With this fifth and penultimate volume the Cambridge translation of Proclus' Commentary on the Timaeus, resulting from a collaboration by a team of Australian-based scholars, nears its completion. The volume under review covers Book 4 of Proclus' commentary (vol. 3, pp. 1–161 in Diehl's Teubner edition). Proclus reads Timaeus 31b–40a as being concerned with ten ‘gifts’ of the Demiurge to the cosmos, a series of progressively greater provisions by which the Demiurge makes the cosmos ever more perfect and complete. To those of perceptibility, sphericity, self-sufficiency, etc., discussed in Book 3, the Demiurge in the text covered by Book 4 adds the gifts of time (Tim. 36e–37a), of the planets (39d) and of the four kinds of living creatures (39e–40a).

The introduction picks up on the most salient points of Proclus' treatment of these gifts. B. discusses how Timaeus' view of time as an image of eternity guides Proclus in developing his own – distinctively Platonic – doctrine, according to which the flowing time that we perceive is caused by a transcendent and static monad. An interesting case in Proclus' treatment of the heavenly bodies is his discussion of the planetary order. B. shows how Proclus is torn between Plato's view and that of the advocates – including Ptolemy – of the Chaldean order – a discussion that Proclus concludes by preferring the authority of the theurgists over a literal reading of Plato. Finally, B. discusses in which sense the Demiurge's final gift – the living creatures – is the greatest gift of all, which prima facie conflicts with the idea that multiplication leads to loss of perfection. The key to solving this problem lies in the wholeness and completeness of the cosmos.

B.'s translation manages to render Proclus' often scholastic prose in smooth English, even though his habit of disambiguating the Greek by completing Proclus' thoughts between square brackets may sometimes lack moderation. What readers will find most helpful are the numerous philosophical notes to the translation. Especially in the second, more technical, part of the book on the planets, B. saves his readers from embarassment by providing a host of clarifying comments and references to the astronomical literature of Proclus' time. Many notes are also devoted to textual problems. B.'s prime sparring partner here is A.-J. Festugière, whose interpretative choices are given due credit in the notes and are often adopted in the translation. Where B. deviates from Festugière, however, his choices are not always compelling. Let me briefly discuss just two examples of what I see as unfortunate interventions.

At in Tim. 3.6.29ff. Proclus comments on Plato's statement that the Demiurge rejoiced in making the universe an image of the eternal Living Being (Tim. 37c6–d2). What the Demiurge delights in, he writes, is nothing external, but rather the effectiveness of his own will and power. B.'s translation then continues (6.32–7.3):

Apart from the problematic tense (‘rejoiced’ for εὐϕραίνεται) and vocabulary (‘cognition’ for νόησις and ‘thought’ for περιβολή), especially B.'s construction of the phrase surprises. The object in which the Demiurge rejoices is his comprehension (περιβολῇ), which is further characterised as simple, unimpeded and comprehending all at once, and which commands the two participles (περιλαμβανούσῃ καὶ ϕιλοϕρονουμένῃ). I do not see how all this could be constructed as further qualifications of νόησις, as in B.'s translation. Moreover, I fail to see how πρὸς αὐτὸ could refer to anything but πᾶν τὸ νοητὸν – the neuter could certainly not refer to the Demiurge, as B. has it – and how it could depend on the participle ϕιλοϕρονουμένῃ, if the word order indicates that it goes with στάσεως καὶ ἑνώσεως (‘the perfect rest and unity that it has in relation to the intelligible’). According to B.'s explanatory note 28, it was especially the participle ϕιλοϕρονουμένῃ which caused him trouble and made him deviate from Festugière's translation (‘et qui répand ses bienfaits grâce à la fixité et la parfaite unité qu'elle présente relativement à son objet’). The reason is that B. ‘fail(s) to see how Festugière accommodates the passive participle’ (p. 50 n. 28). Yet ϕιλοϕρονουμένῃ is a middle voice with an active meaning (‘to show a favour’, i.e. to extend one's favours or benefits to others) and should not cause any such difficulties.

At in Tim. 3.20.1ff., Proclus embarks on a digression about the nature of time. His own account of time, as we have seen, famously distinguishes between static time and flowing time. At 26.24–7 he is explaining this distinction in a passage that puzzled Diehl:

Proclus just argued that intellect (immobile in essence and activity) and soul (mobile in both respects) require an intermediary, time, which is immobile in itself while bringing about motion in its participants. In the passage quoted Diehl suspected a lacuna, which he thought could be filled with something like καὶ ἐν τοῖς μετέχουσι. That would put the emphasis on the fact that time is mobile only by virtue of being participated in, not in itself. Festugière, however, is happy to translate the text as it stands (‘il faut nécessairement que le Temps existe par lui-même, pour qu'il soit mû’), and I am inclined to follow him in defending the manuscript reading. The formulation may be somewhat paradoxical, but the idea is clear enough: in order for (perceived) time to be mobile, Time should first of all exist in itself, i.e. as an immobile and transcendent monad.

If I understand his note 109 (p. 78) correctly, B. fundamentally agrees with this interpretation, but he thinks two textual changes are required to get the desired meaning: (1) instead of ἄλλο τι ὂν κινητόν he wants to read ἄλλο τι ἀκίνητόν, and (2) he conjectures another ἀκίνητον to fill the lacuna suspected by Diehl. Hence his translation:

I do not see how the text that B. wants to read at (1) could be translated the way he does. By contrast, the manuscript reading conveys the desired meaning, even if it is perhaps a little convoluted. It suffices to give a causal meaning to the participle ὄν (‘if everything mobile is mobile insofar as it is something else’, i.e. than that which moves it). B.'s second conjecture (2) would not change much to the sense of the phrase as I propose to read it, but it is really superfluous (the characterisation of time as καθ′ ἑαυτὸν suffices to single out static time), and it sets out from the – presumably wrong – assumption that there is a lacuna to be filled in the first place.

My aim in going through these small infelicities is not to detract from the great merits of this translation, which are undeniable. It is really the sense of perspective that B. himself manifests throughout this fine volume which invites the reader to continue the interpretative discussion with him. There should be no doubt that B.'s few unfortunate solutions are marginalised by a plethora of most satisfactory renderings, but a review would be all too fair and dull if it were to focus on the many successes rather than on the few shortcomings of the reviewed work. There can be little doubt, however, that scholars and students of later ancient philosophy owe B. a great deal for making this fascinating but difficult text more accessible than ever.