conjunction of epieikeia and dikaiosynê near the beginning of the Republic (331, here in Bloom’s translation), when Cephalus is talking with Socrates:

“… To the man who is conscious in himself of no unjust (ἄδικον) deed, sweet and good hope is ever beside him – a nurse of his old age, as Pindar puts it. For, you know, Socrates, he put it charmingly when he said that whoever lives out a just and holy life (δικαίως καὶ ὁσίως τὸν βίον)

Sweet hope accompanies,
Fostering his heart, a nurse of his old age,
Hope which most of all pilots
The ever-turning opinion of mortals.

How very wonderfully well he says that. For this I count the possession of money most worth-while, not for any man, but for the decent and orderly one (τῷ ἐπιεικεῖ καὶ κοσμίῳ) …”

“What you say is very fine indeed, Cephalus,” I said. “But as to this very thing, justice (τὴν δικαιοσύνην), shall we so simply assert that it is the truth and giving back what a man has taken from another, or is to do these very things sometimes just and sometimes unjust?”

Cephalus has been talking about being just or unjust, righteous or wicked; it is Socrates who introduces the abstract concept of justice, morality, or righteousness.

Finally, since Aristotle has been seeming to talk about something like equality before the law (as in the previous reading), I note a sighting also in the myth of the Gorgias (526b):

most of those in power, my excellent friend, prove to be bad. So, as I was saying, whenever the judge Rhadamanthus has to deal with such a one, he knows nothing else of him at all, neither who he is nor of what descent, but only that he is a wicked person and on perceiving this he sends him away to Tartarus, first setting a mark on him to show whether he deems it a curable or an incurable case.

Contents

• Chapter IX
  • Chapter 11.
    • Questions:
      1. Can one willingly
         • be wronged (ἀδικεῖσθαι)? (§ ix.1)
         • be done right by (δικαιοῦσθαι)? (§ ix.2)
      2. Is suffering a wrong (τὸ ἄδικον πεπονθὼς) always being wronged? (§ ix.3)
      3. Can one do oneself wrong (αὐτὸν αὑτὸν ἀδικεῖν)?
    • Partial answers:
      • It would seem possible, if
        • the acratic (incontinent) wilfully harms himself,
        • doing wrong is wilfully (i.e. knowingly) harming somebody (§ ix.4).
      • Maybe one should add, “against his wishes” (§ ix.5).
      • Then one can willingly
        • be harmed,
        • suffer wrongs, but
        • not be wronged (§ ix.6).
      • Glaucus was not wronged by trading his gold for Diomedes’s bronze (§ 7).
      • Clearly being wronged is not voluntary (§ ix.8).
  • Chapter 12
    • So:
      1. In wrong distribution, who is wrong:
         • the distributor?
         • the receiver of too much?
      2. Can one do oneself wrong (αὐτὸν αὑτὸν ἀδικεῖν)? (§ ix.8)
    • The distributor could be a measured, decent person,
      seeking more of something else:
      • repute,
      • beauty;

      thus he is

      • not wronged (οὐκ ἀδικεῖται),
      • only harmed (βλάπτεται), if that (§ ix.9).
    • Yet as the origin of the act,
      the distributor is doing the wrong (§ ix.10).
    • Still, one can do a wrong
      without being wrong (§ ix.11),
    • there being a difference between
      • the just (τὸ νομικὸν δίκαιον)
      • the right (τὸ πρῶτον [δίκαιον]).

      If somebody made a bad judgment

      • in ignorance, he is
        • not unjust,
        • but wrong, as it were;
      • knowingly, he is
        • grasping for more of
          • gratitude or of
          • vengeance (§ ix.12)
          • not what he’s distributing (§ ix.13).
  • Chapter 13
    • People have misconceptions.
      • They think
        • wrong is on them,
        • right is easy,

        but it’s not; it needs doing “just so” (ὡδί) (§ ix.14).

