Atkinson — On Prof. Bossi's South-Coptic Texts. 77 



Here the sequence of the tenses is quite ignored, so that no real notion 

 is given of the march of the Coptic phrase. But the passage is further 

 curiously misrendered, for the word he has taken to be Ovpuiv^ was of 

 course 6vpe6v, " shield", the scutum Jidei of Ephes. vi. 15. It will be 

 seen, too, that he has rendered 6th wrongly by "unite", whereas it 

 is simply the Coptic for the vTroSTjo-a/xcvot of the original. Then he 

 would have seen that his text in the beginning of this fragment was not 

 ho plia .... pnwte, but the rrjv 7rai'07rA.6'aj/ tov deov of verse 13. 



134. Just as little did he perceive that in the next column 

 [41 y 2] we have another quotation, for in rendering the words of 

 his text: ensbtot eji mpekba mmntatsotm nim by siamo 

 pronti a riparare ogni disuhhidienza, he evidently had not before him 

 the original, 2 Cor. x. 6 ev Itol/xw £)(^ovt€S iKBiKyjcraL Tracrav irapaKoiqv, 

 where eKSi/c-ijcrat is exactly the Coptic jikba, "to take vengeance". 



135. Nay, even when he has found out the quotation, he cannot 

 always use it, and goes wrong in spite of it ! Compare his treatment 

 of the following [42 a 22] : 



" Paul crieth out in every place and at all times", 



marntaho eratw leviamo 



nncij etbel ebol le mani libere 



mn mpat ethe ed i piedi . . . 



Stetntamie henbiowe fate strade 



euswtun diritte 



nnetnwerete coi vostri piedi. 



Here he gives in a note the place whence this is taken, viz. St. Paul 

 to the Hebrews, xii. 13; and yet what has he done with the know- 

 ledge? He has rendered etbel ebol by "free hands", for the 

 Greek Trapec/^eWs; he has wholly omitted etke, "enfeebled"; 

 and he talks of "making roads straight with your feet" (!) There 

 could be no meaning in "free hands", one would have thought, but 

 perhaps the original was after all instructive ; cf. his text and ren- 

 dering of another passage shortly after [47 y 5] : 



ere nefpat bel ebol i suoi piedi sono molli, 



ere ncfcij Ite le sue mani sono languide. 



where the identical words occur, and are rendered by him molli and 

 languide respectively ; yet here, where he had the Greek to guide 

 him, he has gone astray. 



1 So it is often found written ; cf. 2 Eeg. i. 21 ; Cant. iii. 4 ; Isai. xxi. 5, of 

 Maspero's text in Miss. Arch. Fr., vol. vi. 



