Atkinson — On Prof. Bossfs Sonth-Coptic Texts. 91 



And now I take np the Second Fasciculus of vol. ii. (1889), after 

 the text of the Proverbs, already criticised. The remaining portions 

 are "fragments" of versions of three Homilies by St. John 

 Chrysostom, extant and published in Greek, so that here also the 

 editor had every possible advantage for his text that could be derived 

 from a knowledge of what the Coptic translator must have intended 

 to say. What Prof. Rossi, however, represents him as having said 

 is often a very different thing. Thus there are in the first page of 

 his text half a dozen errors, from which the Greek original ought to 

 have preserved him. 



177. What was the use of printing etfhob in the first line 

 with a note, saying: "literally, working ''\ when the original made 

 it plain that the word was etfhot " sailing" ? 



178. Why render sibt, by "valley", when the original had 

 /3ovv6s, which is regularly so rendered? Of. Ps. Ixiv. 13, Ixxvii. 58 ; 

 Prov. viii. 25 ; Isai. x. 32 ; xl. 4. 



179. At [20 /3 14] he renders : " for God knows that the nature 

 of men who love good is to aspire to the chosen things of all times", 

 which is not what the Greek means : tyiv cf>v(rLv twv avdpwTroiv 

 (jiiXoKaXov KOL . . . icf)L€ixevr]v. But in order to get his version, he 

 had to emend his text, which now stands thus : 



efsown ga.r iici pnwte [Htephysis] iinrdine [et]inai 

 petnanw[f. etjepithymei en[ets6]fp iiwoeis niin. 

 [etbe pai] afkd ehrai a[iien]eiote nueg^raphe 

 [nthe iijlieiikosmion &c. 



Here his translation degli uomini amanti il bene makes of [et] 

 maipetnanwf an adjective agreeing with nrome, "the men"; 

 but that is impossible in Coptic : the adj. is attached by the con- 

 nexive n (nrome mmaip. &c.) ; and if et- were to be employed 

 as the def. ptcple., then the verb in its proclitic form mere would 

 have been indispensable before petnanwf, so that the conjecture of 

 et- is utterly wrong, as it is also in the next word. 



180. Nor is his version of the remainder correct: "he placed as 

 an ornament in the Scriptures the struggles of our fathers &c." ; for 

 this would absolutely make the only representative of the struggles to 

 be the Coptic adverb ehrai ! His version is made from the Greek 

 Tous Tw Traripuiv a.6Xov<;. The Coptic says quite differently: "he 

 hath deposited with our fathers the Scriptures as Kocr/xia " ; it was 

 the Scriptures that were the Kocr/x.ta, not the contests of our fathers, 

 if his Coptic text is rightly transcribed. 



