Atkinson — On a South-Coptic Text of M. Bounant. 249" 



Fancy a preacher exhorting his auditor ' to be sure and not rise on 

 the judgment-day' ! 



It is nonsense, of course ; nor has M. Bouriant perceived that it is 

 just an adaptation of Ps. i. 5 : "so that thou (like the ungodly) do not 

 rise in the judgment; (or) even f/thou do rise, thou rise to a resur- 

 rection of judgment, and God say to thee &c." The TV^ords are plain 

 [164, 7], ngtmtown; kan eksantown on, ngtown euanastasis 

 ngrisis, auo nte pjoeis joos nak. 



62. It will be readily understood that errors of this kind must 

 involve hundreds of small errors of relatively little consequence 

 which must be passed over in print, but which go ' to make up the 

 main account '. 



Thus, when he says, je fai gagne a la parole du Seignetir, he is 

 ignoring that the words involve a reference to Matth. xviii. 15, seqq., 

 and that the Coptic says kata psaje [164, z], the meaning being, 

 "I have gained thee [my brother], according to the word of 

 Christ". 



And when he renders [165, 2], en quoi la voie du pecheur est-elle 

 droite ? Tous ceux qui ont fait ceuvre de perdition ont prospers, he 

 assuredly does not express the mind of the speaker, nor the logic of 

 the accusation ! It was a double question, used by Jeremiah xii. 1, tl 

 OTL 680s d(je/3aji/ evoSovTaL ; cvBiijvria-av TravTe? ol d^eTOVvres S.OsTtjfJiaTa ; 



So it is incorrect to say, qu^on fasse disparaifre Vimpie, car il ne 

 voit pas la gloire de Dieii ; for the Coptic says [165,4] j^ nnefnau 

 epeow, "that he may not look upon the glory ". 



JS'or does the translation, que leur route tenelreuse s^effondre sous 

 leur pas, express the meaning of the words iis-slaate nau, ' so that 

 it be slippery to them', Ps. xxxiv. 6, But, in fact, his text does not 

 mean anything, for he has given [165, 8] 



mare teuhie nkake hsslaate nau, 



which is not Coptic; for where is the root to which mare refers? 

 He evidently took nkake to be an adjective, ' leur route tenehreuse '; 

 but then, how did he explain mare .... iis-slaate? It should 

 be fkake, or he must insert sope before nkake. 



63. Of course, it is obvious that the exigencies of the French 

 language give an unsound translator many opportunities for turning 

 the point of a difficulty ; but then the Prench language is so trans- 

 cendently lucid that it leaves no doubt as to what the translator 

 means to convey as his meaning. And then this inexorable logic 