      • They think knowing what’s right and wrong is
        • not wisdom,
        • but just knowing what the law says;

        that’s not justice,
        any more than medicine is knowing about

        • honey,
        • hellebore, etc. (§ ix.15).
    • Being cowardly or unjust is
      • not doing certain things,
      • but doing them “just so,” as with medicine (§ ix.16).
    • Justice is for those who, unlike
      • gods or
      • incurably bad people,

      can have too much of a good thing (§ ix.17).

• Chapter X = Chapter 14
  • On investigation,
    • decency (ἡ ἐπιείκεια) and
    • righteousness (ἡ δικαιοσύνη)

    appear to be neither

    • simply the same, nor
    • different in kind (§ x.1).
  • Indeed,
    • the
      • decent (τὸ ἐπιεικὲς) and
      • righteous (τὸ δίκαιον)

      are

      • the same, and
      • good (σπουδαῖος);
    • the decent is better (§ x.2).
  • The decent is a correction of the legally right (§ x.3).
    • The cause is that
      • law is general,
      • some things are not.
    • Such is the
      • nature (φύσις) and
      • matter (ὕλη)

      of things (§ x.4).

  • Sometimes one has to rule as the lawmaker (νομοθέτης) would have (§ x.5).
  • About some things,
    • there can’t be law,
    • one needs a decree (ψήφισμα) (§ x.6)
      like the leaden ruler of Lesbos (§ x.7).
  • Decency is this habit (ἕξις) (§ x.8).
• Chapter XI = Chapter 15.
  Whether you can wrong yourself is now clear.

  1. Law forbids what it does not condone (§ xi.1).

     • Suicide is wronging (§ xi.2)
       • not oneself,
       • but the state (πόλις) (§ xi.3).
  2. • The wrongdoer who is
       • only wrong,
       • not wicked,

       does not wrong himself,
       any more than a coward does.

     • It would be
       • adding and
       • subtracting
          
       • the same
       • to and from the same.
     • Thus
       • right and
       • wrong

       take two (§ xi.4).

  3. One would at the same time be

     • suffering and
     • doing.

  4. One would be wronged willingly (§ xi.5).

  5. Doing wrong involves a wrong (e.g. adultery), but
     one cannot do this to oneself (§ xi.6).

  6. Doing wrong is worse than suffering,
     except accidentally (§§ xi.7, 8).

  7. One part of you can wrong another, as it were

     • despotically,
     • economically (§ xi.9).

  8. That’s it for

     • righteousness,
     • the other moral (ἠθικός) virtues (§ xi.10).

[1136^a]

Chapter IX

Chapter 11

§ ix.1

ἀπορήσειε δ᾽ ἄν τις,
εἰ ἱκανῶς διώρισται περὶ τοῦ

• ἀδικεῖσθαι καὶ
• ἀδικεῖν,

πότερον γὰρ

• ὡς ἀληθῶς
  ἔστιν ἑκόντα ἀδικεῖσθαι, ἢ
• οὒ ἀλλ᾽ ἀκούσιον ἅπαν,
  ὥσπερ καὶ τὸ ἀδικεῖν πᾶν ἑκούσιον.

καὶ ἆρα πᾶν

• οὕτως ἢ
• ἐκείνως,

[ὥσπερ καὶ τὸ ἀδικεῖν πᾶν ἑκούσιον,] ἢ

• τὸ μὲν ἑκούσιον
• τὸ δ᾽ ἀκούσιον;

§ ix.2

ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ δικαιοῦσθαι·

τὸ γὰρ δικαιοπραγεῖν πᾶν ἑκούσιον·

ὥστ᾽ εὔλογον ἀντικεῖσθαι ὁμοίως καθ᾽ ἑκάτερον,
τό τ᾽

• ἀδικεῖσθαι καὶ
• δικαιοῦσθαι

• ἢ ἑκούσιον
• ἢ ἀκούσιον

εἶναι.

ἄτοπον δ᾽ ἂν δόξειε καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ δικαιοῦσθαι,
εἰ πᾶν ἑκούσιον·

ἔνιοι γὰρ δικαιοῦνται οὐχ ἑκόντες.

