Source of VS13 (PD27) in Vat.gr.1950 manuscript

Okay, so it looks like VS13 does NOT have a red capital letter starting it and comes right after VS12 in the manuscript. In fact the 2nd half of VS13 DOES have a red capital starting it!

VS13 = PD27 and PD27 typically runs:

ὧν ἡ σοφία παρασκευάζεται εἰς τὴν τοῦ ὅλου βίου μακαριότητα πολὺ μέγιστόν ἐστιν ἡ τῆς φιλίας κτῆσις.

VS13 in the Vatican manuscript reads:

https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1950.pt.2/0255

So, the text in the manuscript reads:

ὧν ἡ σοφία παρασκευάζεται εἰς τὴν τοῦ ὅλου βίου μακαριότητα

Πολὺ μέγιστόν ἐστιν ἡ τῆς ?????? κτῆσις.

which means it breaks the sense of the saying as:

Of all the things that wisdom provides for the complete happiness of one's entire life

By far the greatest is the possession of ????... It looks like σοφιδο (or some version of σοφια????).

Are we to see these as two different sayings?? Something like:

Of all things, wisdom (sophia) provides for the complete happiness of one's entire life.

By far the greatest (thing) is the possession of wisdom.

This is curious and deserves some digging into.

And THIS is why I'm doing these one by one

Quote from Cassius

So do you have any theory at all as to the use of the red?

Typically, it's simply the first word of each "saying," marking the beginning of each quote.

However, as I've noted on several just so far, sometimes the beginning of what we would see as a beginning does not have a red letter, and a couple so far have a red letter in the "middle" of a saying. I initially just took the "Oh, they mark the start of each saying" route. Now, I'm not sure whether we should invest them with any additional significance or not. This has become an eye opening exercise!

This exercise also brings to light a problem with just accepting "Oh, Vatican Saying X is just identical to Principal Doctrine Y. Nothing to see here." Yes, they may be *almost* identical, but if they're not entirely, how does that affect our reading of each? Vat.gr.1950 is dated to 1300-1350 CE, so not as early as some of the earliest manuscripts for Diogenes Laertius which go back to the 12th c, I believe. How do the VS/PD correlations look in reference to the earliest Laertius manuscripts? Vat.gr.1950 is getting its versions from somewhere! This is where the fun begins!

Quote from Cassius

Any possibility they trying to save space on the paper as much as possible so writing in continuous lines, but somehow marking where lines started on the manuscript from which they were copying?

(I also added a postscript to that last post of I was editing while you were replying.)

The scribe here in Vat.gr.1950 doesn't seem as concerned with maximizing his writing surface. Back in the day, Philodemus's texts would run everything all together. This 14th c manuscript with the Sayings actually has word breaks and will start a new line when the previous saying is done. One component is definitely the start of a new quote, but not consistently... At least from our perspective on what we would expect to be a new quote.