Atkinson — On Prof. RossVs South- Coptic Texts. 51 



I make thee altogether stranger to the movement of the Christians here 

 and hereafter". But mterf does not mean affatto, " entirely ", nor 

 anything else: affatto would he epterf, and even so, it would 

 be out of place. And the word rendered movimento has no right of 

 existence here either, for it is not toh, but tohm; what the text 

 said was ptohm terf, " the whole convocation of Christians" ! 



Shortly after he omits from his version half a column of con- 

 siderable interest. He translates [19^ 4]: "no woman dared to 

 present herself to him for matrimony, who had ornaments of gold". 



Why a woman should be hindered from adorning herself with her 

 finery when she was going to he married does not appear. Had the 

 good bishop no disturbances in his diocese that he should promulgate 

 such an edict ? And besides, what says the Scripture ? Cf . Jerem. 

 ii. 32, me wn wseleet naf pobs iSpekosmos etaaf eros. 



The word used is ji, "to take ", and does not refer to marriage, 

 but to taking the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, as in 

 line 15 ; and the edict prescribed that the deacons should not allow 

 [yS 29] the women in to the sacrament unless they were modestly 

 attired, " viz. covering their face and hands, their garments not to be 

 of purple of the wool-dyer, or their XP^I^^ resplendent, and themselves 

 XafiTrpov ", all of which Prof. Eossi has left out, though he is careful 

 to blame M. Eevillout for reading XafX7rpo<s instead of Xafxirpov ! 



64. In the second Text we come upon the following : The King 

 Diocletian said to him, Brother Constantine, king of justice, pardon 

 me, for thou hast spoken with me many times in secret, saying 

 [23721]: 



sahdk ebol nneidulon guardati dagli idoli 



mmon pnwte e non dal Bio 



nDekhristianos dei Cristiani 



[na]anekhe mmok an 



nteihe sabol 



Of what service could it have been to say : ' ' keep thyself from idols, 

 and not from ^e God of the Christians"? And what has become of 

 all the rest of the clause ? He has utterly emptied the passage of all 

 meaning; immon does not mean, '■^ and noV^ ; it means, "«/not", 

 ci 8e jxrj ; and the passage should have stood thus : 



" keep thyself from idols ; if not, the God of the Christians 

 will not tolerate thee in this way for ever". 



E 2 