§ ix.3

ἔπειτα καὶ τόδε διαπορήσειεν ἄν τις,
πότερον

• ὁ τὸ ἄδικον πεπονθὼς ἀδικεῖται πᾶς, ἢ
• ὥσπερ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ πράττειν,
  καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ πάσχειν ἐστίν·

κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς γὰρ ἐνδέχεται ἐπ᾽ ἀμφοτέρων μεταλαμβάνειν τῶν δικαίων·

ὁμοίως δὲ δῆλον ὅτι καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἀδίκων·

οὐ γὰρ ταὐτὸν

• τὸ τἄδικα πράττειν τῷ ἀδικεῖν
• οὐδὲ τὸ ἄδικα πάσχειν τῷ ἀδικεῖσθαι·

ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ

• δικαιοπραγεῖν καὶ
• δικαιοῦσθαι·

ἀδύνατον γὰρ

• ἀδικεῖσθαι μὴ ἀδικοῦντος ἢ
• δικαιοῦσθαι μὴ δικαιοπραγοῦντος.

§ ix.4

εἰ δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἁπλῶς τὸ ἀδικεῖν τὸ βλάπτειν ἑκόντα τινά,
τὸ δ᾽ ἑκόντα εἰδότα

• καὶ ὃν
• καὶ ᾧ
• καὶ ὥς,

ὁ δ᾽ ἀκρατὴς ἑκὼν βλάπτει αὐτὸς αὑτόν,
ἑκών τ᾽ ἂν ἀδικοῖτο κἂν ἐνδέχοιτο αὐτὸς αὑτὸν ἀδικεῖν.

§ ix.5

ἔτι ἑκὼν ἄν τις δι᾽ ἀκρασίαν ὑπ᾽ ἄλλου βλάπτοιτο ἑκόντος,
ὥστ᾽ εἴη ἂν ἑκόντ᾽ ἀδικεῖσθαι.

ἢ οὐκ ὀρθὸς ὁ διορισμός,
ἀλλὰ προσθετέον
τῷ βλάπτειν εἰδότα

• καὶ ὃν
• καὶ ᾧ
• καὶ ὣς

τὸ παρὰ τὴν ἐκείνου βούλησιν.

§ ix.6

• • βλάπτεται μὲν οὖν τις ἑκὼν καὶ
  • τἄδικα πάσχει,
• ἀδικεῖται δ᾽ οὐδεὶς ἑκών·

οὐδεὶς γὰρ βούλεται,
οὐδ᾽ ὁ ἀκρατής,
ἀλλὰ παρὰ τὴν βούλησιν πράττει·

οὔτε γὰρ βούλεται οὐδεὶς
ὃ μὴ οἴεται εἶναι σπουδαῖον,
ὅ τε ἀκρατὴς οὐχ
ἃ οἴεται δεῖν πράττειν πράττει.

§ ix.7

ὁ δὲ τὰ αὑτοῦ διδούς,

οὐκ ἀδικεῖται·

• ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ γάρ ἐστι τὸ διδόναι,
• τὸ δ᾽ ἀδικεῖσθαι οὐκ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ,
• ἀλλὰ τὸν ἀδικοῦντα δεῖ ὑπάρχειν.

§ ix.8

Chapter 12

ἔτι δ᾽ ὧν προειλόμεθα δύ᾽ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν,

§ ix.9

εἰ γὰρ

• ἐνδέχεται τὸ πρότερον λεχθὲν καὶ

• • ὁ διανέμων ἀδικεῖ ἀλλ᾽
  • οὐχ ὁ ἔχων τὸ πλέον,

εἴ τις πλέον αὑτοῦ ἑτέρῳ νέμει

οὗτος αὐτὸς αὑτὸν ἀδικεῖ·

ὅπερ δοκοῦσιν οἱ μέτριοι ποιεῖν·

ὁ γὰρ ἐπιεικὴς ἐλαττωτικός ἐστιν.

