Chalcidius's Commentary on Plato's Timaeus

there are also here and there interspersed assertions that go back to this dialogue. The citations correspond almost word-for-word with the text in the translation, only now and then one encounters small deviations. — He also mentions Plato's 10 books de republica on the State/Republic not only in the introduction (c. 5), but he also refers to them in order to explain Plato's view on the order of the planets and on the harmony of the spheres. Indeed, c. 136 he speaks of the punishments after death and refers again to the Republic;

1. Chapters 24–25, c. 92–118, c. 191–201, c. 211–212, c. 247, 248, c. 257–263, c. 267, c. 268–273, c. 321–327, c. 329–335, c. 340–355 (conclusion) are indeed not much more than paraphrases of the text, so that the use of the Timaeus here cannot be striking. As individual pieces of evidence, there are cited here, among others, c. 23: "what things are made and what are born, having been made, are dissolved." Cf. Timaeus 41 A: "Everything that is bound is dissoluble... because you have been generated, you are not immortal." — c. 21, 22. The theory of the properties of the elements that is advocated here leans not only on Timaeus 31 C but also on p. 55 D ff. — c. 25 rests, like c. 104, 105, on Timaeus 37 C, D (contrast of time and eternity). — c. 50. The remark about Timaeus is supported, like a similar one in Proclus in Timaeus p. 291, on Timaeus 20 A, 27 A. Regarding c. 59 f., cf. Timaeus 33 B, 40 A (spherical shape of the world and the earth). Regarding c. 73, cf. Timaeus 38 D (position of the planets). — c. 120, 121. The 7 types of motion, cf. Timaeus 40 A, B, 43 B. — c. 202. "For there is something in these things contiguous that resists touch and that is not without earthly solidity. There is also another hot thing and the same visible, furthermore what such things are, cannot be without fire." Cf. Timaeus 31 B: "But when separated from fire, nothing would ever become visible nor touchable without some solid thing. And a solid thing is not without earth." — c. 260. "The best work of God is that which it understands," cf. Timaeus 30 B: "of the things visible according to nature, no non-intelligent thing will ever be a work more beautiful than that which has mind, whole to whole."

2. c. 13 translates bathos depth with "soliditas" solidity. In the translation stands "crassitudo" thickness/density. — Somewhat more significant is the deviation in the translation of Timaeus 32 D: In the "translation" we read: "For it is constructed from all fire and likewise from all those remaining, air, water, earth; with no part of body or power having been left behind or despised: for the reason that it might be a perfect animal." In the commentary c. 24, however, the translation is found as follows: "from all fire and from universal spirit and from the others without the diminution of any part. Thus it happens that not even the smallest part of any body is left outside the ambit of the world." — Similarly in c. 28. Also here he has not used his own translation verbatim (cf. "commiscuit" mixed together instead of "permiscuit" thoroughly mixed: "difficile se commodante" accommodating itself with difficulty instead of "repugnante" resisting). These and similar passages could lead to the suspicion that Chalcidius simply copied out the author available to him also in these passages, without giving special consideration to his own translation.

3. c. 73 (end).