SVF I.89

Original — Ancient Greek

αἴτιον δ᾽ ὁ Ζήνων φησὶν εἶναι δι᾽ ὅ· οὗ δὲ αἴτιον συμβεβηκός· καὶ τὸ μὲν αἴτιον σῶμα, οὗ δὲ αἴτιον κατηγόρημα· ἀδύνατον δ᾽ εἶναι τὸ μὲν αἴτιον παρεῖναι, οὗ δέ ἐστιν αἴτιον μὴ ὑπάρχειν. τὸ δὲ λεγόμενον τοιαύτην ἔχει δύναμιν· αἴτιόν ἐστι δι᾽ ὃ γίγνεταί τι, οἷον διὰ τὴν φρόνησιν γίνεται τὸ φρονεῖν καὶ διὰ τὴν ψυχὴν γίνεται τὸ ζῆν.

StoicOs Translation

Zeno says a cause is “that because of which”, and that of which it is the cause is an accident; the cause is a body, that of which it is the cause a predicate. It is impossible that the cause be present and that of which it is the cause not obtain. What is said has this force: a cause is that because of which something comes about — as through practical wisdom being-wise comes about, and through the soul being-alive comes about.

Context

Arius Didymus' physical doxography, excerpted by Stobaeus, opens its chapter on causes with Zeno's definition — before adding Chrysippus' and Posidonius' variants.

Source notes:Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 89, p. 25 (OCR of the scanned edition). The report carries repeated “Zeno says” markers; several OCR letter-garblings are restored from the edition's conventions.

What the source actually tells us

A definitional testimonium with the strongest attribution marker (“Zeno says”) and technical vocabulary — body, accident, predicate — that fits the earliest Stoa. The examples (wisdom causes being-wise, soul causes living) recur across the school's cause-doctrine.

Philosophical meaning

Only bodies cause; what they cause is not another thing but a predicate — an incorporeal “being-wise”, “living”. And a true cause cannot be present without its effect obtaining: causation is a real, active connection, not a habit of expectation. This compact metaphysics underwrites Zeno's whole physics of the active breath (SVF I.85–88).

Scholarly uncertainty

The explanatory close (“what is said has this force…”) is the doxographer's exegesis, and the predicate-terminology may have been sharpened by Chrysippus' generation; the core definition, however, is expressly and only Zeno's here.

Go deeper

• Read SVF I.88 — matter moved by the rational breath →
• Read SVF I.85 — the two principles, god and matter →