ἢ οὐδὲ τοῦτο ἁπλοῦν.

ἑτέρου γὰρ ἀγαθοῦ,
εἰ ἔτυχεν, πλεονεκτεῖ,
οἷον

ἔτι λύεται κατὰ τὸν διορισμὸν τοῦ ἀδικεῖν·

οὐδὲν γὰρ παρὰ τὴν αὑτοῦ πάσχει βούλησιν,
ὥστε

• οὐκ ἀδικεῖται διά γε τοῦτο,
• ἀλλ᾽ εἴπερ,
  βλάπτεται μόνον.

§ ix.10

φανερὸν δὲ ὅτι καὶ

• ὁ διανέμων ἀδικεῖ,
• ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὁ τὸ πλέον ἔχων ἀεί·

• οὐ γὰρ ᾧ τὸ ἄδικον ὑπάρχει ἀδικεῖ,
• ἀλλ᾽ ᾧ τὸ ἑκόντα τοῦτο ποιεῖν·

τοῦτο δ᾽ ὅθεν

• ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς πράξεως,
• ἥ ἐστιν ἐν τῷ διανέμοντι
• ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐν τῷ λαμβάνοντι.

§ ix.11

ἔτι ἐπεὶ πολλαχῶς τὸ ποιεῖν λέγεται,
καὶ ἔστιν ὡς τὰ ἄψυχα κτείνει

§ ix.12

ἔτι

• εἰ μὲν ἀγνοῶν ἔκρινεν,
  • οὐκ ἀδικεῖ κατὰ τὸ νομικὸν δίκαιον
  • οὐδ᾽ ἄδικος ἡ κρίσις ἐστίν,
  • ἔστι δ᾽ ὡς ἄδικος·
  ἕτερον γὰρ

  • τὸ νομικὸν δίκαιον καὶ
  • τὸ πρῶτον·
• εἰ δὲ γινώσκων ἔκρινεν ἀδίκως, [1137^a]
  πλεονεκτεῖ καὶ αὐτὸς
  • ἢ χάριτος
  • ἢ τιμωρίας.

§ ix.13

ὥσπερ οὖν κἂν εἴ τις μερίσαιτο τοῦ ἀδικήματος,
καὶ ὁ διὰ ταῦτα κρίνας ἀδίκως πλέον ἔχει·

καὶ γὰρ ἐπ᾽ ἐκείνῳ τὸν ἀγρὸν κρίνας

• οὐκ ἀγρὸν
• ἀλλ᾽ ἀργύριον

ἔλαβεν.

Chapter 13

§ ix.14

οἱ δ᾽ ἄνθρωποι

• ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτοῖς οἴονται εἶναι τὸ ἀδικεῖν·
  διὸ καὶ
• τὸ δίκαιον εἶναι ῥᾴδιον.

τὸ δ᾽ οὐκ ἔστιν·

ἀλλὰ τὸ ὡδὶ ἔχοντας ταῦτα ποιεῖν

• οὔτε ῥᾴδιον
• οὔτ᾽ ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῖς.

§ ix.15

ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὸ γνῶναι

• τὰ δίκαια καὶ
• τὰ ἄδικα

οὐδὲν οἴονται σοφὸν εἶναι,
ὅτι περὶ ὧν οἱ νόμοι λέγουσιν οὐ χαλεπὸν συνιέναι
(ἀλλ᾽

• οὐ ταῦτ᾽ ἐστὶ τὰ δίκαια
• ἀλλ᾽ ἢ κατὰ συμβεβηκός)·

ἀλλὰ

§ ix.16

δι᾽ αὐτὸ δὲ τοῦτο καὶ τοῦ δικαίου οἴονται εἶναι

• οὐδὲν ἧττον τὸ ἀδικεῖν,

ὅτι

• οὐχ ἧττον ὁ δίκαιος
• ἀλλὰ καὶ μᾶλλον

δύναιτ᾽ ἂν ἕκαστον πρᾶξαι τούτων·

ἀλλὰ τὸ

• δειλαίνειν καὶ
• ἀδικεῖν

• οὐ τὸ ταῦτα ποιεῖν ἐστί,
  πλὴν κατὰ συμβεβηκός,
• ἀλλὰ τὸ ὡδὶ ἔχοντα ταῦτα ποιεῖν,

