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

IV
PREFACE

...much more than in the German books, in order that the image of the tradition might not be obscured, we have received those various readings of codex D primarily where it agreed with A, b, or one of the others, without noting the obvious errors of Ioannes Hydruntinus. However, that faulty book should not be entirely neglected, so that codex Q might not lack all support.

Whatever could be gathered in general regarding the history and nature of that most precious book, which is said to have been kept in antiquity in the archives of Mynas1, we have collected above (I p. XIII ff., II p. III, note 2). Little remains. And first, indeed, those leaves which present the false appearance of having been written by a different scribe (207 to 347) encompass the commentaries from p. 67, 28 | noēson understand/perceive to p. 356. Furthermore, both the names of the signs of the heavens and the stars, which are cited from p. 34 to p. 67, as well as the nouns hēmera day, nyx night, mēn month, arithmos number, kentron center, kyklos circle, sphaira sphere (as towards the end of the third book, vol. II from p. 237), are not written with letters, but with symbols such as occur in astronomical and mathematical codices. Finally, regarding the gaps from which both Q $\varsigma$ and Q D suffer, it appears that Q $\varsigma$ flowed from one and the same archetype, and Q D returns to one exemplar. Furthermore, regarding the two large lacunae of codex D, which omitted p. 18, 1 to p. 20, 4 and p. 228, 24 to p. 230, 29, we must discuss this more fully below, after we have spoken of the relationship that exists both between Q and D and $\varsigma$, and between Q and D$\varsigma$. For that codices Q and D are far superior to the witnesses of the common recension is shown by hundreds of corrupted places in previous editions, now healed, and others formerly with gaps, now filled; to provide examples of this would be tedious.

That Q is the best book, and D occupies a place nearly in the middle between Q and $\varsigma$, these readings generally illustrate:

1. Regarding Minoïde Mynas, see J. Jüthner, Wiener Sitzungsberichte CXLV p. 4 ff.; regarding this matter, I was advised by letter by Carolus Kalbfleisch of Marburg. Cf. also Omont, Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits grecs de la bibliothèque nationale III ind.