Atkinson — On Prof. Rossih South-Coptic Texts. 33 



us he has given it, unless he read nsau, "useful"! Then he 

 thought wntk, " thou hast," would stand well for the fx^'^' ignoring 

 entirely the fact that the irap ijxov is really the predication. 



The word Icrxvpa.'s gives the solution, for "firm, strong", is tek, 

 so that it is a matter of absolute certainty that the Copt meant to 

 set forth Trap' ifxov Lo-xypa-s by using [ai]tk "I have strengthened, 

 confirmed," &c., tk being the proclitic form, used immediately before 

 the object hennoc nsaje, " many sayings." 



And that is Ciasca's text, aitek, &c., of course. 



22. Before treating of this passage, I may quote a few lines from 

 his Preface, in which he speaks of " the absence in [Peyron's] lexicon 

 of certain roots that do occur in these texts, as for example that of 

 tsiow with the signification of congregare^ which is quoted with this 

 meaning in Parthey's vocabulary." Now, Parthey certainly has this 

 item, as Prof. Eossi says, but all the same the whole statement is a 

 nullity, for there is no such verb as tsiow, '■'' congregare,''^ in these 

 texts ! Let us examine the passage, xxviii. 8 : 



netna' nnheke le adimerd per quelli 



netnatsiow minow che hanno misericordia dei poveri. 



The reader will note that he has le adunerd as the translation of the 

 pretended root tsiow, "to gather", but it is all wrong : it is the 

 root tsio, "to satiate", to which reference has been made above, 

 Avith suffix pronoun, tsio-w, and the translation is, " they who have 

 mercy on the poor are they shall satiate themselves with them''\ [with 

 riches, plural, or reading mmos, if it be singular]. 



There is not the shadow of a foundation for this assumed root 

 tsiow, " congregare", in this verse, save the very poor argument that 

 the LXX has o-Dj/ayet avrov, which the Coptic version paraphrases. 



23. The misgovernment of verbs is again illustrated in his con- 

 jecture, xxviii. 25 : 



petko nhtef mpjoeis chx pone il cuor suo nel Signore. 



for ko nhtef is invariably followed by the directive e ; cf. Jobvi.20 ; 

 xxi, 24; Prov. iii. 18 ; Ezek, xxix. 7, 12. 



24. JS'or has he any clearer insight into the mysteries of Coptic 

 nominal structure, for he has made the following conjecture, xxix. 5 : 



efnasorf ebol ene[frat mmin] mmof. 



This ludicrous reading is intended as Coptic for LXX TrepiftdWet 

 avTo Tots iavTov TrocrtV. To dream of editing enefrat ! Why, we 



R.I. A. PKOC, SEE. III., VOL. HI. I) 