§ ix.17

• τοῖς μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν ὑπερβολὴ αὐτῶν,
  οἷον ἴσως τοῖς θεοῖς,
• τοῖς δ᾽ οὐδὲν μόριον ὠφέλιμον,
  τοῖς ἀνιάτως κακοῖς,
  ἀλλὰ πάντα βλάπτει,
• τοῖς δὲ μέχρι τοῦ·

διὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἀνθρώπινόν ἐστιν.

Chapter X

Chapter 14

§ x.1

• περὶ δὲ
  • ἐπιεικείας καὶ
  • τοῦ ἐπιεικοῦς,
• πῶς ἔχει
  • ἡ μὲν ἐπιείκεια πρὸς δικαιοσύνην
  • τὸ δ᾽ ἐπιεικὲς πρὸς τὸ δίκαιον,

ἐχόμενόν ἐστιν εἰπεῖν.

φαίνεται σκοπουμένοις· καὶ

• ὁτὲ μὲν
  • τὸ ἐπιεικὲς ἐπαινοῦμεν καὶ
  • ἄνδρα τὸν τοιοῦτον,

  ὥστε καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ ἄλλα [1137^b]

  • ἐπαινοῦντες
    μεταφέρομεν ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ,
  • τὸ ἐπιεικέστερον ὅτι βέλτιον δηλοῦντες·
• ὁτὲ δὲ τῷ λόγῳ ἀκολουθοῦσι φαίνεται ἄτοπον
  εἰ τὸ ἐπιεικὲς
  παρὰ τὸ δίκαιόν
  τι ὂν ἐπαινετόν ἐστιν·

• • ἢ γὰρ τὸ δίκαιον οὐ σπουδαῖον,
  • ἢ τὸ ἐπιεικὲς οὐ δίκαιον,

  εἰ ἄλλο· ἢ

• εἰ ἄμφω σπουδαῖα,
  ταὐτόν ἐστιν.

§ x.2

• ἡ μὲν οὖν ἀπορία σχεδὸν συμβαίνει διὰ ταῦτα περὶ τὸ ἐπιεικές,
• ἔχει δ᾽ ἅπαντα
  • τρόπον τινὰ ὀρθῶς καὶ
  • οὐδὲν ὑπεναντίον ἑαυτοῖς·

τό τε γὰρ ἐπιεικὲς

• δικαίου τινὸς ὂν βέλτιόν
  ἐστι δίκαιον, καὶ
• οὐχ ὡς ἄλλο τι γένος ὂν
  βέλτιόν ἐστι τοῦ δικαίου.

§ x.3

ποιεῖ δὲ τὴν ἀπορίαν
ὅτι τὸ ἐπιεικὲς

• δίκαιον μέν ἐστιν,
• οὐ τὸ κατὰ νόμον δέ,
• ἀλλ᾽ ἐπανόρθωμα νομίμου δικαίου.

§ x.4

αἴτιον δ᾽ ὅτι

ἐν οἷς οὖν

• ἀνάγκη μὲν εἰπεῖν καθόλου,
• μὴ οἷόν τε δὲ ὀρθῶς,

τὸ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πλέον λαμβάνει ὁ νόμος,
οὐκ ἀγνοῶν τὸ ἁμαρτανόμενον.

καὶ ἔστιν οὐδὲν ἧττον ὀρθός·

τὸ γὰρ ἁμάρτημα

• οὐκ ἐν τῷ νόμῳ
• οὐδ᾽ ἐν τῷ νομοθέτῃ
• ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τῇ φύσει τοῦ πράγματός ἐστιν·

εὐθὺς γὰρ τοιαύτη ἡ τῶν πρακτῶν ὕλη ἐστίν.

