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

XII
PREFACE

...which has been examined as diligently as possible, seems to be worthy of memory (p. 203, 31 "to the One itself" in the books: "to the transcendent One itself" in Psellus), although I would not have thought it should be accepted, since "transcendent" original: "ὑπερούσιος" is referred only to the gods in these commentaries.

But so that no one might say that we have judged too hastily about a witness of the highest antiquity, it happened well that that most light-minded compiler brought together, in diverse places, large parts of the commentaries from two Proclian books—he did not realize that he was drawing twice from the same source—of which one truly seems to have been of any value, a matter which Bidez sagaciously observed. At p. 175 ff., the greatest parts were received twice into Psellus's booklet; but the various readings, with both pages compared to each other, disappear, except for the slight ones and those that are by no means to be approved, so that the text emerges which hardly differs from the Proclian codices.

Therefore, we owe to the not very good memory of Michael not only clear signs of a recklessly lost text, but also a very important testimony concerning a second, sufficiently good Proclian codex that existed in Psellus's library; for to the writings of Proclus's books and Psellus which we cited above (p. X) at p. 177, 2 and 7, we had to add that at p. 1104b Psellus generally agrees with M and P, except that for "such" and "of it" he exhibits "thus" and "them," neither of which is true.

We have appended indices of authors, words, and proper names, and grammatical observations. And in the first, we have compared both the passages of poets and writers—whoever were cited by the philosopher either by name or without it—and we have prefixed to individual places whatever the commentaries contain for illustrating the knowledge of literature and the lives and writings of the authors.

In the index of words, we have received especially Proclian terms, omitting entirely the Platonic ones, except for those that were of the greatest importance in the philosophy of the ancients as a whole and especially in the doctrine of the Neoplatonists.

The third index, which is attached, of grammatical observations presents the more serious points by which Proclus...