Atkinson — On a South-Coptic Text of M. Bouriant. 247 



apodosis becomes intelligible, " if God loves us (wasn), He will take 

 us into it". Apart from the mistake in reference to was, what 

 analysis did he imagine was possible for 



nfnajitn? 



The LXX has et aipert^et t^/aS? KvptO'S, elcrdieL 7][xa.<i ets rrjv yrjv, 

 Num. xiv. 8. 



53. Surely the meaning of a.(f>opixrj is not so recondite a mystery, 

 as to justify the following [161, 13] : leur pere ne serait pas mort le 



jour meme de leur trepas, which is supposed to be the equivalent of the 

 words, nte peukeeiot mw mpeihow Hwot nteuaphorme ! 

 * so that their father also died that very day on account of them, 

 through them.'' 



54. What makes the matter more noticeable is, that in the very 

 next sentence, this word occurs and is equally misunderstood along 

 with another grievous blunder in grammar : auo nte pkelaos cotp 

 nteuaphorme hiS ppolymos, " so that the people also were 

 by cause of them defeated in the battle." The writer was speaking of 

 the evil conduct of Eli's sons, but M. Bouriant has actually rendered 

 this clause as follows : et le peuple lui-meme n'aurait pas cause leur 

 mort dans le combat [ ! ] It is plain that he thinks acjiopfx-^ means 

 ' death' ! And he also thinks se ntba [161, 8] means 60,000 ! 



55. The Biblical knowledge seems sadly wanting in even the 

 most familiar incidents, so that the grammatical deficiencies have no 

 chance of being supplied from that quarter. Here is a curiosity : 

 Si les Ninivites avaient ecoute les proclamations de Jonas et quHls se 



fussent repentis, Dieu ne les aurait pas detruits. 



But, the JSTinevites did repent, and they were not destroyed ! And 

 the Coptic text says so [162, i] : 



ene mpe nronie SIT. if the men of N. had not 



sotm Ssa pkerig^ma listened to the Ki}pvjjxa 



HI. nsemetanoi of Jonas, so as to repent, 



nere pJ. naku nau ebol au pe. God ivould not have pardoned them. 



For the word 1c6 ebol means "to pardon," and most assuredly not 

 "to destroy." 



56. He perseveres, of course, in his misconception of the phrase 

 referred to above, by his version of [162, 3], pour te montrer que I'obeis- 

 sance est chose precieuse ; where the words are : eitamommok epsotm 

 etsotp, "[I] pointing out to thee the good [kind of] obedience [as 

 opposed to the bad]." 