§ x.5

ὅταν οὖν

• λέγῃ μὲν ὁ νόμος καθόλου,
• συμβῇ δ᾽ ἐπὶ τούτου παρὰ τὸ καθόλου,

τότε ὀρθῶς ἔχει,
ᾗ

• παραλείπει ὁ νομοθέτης καὶ
• ἥμαρτεν ἁπλῶς εἰπών,

ἐπανορθοῦν τὸ ἐλλειφθέν,
ὃ

• κἂν ὁ νομοθέτης αὐτὸς ἂν εἶπεν ἐκεῖ παρών,
• καὶ εἰ ᾔδει,
  ἐνομοθέτησεν.

§ x.6

διὸ δίκαιον μέν ἐστι,
καὶ βέλτιόν τινος δικαίου,

• οὐ τοῦ ἁπλῶς δὲ
• ἀλλὰ τοῦ διὰ τὸ ἁπλῶς ἁμαρτήματος.

καὶ ἔστιν αὕτη ἡ φύσις ἡ τοῦ ἐπιεικοῦς,
ἐπανόρθωμα νόμου,
ᾗ ἐλλείπει διὰ τὸ καθόλου.

τοῦτο γὰρ αἴτιον καὶ τοῦ μὴ πάντα κατὰ νόμον εἶναι,
ὅτι

§ x.7

τοῦ γὰρ ἀορίστου ἀόριστος καὶ ὁ κανών ἐστιν,

ὥσπερ καὶ τῆς Λεσβίας οἰκοδομίας ὁ μολίβδινος κανών·

• πρὸς γὰρ τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ λίθου

  • μετακινεῖται καὶ
  • οὐ μένει

  ὁ κανών, καὶ

• τὸ ψήφισμα πρὸς τὰ πράγματα.

§ x.8

• τί μὲν οὖν ἐστὶ τὸ ἐπιεικές,
  • καὶ ὅτι δίκαιον
  • καὶ τινὸς βέλτιον δικαίου,

  δῆλον.

• φανερὸν δ᾽ ἐκ τούτου
  • καὶ ὁ ἐπιεικὴς τίς ἐστιν·
    • ὁ γὰρ τῶν τοιούτων
      • προαιρετικὸς καὶ
      • πρακτικός, καὶ [1138^a]
    • ὁ
      • μὴ ἀκριβοδίκαιος ἐπὶ τὸ χεῖρον
      • ἀλλ᾽ ἐλαττωτικός,

      καίπερ ἔχων τὸν νόμον βοηθόν,

    ἐπιεικής ἐστι,

  • καὶ ἡ ἕξις αὕτη ἐπιείκεια,
    • δικαιοσύνη τις οὖσα καὶ
    • οὐχ ἑτέρα τις ἕξις.

Chapter XI

Chapter 15

§ xi.1

φανερὸν ἐκ τῶν εἰρημένων.

• τὰ μὲν γάρ ἐστι τῶν δικαίων
  τὰ κατὰ πᾶσαν ἀρετὴν ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου τεταγμένα,
  οἷον οὐ κελεύει ἀποκτιννύναι ἑαυτὸν ὁ νόμος,
• ἃ δὲ μὴ κελεύει, ἀπαγορεύει.

§ xi.2

[1.] ἔτι ὅταν
παρὰ τὸν νόμον
βλάπτῃ μὴ ἀντιβλάπτων ἑκών,
ἀδικεῖ,
ἑκὼν δὲ ὁ εἰδὼς

• καὶ ὃν
• καὶ ᾧ·

§ xi.3

§ xi.4

[2.] ἔτι καθ᾽ ὃ

• ἄδικος μόνον ὁ ἀδικῶν καὶ
• μὴ ὅλως φαῦλος,

οὐκ ἔστιν ἀδικῆσαι ἑαυτόν

(τοῦτο γὰρ ἄλλος ἐκείνου·

ἔστι γάρ πως ὁ ἄδικος οὕτω πονηρὸς
ὥσπερ ὁ δειλός,
οὐχ ὡς ὅλην ἔχων τὴν πονηρίαν,
ὥστ᾽ οὐδὲ κατὰ ταύτην ἀδικεῖ)·

