Chalcidius's Commentary on Plato's Timaeus

When our author finds a few words that initially...

Greek text omitted: "and where and how and when it happens both in terms of things being generated and being for each individual and suffering, and in terms of those things that are always held in the same way." — Chalcidius: "easily recognizes what belongs to the same, what to the individual, what to the diverse and dissoluble nature, and sees the causes of all things that arise." Cicero: "distinguishes what is of the same genus and what of the other, and judges the rest, what is most appropriate to each thing, what happens in each place or way or time, and what distinction exists between those things that are generated and those that are always the same."

V. In Timaeus 40 D, he seems to have had before him the reading "those capable of calculating" (and not "those not capable of calculating"), contrary to Cicero and the modern editors.

VI. Timaeus 45 C: "The middle [parts] of the eyes having been compressed" (densifying). Chalcidius: "of which, however, the narrow middle part was finer."

VII. The words of Timaeus 46 B: "contrary to the established custom" lead him in c. 258 to a false explanation of the passage in question.

VIII. 46 C: "turned along the length of the face" is also misunderstood by Chalcidius (in the passage cited and in the translation), or he had, as Schneider suspects in Eclogae Physicae in the aforementioned place, a different text.

IX. 46 C: "These things then are all of the synaitia co-causes..." The "These things then" refers generally to all bodily causality. Chalcidius understands it incorrectly and restricts it too much: "Which, indeed, sense..." Cicero is different.

X. 46 E: "So much then for the co-causes of the eyes for the sake of having the power which they now possess." Chalcidius: "And concerning the cause of the service of the eyes for which they have attained the power they now possess, enough has been said." Cicero: "And as for the causes of the eyes, so that they might have the power they now have, I think it has been said almost enough."

XI. 47 C: "For reason has been appointed for these very things, contributing the greatest share to them" (to the establishment of order in our inner being). Chalcidius: "if indeed the ordered communication of speech was ordained so that signs of mutual will might be present."

XII. 49 B: "First of all, what we have now named 'water'..." Chalcidius: "In the beginning, to start with water, of which we have just made mention (!)..."

XIII. 49 E: "But do not say 'these' for each thing, but always call it 'such' as it is carried around in the same way, around each and all; and indeed, always call fire 'such' and everything that has generation, but in which each of them is always appearing while being generated and again perishing from there, call only that 'this' and 'that,' using these names, but do not call any of those that are now hot or white or any of the opposites, or all that come from these, 'that'." On the other hand, Chalcidius: "Therefore, one must also believe that fire is truly what is always the same and everything whose property remains. Furthermore, what receives a quality or can even be turned into opposite qualities, being called hot or white, and being called by a proper and certain name—because it is uncertain and mutable—is least appropriate."

XIV. Finally: Timaeus 52 B. C: "All these things and others akin to them, and concerning the sleepless and truly existing nature, we are not able to speak of the truth upon waking from such a dreaming state, since..."