Atkinson — On a South-Coptic Text of M. Bouriant. 255 



Venvoyer en Egypte pour que sa gloire s'y repandlt, et que Victor y 

 adordt les idoles. 



Such a version is a complete perversion of the original : Diocletian, 

 recalling to mind the solicitude w^ith vs^hich God had watched over 

 him, proposes to send Yictor to Egypt &c. [!] [178, z] : — 



mallon de tepronea mpnwte or rather, the providence of God 



tentashareli erof -was what preserved him (Victor), 



santwjitf elii'ai elteme till he was taken down to Egypt 



nte pef sniw sope hS keine and his fame grew in Egypt. 



It was not 'DioolQtiQ.n^ ?> recollection of this circumstance ! iN'or can the 

 two final clauses be brought into co-ordination : Victor was allowed 

 by God to be taken to Egypt, to get glory, but certainly not to adore 

 idols ! The phrase is ungrammatical, anyhow, for the text has : 

 auo nfsmse eidolon ethm pma etmmau, and eidolon et-hm 

 pma is an impossibility, for eidolon i^ indefinite. It is evident that 

 some words are omitted. The logic demands rather : " that his glory 

 should grow in Egypt, and [that he should overcome] the idol- 

 worshippers who are in that place," nrefsmse-eidolon. 



78. And his translation becomes positively ludicrous, through the 

 want of all feeling for the language : it is a herbarium shuffling-about 

 of the dried plants of a dictionary, not the living knowledge of a 

 language recreated in his mind by a long and minute study of the 

 organisms to be seen at work in the extant literature. 



Cf. the following sentence [180, 9] : — 



neitontn mmo an je ne te rapporterai pas 



tout ee a quoi 

 enentaudsk Us se sont attardes 



hn neuhow ethow dans leur malice perverse. 



What did M. Bouriant mean precisely by that rendering ? The 

 young martyr Victor is urging his mother to listen to his words and 

 become a Christian : "Do not, he says, reject my counsel on the 

 ground of my youth, but remember how Daniel in spite of his youth 

 was enabled to deliver a woman from death." And then he adds the 

 words just quoted : " I am not comparing thee to those who have groivn old 

 in their evil days, but I am teaching thee ... how thou mayst he to 

 me a mother in the kingdom of my Lord Jesus Christ &c." And now, 

 let the version of M. Bouriant be read : je ne te rapporterai pas tout ce 

 a quoi ils se sont attardes dans leur malice perverse [!]. Even the next 

 clause is wrong, for he has : que ma mere soit avec moi, which most 

 assuredly is not a proper translation of ere sope nai mmaau . 