ἅμα γὰρ ἂν τῷ αὐτῷ εἴη

• ἀφῃρῆσθαι καὶ
• προσκεῖσθαι

τὸ αὐτό·

τοῦτο δὲ ἀδύνατον, ἀλλ᾽

§ xi.5

[3.] ἔτι δὲ

• ἑκούσιόν τε καὶ
• ἐκ προαιρέσεως καὶ
• πρότερον·

ὁ γὰρ διότι ἔπαθε καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἀντιποιῶν
οὐ δοκεῖ ἀδικεῖν·

αὐτὸς δ᾽ αὑτόν,
ταὐτὰ ἅμα

• καὶ πάσχει
• καὶ ποιεῖ.

[4.] ἔτι εἴη ἂν ἑκόντα ἀδικεῖσθαι.

§ xi.6

[5.] πρὸς δὲ τούτοις,
ἄνευ τῶν κατὰ μέρος ἀδικημάτων οὐδεὶς ἀδικεῖ,

[6.] ὅλως δὲ λύεται τὸ αὑτὸν ἀδικεῖν καὶ
κατὰ τὸν διορισμὸν
τὸν περὶ τοῦ ἑκουσίως ἀδικεῖσθαι.

§ xi.7

[7.] φανερὸν δὲ καὶ ὅτι
ἄμφω μὲν φαῦλα,

• καὶ τὸ ἀδικεῖσθαι
• καὶ τὸ ἀδικεῖν

• (τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἔλαττον
• τὸ δὲ πλέον

ἔχειν ἐστὶ τοῦ μέσου

ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως χεῖρον τὸ ἀδικεῖν·

• τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἀδικεῖν
  • μετὰ κακίας καὶ
  • ψεκτόν, καὶ

  κακίας

  • ἢ τῆς τελείας καὶ ἁπλῶς
  • ἢ ἐγγύς

  (οὐ γὰρ ἅπαν τὸ ἑκούσιον μετὰ ἀδικίας),

• τὸ δ᾽ ἀδικεῖσθαι ἄνευ
  • κακίας καὶ
  • ἀδικίας.

§ xi.8

• καθ᾽ αὑτὸ μὲν οὖν τὸ ἀδικεῖσθαι ἧττον φαῦλον, [1138^b]
• κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς δ᾽ οὐδὲν κωλύει μεῖζον εἶναι κακόν.

ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲν μέλει τῇ τέχνῃ,

§ xi.9

[9.]

• κατὰ μεταφορὰν δὲ καὶ
• ὁμοιότητα

ἔστιν

• οὐκ αὐτῷ πρὸς αὑτὸν δίκαιον
• ἀλλὰ τῶν αὐτοῦ τισίν,

• οὐ πᾶν δὲ δίκαιον
• ἀλλὰ
  • τὸ δεσποτικὸν ἢ
  • τὸ οἰκονομικόν.

ἐν τούτοις γὰρ τοῖς λόγοις
διέστηκε

• τὸ λόγον ἔχον μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς
• τὸ ἄλογον·

εἰς ἃ δὴ βλέπουσι καὶ δοκεῖ εἶναι ἀδικία πρὸς αὑτόν,
ὅτι ἐν τούτοις ἔστι πάσχειν τι παρὰ τὰς ἑαυτῶν ὀρέξεις·

ὥσπερ οὖν

• ἄρχοντι καὶ
• ἀρχομένῳ

εἶναι πρὸς ἄλληλα δίκαιόν τι
καὶ τούτοις.

§ xi.10

περὶ μὲν οὖν

• δικαιοσύνης καὶ
• τῶν ἄλλων,

τῶν ἠθικῶν ἀρετῶν,
διωρίσθω τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον.