Proclus: Commentary on Plato's Timaeus, Vol. I

Moreover, more good readings of the common text seem to be able to return to the record preserved more integrally in ς than in the gaps of Q D, which appear toward the end of the fifth book in Q D, and those gaps are wider in D, as they should be, while the context of the ς manuscripts in those places is generally not only continuous but also sound, so that in those places the commentaries rely solely on the common recension ¹. For this reason, we are all the more offended that, at the beginning of the fifth book, the codices Q D ς are all lacerated in the same way at certain intervals. It is obvious that this gives rise to a great difficulty for one assembling the record of the commentaries. For codex D, which we have recognized as holding a middle place of sorts between Q and ς, acts not only in good readings but also in bad ones, and in the transmission of lacunae and gaps, sometimes with Q against ς, and sometimes with ς against Q, and with Q ς against M P.

For the rest of the context, which is increasingly falling apart, you would expect the gaps of codex Q, which we see expanded in D, to have become very large in ς. But the complete opposite happened: we find them closed. Have the gaps been filled from some very integral codex that is now completely lost?

This could have happened all the more, because it is agreed that the common recension surpasses all the books of Proclus that currently exist in age (cf. p. 13). Nevertheless, it will appear below that even that explanation has something to offend us.

But first, let us examine the origin and nature of the lacunae and gaps.

1. In those places, we consulted the final part of the Marcian codex 195, copied in the 15th century (M²; cf. I p. VII). But we saw that greater authority should be held by the Munich and Oxford books, since the Marcian text seemed to be lost here and there due to errors and inept conjectures. We consider it sufficient to have brought forward one example:
   p. 345, 6s and 8s ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀντιπροσώπου αὐτῷ ἑστῶτος and τοῦ ... ὁρῶντος Q: ἐπὶ τοῦ ἔν τι προσώπου (πρόσωπον) αὐτῷ ἑστῶτος and τὸ . . . ὁρῶντος ς: ἐπὶ τοῦ ἐφ' ἓν πρόσωπον ἑστῶτος and τῶ . . . ὁρᾶν M²
   But wherever the reading of codex M², however it arose, seemed superior, we either received it into the context or into the annotation (p. 326, 23. 330, 18. 334, 25. 352, 1).